Megurine Luka (Vocaloid)

Megurine Luka is the product and character name of the speech synthesis and desktop music (DTM) software that was released by Crypton Future Media on January 30.
The third installment of the Character Vocal Series (CV Series), numerous works using Megurine Luka have been published to video uploading websites like YouTube and Nico Nico Douga, sold as music CDs, and even in book publications.
Luka was the first female bilingual Vocaloid, the first to have an English voicebank provided by a Japanese company, and the first Vocaloid2 by Crypton Future Media to be upgraded to the Vocaloid4 engine.

Character Introduction

Age: 20
Height: 162cm
Weight: 45kg

Tako Luka

Tako Luka is the name given to a deformed version of Megurine Luka, wherein her head is placed on octopus tentacles. It was designed by illustrator "March 8th" as an illustration that was posted to Piapro and pixiv. Since the popularity of Tako Luka, it has appeared as figurines and plush dolls.

Software

The voice synthesis engine "VOCALOID2" is software that was developed by Yamaha. Using a home computer, by inputting the scale and lyrics, vocals and backup vocals can be synthesized from the supplied voice library. When Megurine Luka was first released, she was the first VOCALOID to have libraries for both Japanese and English, which allowed for a more global reach. Because the software included the English voicebank, the total database reached more than 3GB of data, which is the largest among the VOCALOID products released thus far.
Luka was not aimed at a worldwide audience and was instead focused primarily on the Japanese market.
Despite the amount of work used in Luka's creation and release, the sales price was still the same as the other CV Series members, at 15,750 yen. Luka's sampling voice was provided by voice actor Yuu Asakawa and was recorded based on the concept of a "moody and husky" female voice. Due to being fluent in both English and Japanese, Crypton had considered hiring Ms. Asakawa to provide one of their products' voices since early 2007, even before Hatsune Miku was released as the first CV Series. Due to scheduling conflicts and the nature of the product supporting both Japanese and English, Luka was released after Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin/Len.
On March 19, 2015, "Megurine Luka V4X", which uses Yamaha's VOCALOID4 engine, was released.

Using the Character

Crypton established the “Piapro Character License (PCL)” and “Character Usage Guidelines” based on it to allow creators to use Luka's likeness in animations and illustrations. In accordance with the content of the license, usage of the characters is permitted in a non-profit manner. The official character illustrations are also licensed under the Creative Commons License CC BY-NC 3.0 (Display, non-profit 3.0). In the event that a song does not use character names or images, usage is unrestricted regardless of commercial or non-commercial use, though there are exceptions such as if lyrics should contain content that is contrary to public order and morals.

List of Released Music

Though not an exhaustive list, the following releases form the foundation of the extent of Luka's impact on the VOCALOID fanbase.

CD Releases

2009

2010

2011

References

Official Website
Wikipedia