Chapter Six

Vocaloids and Japanese Virtual Vocal Performance:

The Cultural Heritage and Technological Futures of Vocal Puppetry
Louise H. Jackson and Mike Dines

Overview

Notions of illusion are an inherent part of the traditional theatrical practice and

experience of Japan, and it is contended here that these notions of illusion normalize the

creation of synthetic, virtual performance avatars that front the sampled vocaloid software. In

contrast to the rather Western fixation on the authenticity of the human voice (whoever is

seen and heard to be singing should be the actual owner of the voice and physically

connected to it in some realm of reality) this chapter holds the idea to account by exploring

the world of the Japanese vocaloids in the context of Asian theatrical practices: specifically

examining the use and conceptualization of puppet theatre (Bunraku) to raise questions over

the cultural location of vocaloid software and the emergence of the “virtual” voice/artist.

Introduction

It would be easy to dismiss the vocaloids, a range of commercial vocal synthesizer

software developed by the Yamaha Corporation and Crypton Future Media (Kenmochi and

Ohshita 2007), as a symbol of the death of the artist, lacking in emotion and “authenticity.”

Yet one could argue that such inauthenticity is a peculiarly Western ideal, evidenced by

reactions to the dubbing of actors’ with “real” singers’ voices in many musical films

including My Fair Lady (1964), The King and I (1956) or High School Musical (2006).

Spring (2011) discusses notions of “the illusion that the body seen onscreen is the source of

the voice emanating from the soundtrack, and simultaneity, the illusion that the filming of the

image and the recording of the voice occurred concomitantly and in the same space.” (Spring

163
2011, 285) Although Spring is focused on tracing the relationship between the voice and

body on film, it bears a resemblance to our own investigation as we start to unpick the

intersectional between the recorded, the virtual and the authentic.

The vocaloid software itself began in March 2000, with Yamaha showcasing Leon

and Lola - the first vocaloid artistes - at the annual trade show of the National Association of

Music Merchants (NAMM) in January 2004. From 2004 to 2006, a number of software

updates were added to this initial model, until 2007, where Yamaha released Vocaloid 2. This

was again superseded by Vocaloid 3, which was launched in October 2011, accompanied by

a number of software plug-ins, including the VocaListener and Vocaloid-flex, additions that

widened the parameters of the Vocaloid 3. “Vocaloids and Japanese virtual vocal

performance” positions the vocaloid software and the creation of “artists” (or avatars) such as

Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin and Megurine Luka in a continuum of Japanese theatrical and

artistic legacy, highlighting important parallels with the Japanese theatrical practice of

Bunraku (puppet theatre) prevalent within the Japanese Imperial age. By perceiving the

vocaloid software as a creative process in itself and as a natural progression of this theatrical

tradition of illusion (rather than a rather ominous prediction of the future) we may see a

platform for expression rather than a threat to creative freedom.

<1>Bunraku and Vocaloids: Puppets and Relations of Illusion and Virtuality

As a theatrical practice, Bunraku is a sophisticated form of puppet theatre, whose

peculiarity lies in the visibility of the puppeteer alongside the puppets themselves. This

visibility is further compounded by each puppet having more than one controller, with the

main puppeteer moving eyelids, eyebrows, mouth and right arm, the first assistant operating

the left arm, and a second assistant the legs. These are accompanied by a chanter (tayu) who

is the voice of the puppets and a shamisen player, who provides music to the drama. Bunraku

164
saw the height of its popularity during the seventeenth-century and in particular the

collaboration between the playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) and chanter

Takemoto Gidayu I (1651-1714). However, with the growth of Western influence in Japan

during the Meiji Period (1868-1912) Bunraku saw a decline in popularity, and although the

art has had a number of revivals since, it has survived mainly due to government support and

sponsorship.

Although centuries old, one must not underestimate the cultural and aesthetic

importance that Bunraku has in unravelling the complexities and idiosyncrasies of modern-

day vocaloids. Indeed, what remains fundamental within this study is the placement of both

Bunraku and vocaloids as parallel art forms in problematizing human and, in the latter

technological, emotions and sentiment. As a Banruku play such as Chushingura: The

Treasury of Loyal Retainers (first performed 1748) mixes fact and fiction to create a

“fictional” of complex heroics and revenge, then vocaloids too, combine the real and illusory

to explore Japan’s increasing fascination with technology. In other words, as Bunraku

puppets explored the notion of self through the relationship between illusion, reality and

puppetry, vocaloids are exploring the enigma of technology within the modern; with both

incorporating the controllers as being real or recognized as part of the illusion on stage.

What lies in the importance of Bunraku, therefore, is the paradoxical positing of

“illusion” and “reality.” In his writing on Bunraku, Roland Barthes (1971, 76) noted that it

“uses three separate scripts and presents them simultaneously in three places in the spectacle:

the puppet, the manipulator, the vociferator; the effected gesture, the vocal gesture.” Here,

Barthes noted the complexity surrounding the notion of artifice and actuality. Notions of

illusion and the way in which a spectacle is presented to the audience within Bunraku,

therefore, is one that presents that spectacle as both illusory and real. “Traditional puppeteers

recognized long ago that the realm of illusion which they create,” write Inoura and Kawatake

165
(1981, 548). “The world within the frame, can exist only so long as it does not become too

real, only so long as it is perceived constantly in terms of other realities and other illusions.

Bunraku puppets of Japan provide the best example of this recognition” (152). It is,

moreover, a spectacle enhanced with the chief puppeteer having his emotionless face exposed

to the audience whilst the two other operators wear black hooded capes.

Consequently, one can contend that Bunraku fuses the illusory and the real, the

theatrical and the live, realizing both conditions simultaneously; a tradition continued through

the technological ingenuity of vocaloids. However, whereas Banruku’s significance within

Japanese culture may be realized in more simple terms, vocaloids provide a more complex set

of cultural mores and values to realize its import. In other words, although vocaloids may

indeed be seen within Japanese theatrical culture, the perception of this art form in reference

to other cultures—developing technological communities in the West, for example—may

find a more problematic point of cultural reference, including those of other “realities” and

other “illusions.” However, one could contend that vocaloids have a double significance. If

an understanding of vocaloids can be drawn from the cultural and aesthetic realm of the

Bunraku, then the vocaloid can also provide an aesthetic framework in which to unravel the

relationship between Japan in the present age, and its relationship with technology.

An attempt to locate a cultural heritage for relatively new phenomena is not an

unusual, nor is it a particularly new process. The need to have some form of legacy or

precursor to a new trend is said to provide stylistic authenticity and history. But for the

purpose of this chapter, the concern is to try and explore a creative practice that is culturally

located. An evolutionary process within an art form is generally perceived as acting from

within the art form itself, with influence from cultural and social factors exerting external

pressure on it. On the one hand Japan, as a nation and as a cultural location has a long, rich

and varied history of artistic practices; yet, on the other is often assumed to be the epitome of

166
the twenty-first-century nation, embracing technological advances and development. Yet,

what is interesting in this apparent technology-driven locale is the repositioning of traditional

artistic practices. Yet whilst emphasis is placed on the “new,” theatrical and artistic practices

such as Bunraku are protected artefacts of a bygone Imperial age, becoming museum pieces

or tourist attractions and having less connection with the people of the nation.

Whilst the tradition of idiosyncratic puppetry may remain stylistically in the past, its

mobilization of the relationship between the puppeteer, the puppet and the viewer still holds

true today. Consequently, the theatre drew much attention from the West in academic

writings of the 1970s and 1980s, with Roland Barthes (1971) and Susan Sontag (1984) each

using Bunraku to explain some western notions in a form of Neo-orientalism which took hold

under the guise of postmodernism. Barthes in particular found within the relationship

between the three actors of puppet, musician and singer in Bunraku play the opposite of

Western theatre where its basis is found “not so much in the illusion of reality as the illusion

of totality.” Through this, in Western theatre, Barthes asserts the totality of the elements is the

foundation for illusion, that they are indivisible and perceived as such. Conversely, Bunraku

is distinct because of its divisible components. The visibility of the puppet manipulator on

stage and the acceptance of this as part of the spectacle brings "a piece of the body, a shred of

man, to life, all the while keeping for it its vocation as a “part”. It is not the simulation of the

body which Bunraku seeks, it is - if this can be said - the body's tangible abstraction” (1971,

78-79). This notion, we will see, plays out further in our other discussions below and is

something that holds as an evolutionary factor with the vocaloids. As Inoura and Kawatake

(1981, 146) note, “the history of Japanese puppetry is the history of the stripping away of

curtains that once hid the manipulators and the chanter narrator.”

167
 Furthermore, as Jenkins (1983, 415) suggests, “watching the puppet’s manipulators,

we acknowledge that the puppet is an illusion at the same time that we allow ourselves to be

deceived by the illusion.” He continues, “Bunraku dares us to disbelieve, but we refuse. We

continue to cling to the unreality, as if it were real, despite the blatant evidence to the

contrary. For a few timeless and irrational moments the Bunraku puppet connects us to our

naked hunger for illusion.” The links between Bunraku and vocaloid begin therefore with the

superficial: the construction of a puppet, something to be manipulated to tell a story by an

external force. However, as Barthes (1971, 78) describes, there is a difference to the

construction of Bunraku puppet from Western puppets. Whereas in Western puppetry the

puppet is “expected to offer the mirror of his contrary,” where the caricature of the puppet

affirms what Barthes calls “life’s moral limits” (author’s italics), within the puppetry of the

Bunraku the notion of illusion is accepted and utilized; and it is the shared notion of illusion

that culturally locates Bunraku puppets as a precursor to the vocaloid hologram Hatsune

Miku and others.

There is a notion that the relationship between Japan and its inhabitants’ embracing of

technology is mediated by its exploration of the future through the dramatic arts (Babcock

2004, 5-11). Cyborgs, Post-Atomic dystopias and fantasies constructed of technological

futures are well recognized imageries within Japan, and are accompanied by those that may

be more familiar to the West; from Anime such as Akira (1998) to Ghost in the Shell (1995)

or even Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) from the Western friendly Studio Ghibli. It may be

possible to suggest that the evolving virtual performance practices that utilise the vocaloid

software is following a similar cultural role by exploring the future through codes the culture

already controls. In particular, the commercially driven popular music scene, that has had

much debate over the impact of Western popular music and a true Japanese popular music as

evolved from its folk traditions. In particular, Jones (1981) began exploring the notion of

168
injecting new narratives into Bunraku to update it and make it more accessible to

contemporary audiences. This is not an unfamiliar tactic to preserve a practice that is rooted

in a different cultural and political era. Commercialism and Capitalism have affected

Japanese music and is explored more explicitly below but the impact on theatre in its

traditional form has been just as palpable.

<1> Vocaloids as Hybrid Art Forms: Popular Music, Anime and Technology.

While the previous section examined the cultural background of vocaloids, this

section attempts to disentangle the cultural and aesthetic complexities surrounding this

phenomenon. In particular it will look at the concept of the vocaloid to raise questions over

the cultural positioning of theatre and technology, exploring the numerous ways that

technology has superseded the creation of the puppet in Japanese theatre. As Jon

Frederickson notes (1989, 195), “social technology prepared the way and was the stimulus

for machine technology in musical art worlds. When social technology moved the orchestra

to the pit, it would be only a matter of time before the orchestra could be moved to the sound

studio for musical shows.” He concludes, “if the social technology established that the

orchestra need not be visible, it was only a matter of time before machine technology would

replace the orchestra. If the audience can't see the orchestra, its live presence is not necessary

since it has become merely a sound source to be submitted to rational principles of

organization.”

Studies investigating Japanese popular music are divided into ways of viewing the

musical developments through a variety of methodologies and many are differentiated by the

use of the voice and style of singing. Often abbreviated to J-Pop, Japanese pop is a popular

music genre that superseded Kayōkyoku, or “Lyric Singing Music,” in Japan during the

1980s. With its roots in the Western popular music of the 1960s (The Beatles, Beach Boys,

169
etc.) J-Pop fused Japanese musical stylistics with its Western counterparts incorporating rock,

synth-pop and other styles and thus creating the stylistic idiosyncrasies of Japanese pop.

Whilst most of the discourse around this area has focused on the impact that imported

Western culture and music has had on the development of Japan’s pop music—or indeed the

numerous issues surrounding the West’s deciphering of this fascinating musical dialect—less

explored are the internal factors that have enabled a fertilisation of the aesthetic that does not

recognize the “cultural factors that give Japanese popular music distinctive characteristics

which are highly valued in Japan” (Heard 1984, 75). Indeed, exploring Raymond Williams'

ideas that allow for an exploration of dominant, residual and emergent cultural elements that

are inseparable from each other, one can argue,

“that no single element - not even dominant ones - can be reified as static and thereby

outside that process... Clearly, the relation between traits of historical and more recent

musical practice is one of residual to dominant elements, as 'dominant' in this context

refers to the hegemony of Euro-American popular music styles as a referential frame

for Japanese music since the mid-twentieth century” (De Ferranti 2002, 196).

Stevens (2008) describes the evolution of popular music in Japan through a lens of

power positionality, shifting from a post war conquered nation to that of consumer in a global

market (38). This chapter, therefore, recognizes those internal factors that influenced the

popular music of Japan from within country itself, raising questions of cultural locale and the

unravelling of the aesthetic within the vocaloid; contending that evolutionary cultural

practices are as influenced by internal historical processes as external forces.

It is important, therefore, that those preconceived Western ideas and the notion of the

simulacra in Japanese popular music are handled with care. It is not to say that the West

cannot decipher the vocaloid (we do not wish to be defeatist) but merely highlights the

170
potential for error and misreading. A good example of this misinterpretation, for instance,

may be seen in the discussion of cynicism when discussing the increasing suspicion of the

image of the real replacing the real. What do we find then, when we explore the vocal

synthesizer technology of Vocaloid2 alongside the accompanying avatars such as Hatsune

Miku and others? Certainly within the Western media the incredulity that an audience would

want to pay to see a hologramatic projection of a cartoon front for a synthesized vocal

programme is palpable. However, we wish to explore the complexities of vocaloid culture

within the context of the traditional puppet theatre of Japan, and thus enabling an

understanding of a cultural heritage manifesting itself within contemporary technology; for

this, we would argue, is key to a more authentic reading. It is argued here that by

understanding the cultural placement and generation of illusion—a traditional theatrical

device, and one that is discussed above—is paramount in the generated technological and

conceptual understanding of the “virtual pop star.”

Although there are a variety of vocal software platforms, the focus of this discussion

will be on characters (such as Hatsune Miku) related to Vocaloid2 software released by

Crypton Future Media. There are also other developments in the relationship between

Japanese popular music and virtuality (in particular activities like the creation of Eguchi

Aimi—a virtual member of super group AKB48 constructed from blending facial features of

members of the 61 strong group who is voiced and moved via vocal samples and motion

capture data), and it is further possible to argue that this type of development is rooted in the

theatrical traditions discussed previously. The general reporting, however, tends to focus on

the threat this development poses to popular music as we know it (although the irony of

discussing “manufactured pop” as a closely linked proxy to virtual pop stars is not lost on

Western commentators). However, the incredulity that is thinly veiled in much of the online

commentary seems to be leaning towards an implication that the vocaloid avatars are

171
believed to be real. The case of Eguchi Aimi, when fans were fooled into believing the

character was real, is perhaps an exception to any defence as it was created as a deliberately

coercive stunt, which the fans investigated after becoming “suspicious” of how similar she

looked to other members of the group.

This raises the question, therefore, of whether the real world needs to have assurance

regarding whether something is “alive” or not as to its acceptance. However, as explored, the

cultural understanding of illusion and how virtuality is associated with this opens this up to

further interpretation. The voice goes under much manipulation in the recording and

documenting of its performance, and it could be argued that there is little difference to an

external manipulator working with samples than what is employed on a recording of Lady

Gaga for example. For others, it becomes vital that behind the sound, however abstracted is a

locatable being, “real,” living (or at least alive at one point) to make the decision to make the

noise that is documented. This is a different aesthetic construct to that which can be found in

many Asian art practices. For example, the singing voice in Bollywood films does not belong

to the actor portrayed on the screen and the Playback singers as they are known are perhaps

even “bigger” than the bodies that they lend their voices to (Weidman 2010).

Notions of gender in musical production and the construction of the avatar image also

provide a platform for our investigation of vocaloids as 21st-century descendents of Bunraku.

Issues of image and sexuality come to the fore when exploring the creation of a teenage

avatar that becomes a fixation for subcultural Otaku culture. This image utilises manga style

imagery of the young female: hyper-long hair; hyper-big eyes and a sense of vulnerability

conveyed through a positioning of the eyeline that suggests a submissiveness to the observer

is combined with a wardrobe that could easily be used as a post-nuclear school uniform. This

image that has its voice controlled externally to itself symbolizes a dominant form of control;

i.e. the ability to be heard. Therefore, dynamics of gender and how identity is played out

172
through the construction of (feminized) images of musicians’ are as potent within discussions

about women in Japanese popular music as any others, but perhaps not as visible in the

discourse surrounding women in popular music. Identity constructions in Japanese popular

music, in particular the more traditional popular song forms Enka, play out traditional gender

roles, which Yano (1997) suggests provides a comfort and a placing for older consumers of

popular music:

“Older listeners look to the Enka stage for affirmations of maleness and femaleness

past: men in control of lives, situations, people; women reacting to men's actions. ...

These listeners find solace in the unchanging world of these songs and the gendered

images of their singers” (Yano 1997, 116).

Cogan & Cogan provide an overview of the major arguments presented within the

context of Japanese studies. They conclude that “Japanese female groups and solo artists are

stereotyped with the view that they are controlled by male producers...” (Cogan and Cogan

2006, 73-74) and the familiar notion that control of music production is based on traditional

gender roles, with a balance of power in male ownership of the production process.

Aside from this rather familiar argument of heteronormativity in music production,

what is of particular interest here is the construction of avatars, a visual representation of the

vocal synthesizers. As noted above, the construction of a character for Hatsune Miku was at

the behest of the CEO of Crypton Future Media but the construction (and subsequent

obsession) of a female identity located in Japanese culture has roots in previous Western

obsessions (for example, Japonisme, a French fashion in the nineteenth century) and reminds

us the “the exoticized and eroticized bodies of Japanese women are certainly not a new

fashion in Europe and North America.” (Hsu 2008, 110) This is particularly potent when a

significant proportion of fans of the vocaloid movement are located outside of Japan and the

173
avatars are positioned much more as anime characters so resulting in an “emotional

investment” with an appeal far beyond the more underground or niche fanatical markets

(Kelts 2012).

Exploration of sexuality and gender identity in anime opens up questions regarding

national imperialism and class power (Newitz, 1995). It is, however, possible to locate the

construction of the avatar not just within a normative representation spectrum of gendered

identity, but within an understanding of what Zhivkova describes as “figurativeness”

(Zhivkova 2004, 8-9), an archetypal element of Japanese culture. In this way, art works

positioned from within Japanese Culture (acknowledging the impact of non-Japanese customs

on the evolution of art forms and practices) do not just use “forms that are symbolic of real

forms, it literally depicts those forms”. Therefore, the vocaloids are literally depicting the

intersection between technology and creative production, reflecting a culture that has in it a

deeply embedded tradition of illustrating meanings and whose “pieces are originally

suggestive of the whole picture.” In this way the synthesized voice is not a symbolic

representation of the human voice, but is a real synthesized voice that, like Cyberpunk anime

“asks questions about what makes us “human” in a heavily corporatized, media-saturated

world. How do we differ from higher forms of artificial intelligence? How do we distinguish

objects, places, and experiences from their mediated copies? Where do we draw the

boundaries between nature and technology?” (Park 2005, 61)

The Western development of Hologramatic projections (as in the rearticulating of

artists such as Tupac) play out the role of the hero achieving the enlightened state,

transcending physical presence, with the Technological space to do so positioned as

Feminized Other (new technology and cyberspace in Cyberpunk terms). These play out

traditional performance roles (both of gender and Musical performance). However, it is the

position of this paper, that the vocaloids act as a fissure, whereby the fascination of the West

174
around the “projection of Japan as the ‘postmodern future’” is located in their taking “over

the narrative...the object becomes subject...when Japan ‘looks back’ at the United States

using the same ideological frame that has been used to render it ‘other’” (Park 2005, 62). To

do this, the triple combination of software, avatar and songwriter uses its own cultural

language of figurativeness (Zhivkova, 2004) that underpins traditional Japanese artistic

practices. Subsequently, “in this future, the technological Other is no ‘other’ at all - neither an

external space to be conquered nor an object to be used—but rather something that already

exists within oneself” (Park 2005, 63).

Throughout this chapter we have explored the development of vocaloids against a

variety of frameworks. In particular, the notion of illusion, which is an inherent part of

traditional theatrical practice and experience of Japan, have been traced as a framework

through which to read and understand the development of vocaloids and their associated

avatars. These notions of illusion can be seen to normalize the creation of an otherwise

synthetic, virtual performance. The avatars that front the sampled vocaloid software within

the cultural and creative languages can then be understood by positioning this development as

an artistic descendent of a traditional Japanese art form. Doing this, we traced concepts that

are culturally located (the habitus) and inform both the creative use and reception of the

vocaloids.

In addition, the notion of Western fascination, manifested particularly in anime, plays

a part in understanding the interaction with the avatars. As we saw, the relationship between

the Western appropriation of a Japanese future (as manifested in Cyberpunk writings) that are

then utilized to reflect back a gaze from Japanese culture over the West, opens up further

questions about the role of the Vocaloids as a way of viewing the West. Furthermore, in

cultural terms, questions relating to the importance of Dōjin, (the Japanese culture of self-

publishing) and its relationship to Otaku (culture interested in anime and manga) may be

175
asked to highlight the peer-to-peer significance in the sharing of vocaloids. Here, works

either new or based on a character, that are self-published within dedicated sites and

marketed through general media sites may raise new readings of the impact of this

development.

Finally, the complex and intricate relationship between Consumer Generated Media,

the continual development of technology and Japanese popular music should not be

underestimated. As Stevens rightly notes, “while technology is thought to distance people

from art in most contexts, in the Japanese pop music industry, it works to enhance notions of

authenticity in the artist/audience relationship” (Stephens 2008, 6). With the rise of the

Internet, therefore, and in particular websites such as YouTube and Nico Nico Douga, the

ability to create a product such as a Vocaloid artiste becomes an easier, simpler process,

whereby industry and enthusiast can gain possible authorship.

By understanding the world of the Japanese vocaloids in the context of Asian

theatrical practices, and in particular the use and conceptualisation of Bunraku, the cultural

location of vocaloid software allows us to engage with this technology and artistic practice in

different ways to some of the other Western responses (either through voyeuristic fascination

or incredulities.

<1> References

Alland Jr., Alexander. 1979.“The Construction of Reality and Unreality in Japanese Theatre.”

The Drama Review. 23 (2): 3-10.

Babcock, Joseph. 2004. “Ready to Explode: Exploring the Cyber-Culture and Cyber-Fear of

Japan in Anime in Deliberations.” Deliberations: 5-11.

176
Barthes, Roland. 1971. “On Bunraku.” The Drama Review. 15 (2): 76-80.

Cogan, Brian, and Gina Cogan. 2006. “Gender and Authenticity in Japanese Popular

Music: 1980–2000.” Popular Music and Society 29:1: 69-90.

De Ferranti, Hugh. 2002. “Japanese Music' Can be Popular.” Popular Music. 21 (2): 195-

208.

Frederickson, John. 1989. “Technology and Music Performance in the Age of Mechanical

Reproduction.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music. 20 (2): 193-

220.

Herd, Judith Ann. 1984. “Trends and Taste in Japanese Popular Music: A Case-Study of the

1982 Yamaha World Popular Music Festival.” Popular Music. 4: 75-96.

Hsu, Wendy. 2008. “Review: Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese

Dance,” review of Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance by

Tomie Hahn. Women and Music. 12 (1): 110-113.

Inoura,Yoshinobu, and Kawatake,Toshio. 1981. The Traditional Theatre of Japan. New

York: Weatherill.

Jenkins, Ron. 1983. “The Poetics of Theatre.” Theatre Journal. 35 (3): 414-415.

Jones, Stanleigh H. 1981. “Experiment and Tradition. New Plays in the Bunraku Theatre.”

Monumenta Nipponica . 36 (2):113-131.

Kelts, Roland. 2012. “Hatsune Miku Goes Highbrow.” The Japanese Times, December 21,

2012. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2012/12/21/music/hatsune-miku-goes-highbrow-

2/#.Uqw1l2RdV_s.

177
(Accessed August 20, 2013).

Kenmochi, H, and Hayato Ohshita. 2007. Vocaloid: Commercial Singing Synthesizer Based

on Sample Concatenation. Paper presented at Interspeech Conference, (Antwerp, Belgium),

August 27-31, 2007.

Koizumi, Kyoko. 2002. “Popular Music, Gender and High School Pupils in Japan: Personal

Music in School and Leisure Sites.” Popular Music. 21 (1) : 107-125.

Napier, Susan. 2006. “The World of Anime Fandom in America.” Mechademia. 1: 46-63.

Newitz, Analee. 1995. “Magical Girls and Atomic Bomb Sperm: Japanese Animation in

America.” Film Quarterly. 49 (1): 2-15.

Park, Jane Chi Hyun. 2005. “Stylistic Crossings: Cyberpunk Impulses in Anime.” World

Literature Today. 79 (3/4): 60-63.

Shershaw, Scott Cutler. 1995. Puppets and Popular Culture. New York: Cornell University

Press.

Sontag, Susan. 1984.“A Note on Bunraku.” The Threepenny Review. 16: 16.

Spring, Katherine. 2011. “‘To Sustain Illusion is All That is Necessary’: The Authenticity of

Song Performance in Early American Sound Cinema.” Film History. 23: 285–299.

Stevens, Carolyn S. 2008. Japanese Popular Music. Abingdon: Routledge.

Weidman, Amanda. 2010. Behind the Scenes: Playback Singing and Ideologies of Voice in

South India. Paper presented at conference for Women Performers as Agents of Change:

Perspectives from India (University of Alberta), March 15-16, 2010.

178
Yano, Christine. 1997. “Inventing Selves: Images and Image-Making in a Japanese Popular

Music Genre.” Journal Of Popular Culture. 31(2): 115-129.

Zhivkova, Stella. 2004. Figurative Elements in Koto and Bunraku Music and Their

Analogues in Related Forms of Japanese Culture. Paper presented at UNESCO Regional

Expert Symposium on Arts Education in Asia, (Osaka University, Japan), January 9-11, 2004.

179