Shion Kaito

Gender: ♂
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Company: Crypton Future Media
Distributor: Crypton Future Media
Voice provider: Naoto Fuga
Illustartor: Takashi Kawasaki (Original/2006), iXima (V3 Upgrade and Append Design/2013)
Reduced no.: CRV2
Affilation: YAMAHA

KAITO is a Japanese male Vocaloid created by Crypton Future Media. He utilizes the older Vocaloid engine developed by YAMAHA. He claims the spot of the last vocal to be released for the Vocaloid engine and is the first Japanese male Vocaloid to have appeared from Crypton Future Media. The voice was supplied by a Japanese male singer Fūga Naoto (風雅 なおと). The illustration was done by Takashi Kawasaki.

KAITO was created as a counterpart of MEIKO and developed together.

Crypton did not set his character and profile except his package design, as well as MEIKO, for not having a concept of giving a certain character to a synthesizer application software. [1][2] This was empathized during the development also of the V3 vocal banks, with Wat stating how different the intention of the CV series and KAITO/MEIKO were. This even led to the direction of the updates leading a totally different course of development compared to the Appends of Miku, Len, Rin and Luka.

His age was never given officially. In Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix he is usually portrayed as a middle aged man by KEI, however, what he depicts in the comic is not official settings as he mentioned in a magazine interview.[3]

Because of the story of his rediscovery in 2008, KAITO was often depicted with ice cream. This gave birth to the "Item War" Internet Meme tradition.

Kaito's muffler has become one of his more iconic items. In regards to his V3 update, after fan outcry at the idea of it being made transparent, Crypton noted that cloth can be made out of anything, including plastic and there was a lot more freedom then many realised with it.[4]

The act of putting a character on the boxart was carried over to the following vocaloids to encourage creative activities by free individuals and expanding the characters based on each user's individual needs. [8][9][10]

KAITO's V3 release repeats many aspects of what made the CV series popular and he is already due a series of "beginners guide" in magazines such as DTM magazine.

KAITO's rise to fame was only by circumstance, since KAITO was "a commercial failure" and few had any interest in him. KAITO is now amongst the most popular of the Vocaloids in both Japanese and Western fandoms. However, despite that fact he is very dated in terms of engine and newer, better Vocaloids have been released.

The story of the sudden change in opinion of him occurred on September 16th, 2007, when Tatsunami uploaded a parody of the song in Higurashi no naku koro ni, "A Request From Hatsune" onto NicoNicoDouga. During this time, Miku was extremely popular on NicoNicoDouga, yet almost nobody knew of Kaito let alone produced songs using him. The video begins with the words "please sometimes recall [KAITO]," as well as Miku saying "where are you and what are you doing now?" which is from the song Dear You. About four hours later, "An Answer To Hatsune Miku" was posted by Ice-P. In this video, KAITO responds with, "yes? I was eating an ice cream," and then proceeds to sing a cover of The Ice Cream Song (originally sung by Saeko Shuu in 1960). KAITO's last dialogue in this video is "Miku, let's eat it together next time." It just so happened that Ice-P was producing the cover when he saw the video Tatsunami uploaded. After the turn around in popularity, many producers began to revalue KAITO as a Vocaloid, which became much of the reason why KAITO stayed popular. His voice became acknowledged for its all-round usefulness and in turn for being highly compatible with the vocaloid engine to give flexibility in his performance. KAITO proved useful for variety of male roles that other Japanese male vocaloids often did not suit; even though he was the only Japanese male powered by Vocaloid and the engine was well known for being difficult to work with in comparison to Vocaloid2 and later. Even Wat himself reasoned much of his popularity was owed to the capabilities of his vocal. Wat even quoted one of his acquaintances upon their reaction to KAITO's voice, he stated they were shock at hearing a "beautiful male voice".[18]

At the height of his sale he was the only one of the two Vocaloid engine vocals to have a consistent ranking as one of the Crypton's Top Ten Products . 2010, Kaito was ranked as the 7th most popular Vocaloid product they sold.[19] In some instances after his rediscovery, Vocaloid KAITO was even more popular than the Vocaloid 2 engine Appends for Miku and the Kagamines. His design has also spawned many producer based derivatives.

A independent Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less than 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in between July 1 and December 15 2011. KAITO managed to make it into the top six of a few lists. KAITO was the 6th most popular Vocaloid in terms of uploads, recieving 1404 uploads. KAITO had the 6th highest number of views with 1561894 views and 118479 mylists. KAITO did not make the top 6 average list, however, he was the 3rd most popular Vocaloid based on the mean number of views, which is a more truer reflection of his popularity with 414 views and 19 mylists. [20]

Unlike KAITO, KAITO V3 was very well received. Crypton updated their music software sales page with those of the month of March 2013 in the following month and presenting data that showed KAITO V3 was an all-time topper in the sales. The fact the software's English capability had an impact as more Western producers started joining the community.