Go West, Young Meowth!

One of the best of the television Pokémon episodes, telling the sad back-story of how the rascally Meowth we know from Team Rocket became the way he did. It is near-enough impossible not to feel for the poor cat after watching this...

Isao Tomita and Miku

This sequence of excerpts is from a concert by the legendary Isao Tomita, and features Miku in all but the first piece, which I gather is from Symphony Ihatov. It is actually quite nice, and the items with Miku are reminiscent of a Parisienne or similar Bohemian place and time from a bygone age.

There is a full orchestra and choir, and it was clearly quite a significant event, from almost a year ago. The video uploader has incorrectly labelled this as being from THE END – the Miku opera – but it isn't, so just ignore that...

Promise, by Miku and Rin

I featured this once before, ten months ago now (where did all that time go?) but in that video the same duo were wearing their standard outfits.

This time, Miku and Rin are wearing their ultra-cute puffball dresses that we saw in Colorful Melody; and even without the English words, this now quite famous song – Promise by Samfree – is a delight to watch and enjoy.

For the enquirer who asked me about the specific modules from Project Diva for these outfits, they are Colorful Drop (for Miku) and Cheerful Candy (for Rin)...

The Half Mile Train

Freight trains can sometimes be very long; and this one measures around half a mile in length – 2,526 feet, or 770 metres – with some 46 (count 'em) wagons and a Class 66 diesel locomotive at each end. These are highly-reputed locos by the way, and can operate in France as well as the UK.

The wagons are interesting, with an end-to-end-slanted design to most of them and a few custom vehicles also in the mix.

Here it all is pausing at, and presumably well beyond, York station for a change of the train crew, and then it sets off again with a fair amount of 'thrash' to get that huge mass moving. It takes quite a lot of effort, even for two Class 66s which have a combined traction of more than four and a half Megawatts.

The video creator poses the question: Is this the UK's longest train? The answer is no – there are longer MRL stone trains, and the 'Octopus' that passes through Leicester is around the same length, for a couple of examples – but it is certainly among the longest...

Singalong-a-Miku

Not quite like those old Max Bygraves record albums, but another example of the same Lat-style Miku model we saw yesterday (version 2·3, which seems to be the favourite of all her models for amateur Augmented Reality experimenters), this time singing and moving to match the piano playing.

How it is done is shown and explained, and it a good example of how the Vocaloid technology can operate in either direction. At a concert the band have to synchronise with the performer, but in this case it's the other way round. Of course, the pianist has to keep proper timing otherwise it's going to come out rather strangely, but apart from that it seems to be a logical development.

It certainly works well here, even if Miku gets a little nonplussed if certain actions are made too repetitive...