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Shirakami Kotarou ((しら)(かみ)()()(ろう)), also known as BYAKKO (ビャッコ), is a Japanese vocal synthesizer character created by VirVox Project. He is the second character from the VirVox Project series and was initially released as beta AI text-to-speech library for the text-to-speech synthesizer TALQu in October 2021, which is currently unavailable. He was released for the CoeFont CLOUD AI text-to-speech synthesizer platform the following year in January 2022 and also released as a text-to-speech library for VOICEVOX in February that same year. A singing voice database, also known as a "Maghnite", is currently in production for Maghni AI under the name Shirakami Kotarou - YOSHI (白上虎太郎 - 義).[1]

His voice is provided by the Japanese "boys' love" (BL) ASMR Virtual YouTuber, kawaios (可愛ユウ).

Concept[]

VirVox project's goal is to increase the variety and number of masculine vocals in vocal synths. Kotarou boasts a voice a teen would have before his voice dropped.

Etymology[]

His alias "ビャッコ (BYAKKO)" means "white tiger". 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 south as a direction, metal as the Chinese element and the autumn season.

While the kanji for "BYAKKO" is written as "白虎" in both Japanese and Chinese, the Chinese pronunciation is "Baihu" (Báihǔ).

His name is taken from the hanzi of Byakko (白虎), his last name takes the first hanzi () to make Shirakami (上) while his first name takes the second hanzi () to make Kotarou (太郎).

Appearance[]

Kotarou is a rather short young man. He is 18 but looks younger than he actually is.[2] He is associated with the colors white/grey[3] and yellow.[2] He's got short and somewhat spiky blonde hair and has brown, almost amber eyes. He also has short but thick black eyebrows.

He wears a long white t-shirt that is tied into a side knot at the bottom. His sleeves and collar have a black trim. On top he wears a cropped light green vest with two buttons affixed on the left breast, one white and one yellow. He wears tan shorts with a long yellow belt that dangles off the side of his hip. Underneath are black ripped leggings and black shoes with green accents. He also wears white fingerless gloves with black cuffs and a white newsboy cap with a black brim, yellow lining and two black and yellow domes on either side, resembling cat ears.

Personality[]

He is described as a straightforward and friendly young man. Charming, but a little stupid.[4]

Likes[]

  • Favorite Food: Rice Omelet, Cream Soda[4]
  • Vehicles
  • Games (of any variety)
  • Molding clay
  • Watching anime
  • Physical exercise

Dislikes[]

  • Studying
  • Horror movies
  • Eggplants

Relations[]

History[]

2021[]

Koutarou was revealed on Twitter with a short introduction on June 3, 2021.[2] On September 29, it was mentioned that TALQu voicebank was being created for him, however there was a issue of his voicebank being incompatible with the software's default vocoder.[5] On October 1, due to the voicebank not living up to expectations, but not wanting to scrap it, they thought about having the voicebank distributed as a bonus for something purchased on the VirVox BOOTH page, though at the time it was unknown what it would go with.[6] It was also suggested that he be used with TALQu PRO due to having a better vocoder compared with the free version.[7]

On October 3, his first exVOICE pack and standing picture materials was released. Along with it, the beta version of his TALQu voicebank was included as a limited release.[8][9]

2022[]

Koutarou's voice provider, kawaios, was not revealed until January 23, 2022.[10] On the same day his CoeFont CLOUD library was released, described as a high-end model with nine emotions, including a high-end normal voice.[11]

On January 28, Kotarou, alongside Ryusei, was announced to be joining Takehiro as upcoming vocals for VOICEVOX Generation 3. His database was described as the voice a teen would have before his voice dropped.[12] Beta versions of his VOICEVOX database were sent to previous purchasers of his exVOICE samples set.[13]

On February 20, Kotarou's beta TALQu model was taken off the BOOTH store and will no longer be distributed.[14]

Kotarou, alongside Takehiro, Ryusei and Meimei Himari, became part of VOICEVOX's initial generation 3 lineup, releasing on February 28.[15]

On March 21, VirVox announced that the groundwork for improving the quality of Kotarou's VOICEVOX has been completed.[16] On March 27 during the Talk Software Upload Festival, they announced that they'd be adding emotion styles for Kotarou's VOICEVOX.[17] On April 14, they revealed that they will soon start recording Kotarou's emotion styles, so far "Happy" has been confirmed.[18] On April 18, they finished recording Kotarou's emotion styles, 4 in total, however the implementation date is undecided.[19] On June 17, they revealed some more of his additional emotion styles, "Sad", "Angry" and an unrevealed experimental style.[20] They have also since began doing maintenance work on his emotion styles.[21]

On September 26, they revealed the names of Kotarou's new VOICEVOX emotions. [22] A total of four new emotions, "Wa~i", "Oko", "Bikubiku" serving as the previously mentioned "Happy", "Angry", and "Sad" emotions respectively, with the new experimental emotion revealed to be "Bien", a shaky wavering crying-like voice.[23] On September 30, as part of VOICEVOX's 0.13.2 update alongside the addition of VOICEVOX's generation 5 lineup, Kotarou's new emotions were added.[24]

2024[]

On September 30, 2024, VirVox Project announced a collaboration with Maghni AI to produce an A.I. singing voice database or Maghnite for Shirakami Kotarou.[25] VirVox Project noted that this was planned to originally have been a one-off project, however, it was decided to make it into a series using the VirVox Project characters. In line with this, and with an eye towards appealing to overseas users, VirVox Project announced that they would be working on a unified costume design with a "Japanese style concept" to strengthen the series' character as "the singing voice synthesis software released by Maghni AI." Kotarou was announced to included six voice colors, one of which is set as the default (Neutral).Hi overall concept was based on three voice colors: one that brings out his cuteness (Cute and Sweet), one that lets you see a different side of him (Rock and Dark), and one that is straightforward and can be used without any quirks (Neutral and Calm).[26]

On October 1, VirVox Project posted a press release announcement that all artwork, including those featuring Kotarou 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."[27] 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.[28] A full explanation of the situation was released on October 12.[29]

Marketing[]

Like the rest of the VirVox Project characters, Kotarou received an acrylic stand available on their BOOTH.[30]

On February 18, Kotarou's acrylic stand was corrected from using an older design.[31][32]

Voicebanks[]

Shirakami Kotarou
Talk voicebank for Shirakami Kotarou
  • Shirakami Kotarouβ (TALQu), October 3, 2021
  • Shirakami Kotarou (CoeFont CLOUD), January 23, 2022
    • Shirakami Kotarou (High End)
    • Shirakami Kotarou ・ Happy
    • Shirakami Kotarou ・ Happy (Energetic)
    • Shirakami Kotarou ・ Angry
    • Shirakami Kotarou ・ Angry (Moody)
    • Shirakami Kotarou ・ Angry (Sulking)
    • Shirakami Kotarou ・ Sad
    • Shirakami Kotarou ・ Fun
    • Shirakami Kotarou ・ Fun (Calm)
  • Shirakami Kotarou (VOICEVOX)
    • Shirakami Kotarou (Futsuu), February 28, 2022
    • Shirakami Kotarou (Wa~i), September 30, 2022
    • Shirakami Kotarou (Oko), September 30, 2022
    • Shirakami Kotarou (Bikubiku), September 30, 2022
    • Shirakami Kotarou (Bien), September 30, 2022

Trivia[]

  • Kotarou's initial acrylic stand gives us an insight to a previous palette used for his design. He was wearing a black cropped vest with green accents and an orange belt. The yellow accents on his hat were gray.
  • His birthday was initially listed as "Autumn". His birthday was updated to September 30 sometime around February-March 2023 with no announcement. It's likely his birthday is meant to reference the release of his additional styles update for VOICEVOX.

References[]

  1. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1840406471747789152
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1400391819733655552
  3. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1390200783082196992
  4. 4.0 4.1 VirVox site Profile
  5. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1443195727622987780
  6. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1443935480425304067
  7. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1443936095763267586
  8. exVOICE BOOTH page
  9. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1444498118758649858
  10. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1485228977304539138
  11. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1485227578298634241
  12. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1486987424496553987
  13. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1487771035101728768
  14. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1495355897211920384
  15. https://x.com/voicevox_pj/status/1498271104162738179
  16. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1505848479200931848
  17. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1508035899061579779
  18. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1514608787432173584
  19. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1516050364897783810
  20. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1537715188375244800
  21. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1537712706370670593
  22. https://x.com/voicevox_pj/status/1575787547040616448
  23. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1574348147198861313
  24. https://x.com/voicevox_pj/status/1575787547040616448
  25. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1840406471747789152
  26. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1840407175107342797
  27. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1841106133689516166
  28. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1842392553053892740
  29. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1845075749054849488
  30. acrylic stand BOOTH page
  31. https://x.com/VirVox_pjt/status/1429671848040538123
  32. previous acrylic stand BOOTH page

External links[]

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