k-on!:
K-On! (けいおん!
Keion!) is a Japanese four-panel comic strip manga written and illustrated by Kakifly. The manga started serialization in Houbunsha's seinen manga magazine Manga Time Kirara since the May 2007 issue, and also started a bimonthly serialization in Houbunsha's magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat since the October 2008 issue. A thirteen-episode anime adaptation produced by
Kyoto Animation aired in Japan between April and June 2009. An additional original video animation episode was released in January 2010. A second season will begin airing in Japan in April 2010. The title of the series comes from the Japanese word for light music, keiongaku (軽音楽?), but in the Japanese context is similar to pop music.
K-On!'s story revolves around four Japanese high school girls who join their school's light music club to try to save it from being abolished. However, they are the only members of the club, and at first Yui Hirasawa, the main character, has no experience playing musical instruments or reading sheet music. Eventually, she learns how to be an excellent guitar player. The rest of the club helps her to buy a guitar, and they perform successfully at the school festival.
vocaloid:
Vocaloid is a singing synthesizer application software developed by the Yamaha Corporation that enables users to synthesize singing by typing in lyrics and melody.
The Character Vocal Series is a computer music program that synthesizes singing in Japanese. Developed by Crypton Future Media, it utilizes Yamaha's Vocaloid2 technology with specially recorded vocals of voice actors. To create a song, the user must input the melody and lyrics. A piano roll type interface is used to input the melody and the lyrics can be entered on each note. The software can change the stress of the pronunciations, add effects such as vibrato, or change the dynamics and tone of the voice.
The series is intended for professional musicians as well as light computer music users. The programmed vocals are designed to sound like an idol singer from the future. According to Crypton, because professional singers refused to provide singing data, in fear that the software might create their singing voice's clones, Crypton changed their focus from imitating certain singers to creating characteristic vocals. This change of focus led to sampling vocals of voice actors.
Each Japanese Vocaloid is given an anime-type character with specifications on age, height, weight, and musical strengths (genre, pitch range and ideal tempos). The characters of the first three installments of the series are created by illustrator Kei.
kyoto animation:
http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/
hirasawa yui:
Yui Hirasawa (平沢 唯
Hirasawa Yui)
Yui is the main character of K-On!. She is one of the members of the light music club, and plays a Heritage Cherry Sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard electric guitar that she nicknames 'Giita' (ギー太?). She does not get good grades in school (though when properly coached, she can achieve astounding results) and is easily distracted by trivialities. Yui is clumsy and easily spaces out most of the time. She takes a huge liking for any kind of food (she practically never gains weight, which is greatly envied by Mugi and Mio). She has her younger sister Ui, who is the very mature and down-to-earth opposite of Yui, to take care of her and keep herself in line. Yui works extremely hard to get better at playing guitar, which is shown in late chapters. During performances, Yui plays with amazing energy and joy, which usually results in great repsonse from the audience. She has an amazing music ear—she can tune her guitar perfectly without a tuner, which greatly impresses Azusa, who has played the guitar much longer than Yui. She has a very easy-going nature, but has incredible concentration when hyped, though this is only limited to one subject at a time. She will totally neglect any other things in the process, to the point of forgetting anything she has learned beforehand. Despite all of this, Yui is still devoted to her band and will always practice hard enough for the club. Yui is the main vocalist and has a perfect pitch. At school, she has become quite admired for her great voice. However she is known to forget her lyrics in mid-performance, as well as overdoing things, making her unable to perform sometimes. Mio was the lead vocalist at first, since Yui could not play the guitar and sing at the same time. One of Yui's newly discovered skills is her ability to write amazing lyrics, which shocked the rest of the band, who first assumed that Ui had written them for Yui.
nakano azusa:
Azusa Nakano (中野 梓
Nakano Azusa)
Azusa is a new student who joins the light music club and plays a Fender Mustang electric guitar. She is in the same year and class as Ui and has quite a mysterious demeanor. She is a self-proclaimed novice guitarist who has been playing the guitar since she was in the fourth grade, and her parents are working in a jazz band. She often finds herself bewildered by the tea parties and cosplaying aspects of the club, when she would rather just practice and is curious on how the club is able to play so well despite their problems and lack of practice. However, she has a certain weakness for cakes and can be calmed down rather easily, sometimes by just being petted. She is constantly a victim to Yui's skinship and is nicknamed Azu-nyan after trying on a pair of cat ears and meowing ("nyan" being the equivalent of "meow" in the Japanese vocabulary). Despite this, Azusa is not too good with cats. In the band, she looks up to Mio the most due to her maturity and the fact that she is an experienced bassist, even trying to give Mio chocolate on Valentine's Day. However, she sometimes unintentionally makes remarks concerning Mio's weaknesses, such as her weight. She also finds Mugi very beautiful, and envies her hair and large eyes. Since joining, Yui comes to her for advice on playing guitar, as well as maintenance. She gets a tan extremely easily, once during their time at the beach and another during a music festival (even after applying sunscreen). As a result, she frequently gets sunburned as well. She gets lonely very easily, and often worries that everyone in the club will leave her, as they are one year older and eventually will graduate.
