【Singer】梅宮雛 (UMEMIYA Hina)

梅宮雛 (UMEMIYA Hina) is a relatively well-known niconico singer best known for her rendition of wowaka’s 裏表ラバーズ (Uraomote Lovers/Love & Lovers). Her titles always start with “人知れず”, which means “secretly”. (So the whole template title translates to something like “Tried to Sing in secret / Umemiya Hina”). As well, she gets other people on niconico to help her with mixing her songs. Also, Umemiya Hina is most likely not her real name.

Umemiya is capable of hitting extremely high notes without straining, wavering or straying from the note, and can sing in many different voices, though the usual one she uses is slightly cutesy but not at all annoying. Some of her “other voices” sound like Kagamine Len and even INOUE Marina. (See her rendition of Nanairo no NicoNico Douga). She also seems to have really good breath control since she can not only switch between voices quickly, but she can also keep singing a lot without gasping for breath (See her rendition of Uramote).

Essential Works:
1. 裏表ラバーズ (Uraomote Lovers/Love & Lovers) (niconico link) **Most Popular Work**
2. 炉心融解 (Roshin Yuukai/Meltdown) (niconico link)
3. いつもより泣き虫な空 (Itsumo Yori Nakimushi na Sora/A Sky Who’s Being More of a Crybaby Than Usual) (niconico link) **Recommended**

Niconico Profile: http://www.nicovideo.jp/user/10862349
Mylist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/10657771

【Singer】UmiNeko

I don’t usually listen to male singers for unknown reasons, but this person is far too great.

UmiNeko is an amateur singer from niconico who is becoming more well-known recently for his unique voice and consistently high quality works. His most popular works are his renditions of DixieFlatline’s Just Be Friends, with 1906 Mylists, and におP’s (nioP) 蜜蜂 (Mitsubachi/Honeybee) with 1536 Mylists. He almost always provides MP3 downloads of his songs, and the majority of his songs are mixed by madamxx and encoded by various people. In addition to singing, he also has a radio show hosted on niconico live stream sometimes.

UmiNeko’s voice is, to put it in one word, soulful. It is mature, emotional, and has weight as he retains all his notes completely and fully, which makes him extremely suitable for songs of the Soul genre. Despite having a pretty specialized voice, he sings many songs from different genres, including Jazz, R&B, and Pop, to name a few. UmiNeko usually sings in a relatively low voice, but he has absolutely no trouble transitioning to really high notes quickly and smoothly. He also likes to do a lot of really well-done scat singing. Lastly, UmiNeko also songs quite a bit of English songs (which I think he is best suited for), and his English pronounciation is quite good.

Please give his songs a listen! His voice might take a bit of getting used to at first, but it is absolutely incredible from his first songs to the most recent ones. I had a hard time picking only 6 songs to list here.

Essential Works – Vocaloid Covers:
1. 蜜蜂 (Mitsubachi/Honeybee) (niconico link) **Representative Work & Highly Recommended**
2. 少年銀河 (Shounen Ginga/Boy Galaxy) (niconico link) →Recommended
3. つよがり (Tsuyogari/Bluff) (niconico link) →First work

Essential Works – Original/English:
1. Losing game (niconico link) (Original song; Collaboration with におP (nioP)
2. You Give Me Something (niconico link) (English song; James Morrison) →Recommended
3. What’s Going On (niconico link) (English song; Marvin Gaye)

Mylist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/9247970
niconico Community: http://ch.nicovideo.jp/community/co71841
Youtube Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7EA54D231EF07449

【Singer】奈緒 (Nao)

奈緒 (Nao) is an amateur female singer on niconico. She is not very well-known, and her best-received work was a cover of 古川P (FurukawaP)’s ピアノ・レッスン (Piano Lesson), at 5,200+ views and 267 Mylists. She is able to sing in both Japanese and English, and has also uploaded videos of herself playing pretty difficult songs on the piano.

Nao’s voice is extremely versatile, and changes her voice according to the requirements of the song. Examples of her versatility include singing in a slightly cute voice with enough maturity to not change the mood of a song, singing all of a choir’s parts by herself, imitating both Kagamine Len’s and Kagamine Rin’s voices almost to perfection with Vocaloid-like articulation, and singing in a mature, deeper voice suitable for jazz, amongst many others. Nao is great at hitting all the notes with no glaring mistakes, although that may be due to (slight) editing and auto-tuning that she does herself. A slightly more definable trait in her songs is that she sings with a bit of legato in everything. As well, she is very good setting up a gentle, relaxing, and easy-to-listen mood in all her songs. Although Nao sings with slightly accented English, I find that her pronounciation is extremely good and is very unlike the usual “Japanese English”. Even her short English comments on her videos have completely correct grammar.

Essential Works:
1. ピアノ・レッスン (Piano Lesson) (niconico link) **Highly Recommended for use as background music**
2. Hail Holy Queen (niconico link) *Solo Choir*
3. 雨を連れゆく (niconico link) *Kagamine Len Imitation*

Mylist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/5565901

【Illustrator/Singer】はるよ (haruyo)

Character from PENGUINS PROJECT's 眠り姫. Click for full version.

はるよ (haruyo) is an amateur artist best known for her artwork and PVs used in popular Vocaloid songs such as 眠り姫 (Nemuri Hime/Sleeping Beauty) by PENGUINS PROJECT and つきうさぎ (Tsuki Usagi/Moon Rabbit) by OSTER PROJECT & baker. She is also a relatively well-known niconico singer, and due to being good friends with Vocaloid composer baker, she sang a lot of his songs and baker also helped with mixing her tracks. haruyo’s name means “Spring Night” (春夜), lives in Tokyo, was born on June 5th, 1985, and used to play Ragnarok Online. She’s also good friends with other Vocaloid composers such as kz and ゆうゆP (yuuyuP).

haruyo’s illustration style is mainly the usual anime-style face, but her characters never look exaggerated or unnatural, and gives off a sense of maturity. haruyo seems to like using a soft textured brush for shading, which makes everything look light and airy, and the colours she uses for her artwork range from muted to vibrant to just plain awesome, though in all cases she still uses a lot of different colours. The subject of haruyo’s artwork always seem to be female characters, the most common of which sport long, sometimes cloud-like hair.

Despite drawing so many cute characters, haruyo’s voice sounds mature and soulful, with common use of vibrato and falsetto. She’s also able to hold very high notes quite well, though in her older works there is some strain. In addition to hitting all the right notes all the time, her voice also stays very stable throughout the song. Due to being atrocious at explaining things related to music, please listen to her songs to get a real feel of what she sounds like.

Essential works:
1. celluloid (niconico link) ** Highly Recommended**
2. OVER (niconico link)
3. メルト-Band Edition- (MELT-Band Edition-) (niconico link)

Blog: http://blog6.fc2.com/haruya/ (Japanese)
Pixiv: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=98794
Twitter: http://twitter.com/haruyo_ (Japanese)
Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/haruyo_
MP3 downloads: http://u6.getuploader.com/haruyo (Provided by haruyo)
Old site/Links Archive: http://www.tt.em-net.ne.jp/~arumi/hutokoro/ (Japanese)
Ustream Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/haruyo-live
haruyo’s Mylist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/3540872
Playlist at Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=59858F5A2843F88F

*Edit: Sorry about the inconvenience, but the image example links have (finally) been fixed now. /o\

【Singer】 はにちゃむ★ (hanycham★)

Image drawn for hanycham★'s Imagination video. Click to enlarge. (Illust: meola@piapro/pixiv)

はにちゃむ★ (hanycham★) is an obscure singer from niconico (whom I found out from a very knowledgeable friend of mine. Thank you!), and her most mylisted song was a cover of DATEKEN’s Imagination, and gathered only 101 Mylists.* When asked about her gender, hanycham answers “I’m not a man or a woman, I’m an uncle~☆”, but in reality she is really female as is apparent by her speaking voice heard on her live broadcasts on niconico.

*Post edited on 10/10/2009: hanycham got her big break and ranked 8th on the daily utattemita rankings on Oct 4th with her rendition of Ur-Style, which at this time of posting has 840+ Mylists.

Unfortunately, hanycham’s reply is of no help at all as her voice sounds quite androgynous, and if I didn’t tell you her gender, it would be very hard to guess, but this androgyny is one of her’s prime characteristics. As well, hanycham’s voice is very well suited to the R&B genre, and she seems to like singing songs from those genres. Her pitch is also somewhat low, but can also hit the most awkward and hard-to-sing notes (as well as high notes!), and most of her songs sound really professional because of the incredible stability and the high accuracy in hitting all the right notes. As for atmosphere, hanycham’s voice gives a relaxing, soothing, and easy-to-listen feel. She rarely sounds strained, if ever, and even English pronounciation is quite good. The only shortcoming that hanycham may have is that she doesn’t give off a emotional performance full of lasting impact, though that can be said for most niconico singers, it seems.

Essential Works:
1. Imagination (niconico link) **Highly Recommended**
2. Bye-Bye Lover (niconico link)
3. Ur-Style (niconico link) **Also Highly Recommended**

hanycham’s Mylist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/10810691
hanycham’s niconico Community: http://ch.nicovideo.jp/community/co45824 (Sporadic live broadcasts of her doodling and singing practice)

【Singer】 MISAKI

MISAKI is a female singer on niconico who is not widely known at all, but those who know her like her so much they made a fan community for her. Her most Mylisted work was ラ・ピュセル (La Pucelle) at 151 Mylists. MISAKI likes the Sangoku Musou/Dynasty Warriors games and knee socks, her favourite season is autumn, her favourite colours are pink and red, and kind of considers herself as a romanticist.

Her voice is one of those mature and strong voices similar to MEIKO or Luka. She’s also capable of emulating a male voice fairly well, and can also sing in an incredibly low voice as is apparent by her rendition of Kimikage, which is a pretty big feat. In addition to being able to hit low notes, she can also hit very high notes correctly and without difficulty, plus she can hold them quite well without wavering. MISAKI is still continually improving her already quite skilled technique, and has gone a very very long way from her first songs.

Essential Works:
1. Out of lies (niconico link) **Highly Recommended**
2. one more kiss (niconico link)
3. 君影 (Kimikage/Your Shadow) (niconico link)

Blog: http://blog.goo.ne.jp/misaki_kitty/
MISAKI’s Mylist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/10783707
MISAKI fan community at niconico: http://ch.nicovideo.jp/community/co52022
MISAKI playlist at Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FD74FA086C4811FC (2 songs only)

【Singer】 いよかん (iyokan)

いよかん (iyokan) is a female singer who started posting songs she sang on niconico since November 2008. Her most favourited/Mylisted work is a cover of mathru’s Dancing Samurai with a (now famous) tegaki PV made by her friend. iyokan’s name comes from a Japanese citrus fruit.

iyokan’s voice is best described as relatively low, harmonized, and choral-like. She’s also capable of singing in either a female or male voice, and seems to like singing seperate parts in different voices by herself, like in her lone cover of 人柱アリス (Hitobashita Alice / Human Sacrifice Alice), a song with both male and female parts, and also in her “faux chorus” version of 桜ノ雨 (Sakura no Ame / Rain of Sakura). I’m assuming that she has had some experience of some sort singing in a chorus or in an a cappella style (or maybe even in opera), which shows since she sings her songs in that style akin to the level of a professional. iyokan’s style is not common at all among the singers at niconico, and most people probably like the regular pop or rock type of singers the best, but iyokan definitely deserves a lot more recognition for her extremely high quality work. (Her cover of Lilium is less a cover than a near-perfect copy. It’s about 90% close to the original rendition.)

As usual, you have to really listen to understand what I’m talking about, because it’s impossible for me to put music into words accurately. Please give her works a listen!

Essential Works:
1. メルト、来い (MELT, koi / MELT, come) (niconico link) **Highly Recommended**
2. 紡唄 -つむぎうた- (Tsunagi Uta / Spinning Song) (niconico link)
3. Lilium (From Elfen Lied) (niconico link)

iyokan’s Mylist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/9266510
Article at Niconico singers wiki: http://www41.atwiki.jp/niconico_singer/?page=いよかん (Japanese)

【Singer】ノワール (Noir)

ノワール (Noir) is a female singer on nicovideo who got her big break singing TokuP’s song SPiCa. She started uploading her songs since February 2009, and has been improving very rapidly. Her birthday is on February 15th, and she likes reporting about the growing process of the Morning Glory that she’s growing in her garden.

Noir’s voice is very mature and emotional, and she uses vibrato a lot, which makes her good at singing jazz-y songs. The commentors on nicovideo seem to like her a lot because she doesn’t have a common anime seiyuu-like voice. She’s also relatively familiar with English, and has sung a few songs with pronounciation that ranges from accurate to almost native speaker-like. She’s quite good at hitting the high notes and especially at sustaining the notes for a long time. She also seems to have great breath control, and is able to hit all her notes fully.

Because of how overwhelmingly great I think her songs are, I am unable to give a fair description of what she’s capable of, so please listen to her songs.

Essential Works:
1. Fly Me to the Moon (From her blog) Highly recommended
2. SPiCa (nicovideo) *Representative Work*
3. ヒカリノカケラ (Fragment of Light) (nicovideo)

Blog: http://noiretmusique.blog47.fc2.com/
Nicovideo Mylist: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/11540996
Playlist at Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=11057C0F7B97E7CB