Kurono Takehiro

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Kurono Takehiro
Character information
Gender	Male
Pronouns	He/Him
Age	Approximately 20
Height	177 cm
Weight	66 kg
Technical information
Type	Synthesizer V, Synthesizer V Studio, TALQu, CoeFont CLOUD, VOICEVOX
Language	Japanese
Voice Provider	Gallo
Illustrator	onidaruma
3D modeling	SIBAINU (Kurono Takehiro, Normal Clothes)
Release date	December 23, 2018
Group	VirVox Project
Company	VOLOR
Affiliation	Amanokei Animen Dreamtonics

GENBU (ゲンブ) is a vocal synth character owned by Volor/Animen. He is a Japanese vocal created for Synthesizer V. He was the first male vocal for the software and was released in December 2018. In July 2020, he received an update for Synthesizer V Studio.

Kurono Takehiro (玄(くろ)野(の)武(たけ)宏(ひろ)) is an official derivative of GENBU created by VirVox Project with permission from Volor/Animen. A lite and HQ TALQu AI text-to speech library was released for him on July 16, 2021 and August 23, 2021, respectively. A series of low-end speech libraries were also released for the CoeFont CLOUD AI text-to speech synthesizer on August 2, 2021. He was also released on VOICEVOX on February 28, 2022.

His voice is provided by Gallo, who also provided his voice to the UTAU GAO.

Concept

GENBU's voice is supposed to represent his personality: calm, soothing, and somewhat weak.

VirVox project's goal is to increase the variety and number of masculine vocals in vocal synths. Takehiro boasts a refreshing, natural sounding vocal.

Etymology

His name, "ゲンブ (GENBU)", means "black tortoise". In Japanese mythology, it is one of the four guardian spirits of Kyoto and one of the four symbols of the Chinese constellations (the "Azure Dragon", the "Vermilion Bird", the "White Tiger", and the "Black Tortoise"), which are said to be four mythological creatures appearing among the Chinese constellations along the ecliptic, and are viewed as the guardians of the four cardinal directions it also represents the north as a direction and the winter season. It sometimes called "the Black Warrior of the North" (北方玄武 Běi Fāng Xuán Wǔ).

While the kanji for "GENBU" is written as "玄武" in both Japanese and Chinese, the Chinese pronunciation is "Xuanwu" (Xuánwǔ).

His VirVox name is taken from the kanji of "Genbu" (玄武): his last name takes the first kanji (玄) to make "Kurono" (玄野) while his first name takes the second kanji (武) to make "Takehiro" (武宏).

Appearance

GENBU's attire is inspired by traditional Japanese clothes. The motives used for his design are pen nibs, a monotone-colour scheme, rope, and the "White Tiger of the West".

The rope around him is similar to a shimenawa, which are ropes found around Shinto shrines, sacred landmarks, and usually at ground-breaking ceremonies before the construction of a building begins. They can also be found on yorishiro, objects that are capable of attracting and housing kami spirits.

The "white tiger" most likely inspires his white kimono-like clothing. It is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations, it represents the west as a direction and the autumn season. It was most likely simply used as part of the monochrome-color scheme onidaruma wanted to convey while also being in theme with the four beings that appear amongst the Chinese constellations, as there don't seem to be any other design choices related to the "white tiger".

His black gloves have red visualizers on them. The visualizers cannot be viewed on GENBU's official art, as the side that has them is obscured. For some reason, they are missing from GENBU's 1st anniversary illustration, however it is unknown if that's due to a design change or an error.

The turtle shell pattern on his left shoulder could be a reference to his name.

Personality

GENBU may seem a bit straightforward to the point of being called rude, he cares about the people around him.

Likes

• Favorite food: White fish Sashimi (although he's not a picky eater)
• Singing
• Musical instruments
• Aquariums
• Singing with a musical instrument
• Water sports (such as surfing and etc.)

Dislikes

• High temperatures
• Hot foods or drinks (he has a "nekojita", a sensitive tongue)

Relations

• Shirakami Kotarou - fellow VirVox Project vocal.
• Aoyama Ryusei - fellow VirVox Project vocal.
• Wakamatsu Akashi - fellow VirVox Project vocal.
• Mizusawa Takuto - fellow VirVox Project vocal.
• Kigashima Sourin - fellow VirVox Project vocal.
• GAO - same voice provider.

History

2018

On December 23, GENBU's voice and design were revealed.

2019

On January 15, GENBU received an update to his vocal.

A cover was released on April 20, 2019 showcasing his new voicebank. Despite this cover not being official, it was done with permission.

2020

On June 26th, an update to Synthesizer V Studio for GENBU was announced on Dreamtonics livestream with a July release.

On July 15, GENBU's complete voicebank got upgraded to Synthesizer V Studio.

On July 30th, GENBU recieved a Lite version.

2021

On May 2021, GENBU was confirmed to be part of VirVox Project, a small doujin circle that focused on marketing him along with three other male characters at the time of introduction. They provided him with the name "Kurono Takehiro", and with VOLOR's permission, they planned on creating merchandise, 3D models, and physical copies of GENBU along with any potential voicebank that may release at a later time.

On June 27, VirVox Project announced a new AI text-to-speech synthesizer TALQu library for Kurono Takehiro. Plans to bundle and distribute voice and standing picture materials with different facial expressions for video production were also announced. Reading samples for the TALQu software were uploaded on June 30. On July 6, a demo was uploaded showing the library's speech capabilities, VirVox Project noted that the voice was generated by a conventional vocoder and a new vocoder. Kurono Takehiro's TALQu library's Terms of Use and the Voice Material Terms of Use were published on July 10. On July 16, VirVox Project released a "Lite" version of the TALQu library, which was free to download. At the same time, the official standing picture materials (PSD Tool compatible) and voice materials (50 types) were placed up for sale on the VirVox Project BOOTH. A high-quality version of the software was announced for a later date.

On July 19, VirVox Project announced an additional speech library for Kurono Takehiro for the CoeFont CLOUD AI text-to-speech synthesizer. A low-end model, released on August 2 with one expression noted as "Happy". Three more low-end models were released, "Angry" on August 3, "Bashful" on August 5, and "Sad" on August 6.

On August 23, Takehiro's TALQu HQ version was released.

On August 26, Takehiro's 3D model was confirmed to be in production. After searching for a modeler, SIBAINU was chosen to produce his model. On December 20, his MMD model was released on BOOTH.

On September 25, Virvox acquired the license to label Takehiro's voice material collection as "exVOICE".

On December 24, his birthday, he was announced to be joining VOICEVOX as their first male vocal.

2022

On January 11, those who purchased his TALQu HQ model were eligible to receive a beta version of his VOICEVOX model.

Takehiro, alongside Ryusei, Kotarou and Meimei Himari became part of VOICEVOX's initial generation 3 lineup, releasing on February 28.

On March 6 VirVox announced that they’d be improving the quality of Takehiro’s VOICEVOX as well as adding emotion styles: Happy, Sad and Angry. On March 27 during the Talk Software Upload Festival, they announced they already finished recording the emotions. On April 14, they revealed that since the emotion styles and improvement of quality are being worked on simultaneously, the update would take more time to be implemented. On June 17, maintenance work for the emotion styles have already been done for a while. On October 14, along with the announcement of Kigashima Sourin and Wakamatsu Akashi's VOICEVOX production, Takehiro's Happy, Sad, and Angry emotion styles were also expected to be added in 2023. Earlier than expected, his emotion styles were added on December 28, 2022, in VOICEVOX's 0.13.4 update, alongside Generation 6 of VOICEVOX.

2024

On October 1, VirVox Project posted a press release announcement that all artwork, including those featuring Takehiro and the other VirVox Project characters that have been illustrated by the former official illustrator, onidaruma, would be removed from the official website following a legal dispute and official separation between the artist and the project over the use of conceptual designs. VirVox Project noted that they plan to focus on designs with various concepts by a variety of illustrators hoped that fans would enjoy the new illustrations that would "bring a new world view to the series." It was stated that as the illustrations used for VOICEVOX and A.I.VOICE were commissioned pieces, VirVox Project noted that users could continue to use the released artwork as normal and would continue to be allowed for use in derivative works, such as creating videos using derivative character images or illustrations. A full explanation of the situation was released on October 12.

Marketing

Like the rest of the VirVox Project characters, Takehiro received a acrylic stand available on their BOOTH.

Voicebanks

GENBU

GENBU is a strong and deep masculine vocalist.

• GENBU (Synthesizer V), December 23, 2018
• GENBU (Synthesizer V Studio), July 15. 2020

GENBU Lite

The 'lite' version of GENBU's voicebank

• GENBU (Synthesizer V Studio), July 30, 2020

Talk

Speech libraries released for Kurono Takehiro (GENBU)

• Kurono Takehiro (TALQu)
  • Kurono Takehiro Lite , July 16, 2021
  • Kurono Takehiro HQ, August 23, 2021
• Kurono Takehiro (CoeFont CLOUD)
  • Kurono Takehiro Happy, August 2, 2021
  • Kurono Takehiro Angry, August 3, 2021
  • Kurono Takehiro Bashful, August 5, 2021
  • Kurono Takehiro Sad, August 6, 2021
• Kurono Takehiro (VOICEVOX), February 28, 2022
  • Kurono Takehiro Happy, December 28, 2022
  • Kurono Takehiro Sad, December 28, 2022
  • Kurono Takehiro Mad (Tsundere-like), December 28, 2022

Reputation

Achievements

• First male Synthesizer V voicebank to be released.
  • First 1st party Japanese voicebank to be released.
  • First male Japanese voicebank to be released.
• First male VOICEVOX voicebank to be released.

External links

Official

• Profile
• VOICEVOX profile

Articles

• Synthesizer V Wiki
• VocaDB (Synthesizer V)
• VocaDB (VOICEVOX)