Hey! c: Welcome to the Vocaloid fandom.
Yeah, your friend's right! Vocaloid is not an anime in any way, shape or form, but a software used to create songs.
Many people think it is an anime because of the anime characters on the boxes and in the videos. This is a pretty logical thing to think; I first thought it was some sort of anime, too. In fact, the characters you see are all mascots for the voices in the software, so you have a representation of the character when you listen to the music.
The voices in Vocaloid are not computer generated; they hire people with good singing abilities to record all of the syllables in the Japanese language to create a voicebank. Once the voicebank is ready, a Vocaloid avatar is created to represent the voice. In this way, a Vocaloid is a virtual singer! :)
With Vocaloid, you can create your own music and songs with a personal singer in a box. It's a pretty neat concept, right? Some Vocaloids sound almost just like people.
You can watch Vocaloid PV's (Which are like music videos) on many video-hosting websites like Youtube. Also, if you have a Nico Nico Douga account (A Japanese equivalent to Youtube), you can watch many videos there as well. c:
It's a bit of a confusing fandom for people just learning about Vocaloid, but it's a super cool one!! Virtual singers with anime personas means you can connect and meet so many people that like the same songs and singers you do.
Here are a few of my favorite Vocaloid music videos- yes, the singers are all from the software! I hope this helps clear things up for you.
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(Sung by Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin)
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(Sung by Hatsune Miku)
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(Sung by Megurine Luka)
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(Sung by Kagamine Rin)
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(Sung by Hatsune Miku)
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(Sung by GUMI and Len Kagamine)
There are thousands more songs than these, and many, many more Vocaloids to discover! :D
