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XIA YU YAO (夏語遙, Xià Yǔ Yáo) is a Taiwanese UTAU created by the team VOICEMITH from the company E-CAPSULE Co. Ltd..

Concept[]

According to her character page, XIA YU YAO is a gentle, caring, and empathetic person who has confidence in her own voice. She enjoys taking care of others and making them feel warm. She was noted to have a "WIND" attribute, meaning that once magic is integrated into her voice, it would cleanse people's hearts and make bad emotions drift away into the wind, comforting sad people and bringing them hope.[1]

Etymology[]

Her surname, Xia (; Xià), means "summer". Her given name is formed by two characters: Yu (; ), which means "to speak", "words", or "language", and Yao (; Yáo), which means "distant" and "far away". Combined, it refers to her carrying her voice from a very far distance closer to people's ears.

According to an article written on November 8, 2014, XIA YU YAO's name was specially chosen so that it could be written the same for Chinese and Japanese. "Xia" was chosen with hopes that the sound can be as energetic as summer while "Yu Yao" was chosen with hopes that the sound would be widespread. Thus, her name could be read as "to spread the passionate, summer-like voice further".[2]

Appearance[]

XIA YU YAO has dark brown and messy hair tied into two low pigtails that go over her body. She wears a white and grey coat over a light white dress with grey tights. She wears sea-green and white headphones around her neck and white shoes with green laces. The inside of her coat is also green. izumi influenced her design from Mi Yang's songs.[3]

Personality[]

XIA YU YAO is very gentile, caring, and considerate. She is very confident in her singing. She likes to take care of others and make others feel warm.[1]

Likes[]

  • Taking care of others

History[]

E-CAPSULE had initially approached YAMAHA Corporation with the intent of producing XIA YU YAO for the VOCALOID3 engine, however, the two corporations had differing opinions regarding the sales of the potential voicebank, which led to her production of as an UTAU instead.[4] In 2013 E-CAPSULE launched the "VOICEMITH" project. They went to the Taipei City Dubbing Association to recruit a voice provider. They eventually selected Mi Yang. Her Japanese voicebank took 14 hours to record and her Mandarin Chinese voicebank too 110 hours.[5] This information was not made known until January 17, 2015, when comments posted to VOCALOID3 Xin Hua's Facebook group revealed YU YAO's relation to the VOCALOID franchise. A tuner for Xin Hua's demo songs further clarified the claim.[6][7] YU YAO released with a CV-VC Japanese voicebank and a CV-VC Mandarin Chinese voicebank on November 10, 2014, later receiving additional Chinese voicebanks (OUTSIDE and INSIDE) a year later for her first anniversary.

2022[]

On May 27, 2022, VOICEMITH posted an announcement written in binary code that translated to "YU YAO AI sound library crowdfund preparation". The image accompanied with the post featured a logo of the third character of her name (YAO) next to a standing microphone.[8][9] On May 28, another announcement was posted with an image featuring the number 8 and five colored blocks. This time, the text needed to be decoded with Caesar Cipher, translating to "YAO Synthesizer V AI".[10][11]

Marketing[]

As an UTAU character, XIA YU YAO was featured in numerous official merchandise, including but not limited to albums, cardholders, apparel, prints, banners, clocks, and more. She had LINE stickers made for her and she made an appearance in the mobile game My Princess Is the Most Adorable ("我家公主最可愛") where Mi Yang, her voice provider, reprised the role.[12] She also made an appearance in the Chinese version of the RPG Age of Ishtaria as a daily login promotional event, a ★7 witch-themed card, and as the vocalist for the theme song Ishtar ("伊絲塔"). In 2018 she appeared on her first album titled "XIA YU YAO" after her. She was going to have a figure at one point by the company Tukuri, but is assumed cancelled.[13]

Voicebanks[]

  • XIA YU YAO CV-VC Japanese (UTAU), November 10, 2014
  • XIA YU YAO CV-VC Mandarin Chinese (UTAU), November 10, 2014
    • OUTSIDE and INSIDE (UTAU), November 10, 2015
  • YAO AI (Synthesizer V Studio), January 30, 2023

Reputation[]

XIA YU YAO became a hit immediately after her release with her first promotional PV reaching 100,000 views within 20 days and dominating the bilibili UTAU charts in November 2014. She is known as the most famous virtual singer in Taiwan, and is in direct competition with the VOCALOID Xin Hua.

References[]

External links[]

Official[]

Articles[]

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