初音ミク by 歪歪waiwai
I’ve never had interest in being a part of the Vocaloid fandom, but I do have a ton of respect for it and acknowledge its importance in the otaku world. However, a recent question about the popularity of Miku Hatsune via Ask John got me thinking about the differences between Vocaloids and other anime characters in terms of fan appeal…
In his post, John brings up many reasons for why Miku is so popular, not just as a fictional digital idol singer for otaku, but in mainstream society as well. Besides things like she’s cute, has twin tails, and is always ready to perform for her “master,” the one reason that stood out to me is this:
“Because Miku is a digital character, her personality is also always whatever the observer wants it to be. In many depictions, illustrations, and videos Miku is cheerful, and maybe a little ditzy. She also sometimes appears jealous, or violent, or melancholy…The flexibility of her character allows users to do anything with her. Characters that originate in manga or anime will always be inextricably tied to their origins. While otaku can place Rei Ayanami in new clothes and new settings, we’ll always be conscious of the fact that she’s fundamentally a schoolgirl in a sci-fi anime. Hatsune Miku isn’t tied down by any such roots. Doujinshi manga and video creators have carte blanche freedom to give Hatsune Miku any personality and any background they choose.”
After reading this, I asked myself, “Is the reason I can’t get that into Vocaloids precisely because they have no official personalities and backgrounds?” For many fans, being able to take a character like Miku and develop their own idea of how she should act or what kind of stories she should be in, without worrying about canon material, makes her all the more approachable. Together with her already interesting status as a digital idol who can sing any song, fans have total freedom in interpreting her their own way and don’t need to match their ideal interpretation with any contradictory official sources. I believe the Touhou fandom relies on a similar form of appeal, though any Touhou fans out there, please correct me if I’m wrong.
On the flip side however, some fans such as myself have trouble relating to characters who aren’t given defined personalities and backstories from their creators. The joy I get from my favorite anime characters is seeing their created personalities come to life along with their character development, especially in interactions with other characters, and taking note of the role their backstory plays in it all. Fans have their own individual opinions about characters of course, but I don’t care to have a character to interpret completely on my own. Maybe its because I know that if I give the character a personality or backstory myself, it’ll naturally be exactly to my liking, and that’s just too easy. It almost seems like I’m being a fan of my own character, except someone else did the fundamental designing. Falling in love with another person’s character however, and discovering all the ways that their character development touched me, just seems like a more intense and rewarding experience. If anyone remembers my post about shipping a while back, this is the same reason I prefer canon pairings. Also, since the characters are created by someone else, the fact that they’ll probably have at least one thing I don’t like about them too makes them more realistic. For Miku, I certainly like her in terms of cute looks, unique status as a virtual idol, and huge impact on the otaku community. But I can’t go any further than that because I still don’t know her…if that makes any sense. The sound of Vocaloid singing also isn’t something I find appealing to my ears, but that’s besides the point =P
To further illustrate with an example, if all we knew “officially” about Haruhi was what she looked like and the fact that she’s a schoolgirl with the ability to unknowingly alter reality to suit her desires, how would that change her appeal? For me, I wouldn’t be able to like her as much as I do – I need to know what her personality is, see how she interacts with other characters, what setting she comes from, how she acts in certain scenarios, etc,. For others however, this wouldn’t be a problem. During my visit to Japan a couple of years ago, I met a semi-otaku girl who loved Haruhi but hadn’t even read the novels or watched the anime – she loved her just by looks and Aya Hirano’s songs. So it seems that whether you need to know official canon information about a character in order to like them or not simply depends on how each person relates to their fandom. I can see both relationships as having advantages and disadvantages as far as fan community. With characters like the Vocaloids, lots of different interpretations of the characters makes the fandom more diverse, but could also lead to a lot of disagreements. For officially defined anime characters, everyone is (mostly) on the same page about what the characters are like, but the disagreements could be more intense since that freedom to interpret isn’t as strong (guess that’s where fan art and fan fiction come in).
So now I’d like to ask, especially to any Vocaloid fans reading this, is it true that their appeal is more or less driven by fan interpretation rather than official sources? And to all fans, are you able to love characters without any defined stories or personality, or are you like me and need those things in order to really get into a character?
I’ve never really gotten into Vocaloids myself, but I think that Vocaloids not having a pre-determined personality or backstory is not only fitting, but may actually be sort of important.
The Japanese idol scene is full of manufactured/commoditized celebrities, who are groomed by their managers/handlers to portray exactly the sort of personality that will endear them to their fans. Those who fall in love with these celebrities are basically attracted to someone else’s carefully crafted image. And, of course, what do we know about people? Well, invariably, they fall short of our expectations. An idol will make some comment, or some less-than-flattering situation will be revealed, and the carefully-crafted image falls apart. The facade falls; fans are heartbroken.
Along comes Vocaloid, and the disintermediation of the celebrity. Although an entirely-manufactured phenomenon from the get-go, we’re no longer dealing with someone else’s manufactured personality and behaviour, and there’s no particular image that must be carefully upheld (beyond the basic character design itself). Miku is programmed to sing (and sometimes dance), and she does so exactly as she was programmed, every single time. She’ll never mess up, and never let you down. And beyond that, she can take on whatever personality you want to imagine her to have; you become the “manager” and you can create her in whatever image you want. And when you consider the fact that idols were always “manufactured” by others to start with, this control in the hands of the audience could potentially be liberating. Is this “idol love” any less real?
It’s fitting the some musicians criticize the Vocaloid phenomenon as being less-than-musical because of how synthesized and “soul-less” it is. But perhaps that very synthesized and soul-less nature betrays the power that endears Miku to her fans. Even though she doesn’t even “exist”, everything she represents (the art, the music, the fan-fiction, the community, etc.) has come to mean a lot to her fans — perhaps more than any “real musician” or “real celebrity” ever will. And as you say, that is an entirely different sort of experience than we get in anime, manga, games, or any other medium that are essentially an author’s vision that we share in. But they say that runaway success is when something (an idea, a meme, a character, a song, whatever) is given a life of its own. Perhaps it’s Vocaloid’s success through everyone’s collective ideas and visions that gives characters like Miku life.
As always, excellent thoughts. I especially agree that Miku’s appeal as an idol comes from the fact that she’s not putting on a manufactured facade and can be exactly as her audience wants her to be. I actually wrote about this phenomena in a post about a year ago, explaining why I can’t get as attached to actors or singers as much as I can anime characters because I only know their “public” image and not their “private” ones. For anime characters, there is no such distinction. And for characters like Miku, there not only isn’t a distinction, but fans can actually give her whatever image they want, which to some is definitely appealing.
Perhaps I am on an opposite side of VOCALOID fandom. I do adore the VOCALOID characters and is a big shipper of some couples. However, I am more into the side of music. I think I adore the composers than the VOCALOID characters, and sometimes it is kinda frustrating when people swoon over Vocaloids without acknowledging the guys behind the songs. Some people take it like these amateur composers are just making image/character songs for Miku. “I love MELT! Miku is really great!”, they say…it’s like Supercell has to compose great songs for Miku because she’s an idol, when the reality is the other way round…
For me, VOCALOIDs are singers and actors, not idols, and they perform professionally for the composers (who really need to be acknowledged). VOCALOIDs is nor just about moe characters, but the core is music, and that’s why they are VOCALOIDs in the first place…
Your comment seems to be under the false pretense that idols in real life, are actually the people who came up with the songs themselves.
Just like Miku, behind most idols are a talented composer or music producer, who oversees the composition, lyrics, and performance of the idol’s song. The idol is ultimately just the face and mouthpiece.
Yet, it is the idol who gets her name listed in the “artist” section, and she takes up all the packaging, etc.
Is there really a difference in this mediation, where the idol (real or vocaloid) ultimately acts as the personality attached to the music? Despite the song itself people actually the lion’s share work of a much older, probably male, person, who probably does not have the same amount of charisma?
The problem you point out is one much more deeply ingrained in the celebrity/idol focused model itself, not really a unique malaise of the vocaloid phenomena.
I agree with TransistorGlamor that the situation with Miku getting all the credit for the composers’ work is exactly what happens with idols and singers in the real world. They have the charm and charisma to make the song appealing to audiences while the composers and lyricists, though I’m sure make some sort of profit, don’t get much in the way of fame and fandom. Maybe it’s more frustrating with Vocaloids because it’s not even a real human being getting the credit.
Actually, I think a lot more vocaloid fans know who the composers of their favor songs are than the average pop song listener. Many fans of Vocaloid know upfront that she’s just a piece of software, so they want to know who used the software. If you look at the names of composers, often you will see a “-P”, which stands for producer, and is fan-given in appreciation and admiration for their work. On nnd, where most vocaloid songs are first “published”, they are always credited first and foremost by their composers. With idols, like you all have said, the artist gets first and sometimes only credit, but I think vocaloid is different. It is only in the western fandom that a lack of language knowledge has contributed to a lack of knowledge of the original composers. This could be through not visited NND where most vocaloid songs usually originate (and where the ranking is based on), or not knowing that 作曲 means composer. And then, laziness means youtubers post using just the “hatsune miku” tag. If you look at most vocaloid albums for sale on the market, they are almost always “composer” or “composer feat. miku”.
Did you hear about the kat-tun and AVtechNO issue?
http://www.moetron.com/2010/11/29/avtechno-works-removed-from-niconico-douga/
Whos heard of Hans Johnson? On the other hand, AVtechNO’s name is a lot better known in the Vocaloid community, at least for the fans of his music. Kat-tun fans probably don’t care.
I’ve never really thought of why I liked the Vocaloids. I think the openness of them is what I like. Anyone can take the program and create a wonderful song with any of the many Vocaloids. I think the one thing that I like are the producers who make the songs themselves. Because there are so many different producers every genre in music can be approached(although some Vocaloid voices are more suited to one genre than another). Most Vocaloid songs also tell a story or try to show a meaning of some sort, not something that is usually found on the radio today(in my opinion).
And although Vocaloids do not have set personalities, through the fandom they sort of have a “set personality” of sorts or a quirk that is particular to that character. For example, in many serious Vocaloid songs, Len Kagamine(if in it) dies.
It actually surprised me how much I love the Vocaloids. I love characters with rich back stories and explanations of why they are how they are. I think it’s because I view the Vocaloids like a story-telling medium of sorts that both tell and are in the story themselves.
Thanks for the Vocaloid info XD I can understand how the fandom itself creates personalities for them; I’m sure there’s at least a few “official” pictures of the Vocaloids to work off of, and using those as guides, fans can give them suitable expressions and actions in fan art and such.
I loved what you said about Vocaloids both telling and being in the stories of their songs and videos That must be a unique and intriguing feeling for fans =D
I can’t say that I’m a hardcore Vocaloid fan but it has really been the center of my fandom for quite a few years now, and this is in terms of the music rather than the characters themselves. I would take a listen on the Weekly Vocaloid Rankings to find out which are popular, and whatever music sticks to me would permanently have a place in my media player. The music, and the PVs made along with it, generally have that indie vibe, and that’s part of the appeal to me because I just have to root for underdogs. The best creativity sometimes doesn’t come from the mainstream but from the most unlikely and surprising places.
Well actually, Miku and other Vocaloids have canon, in rather fewer ways as compared to anime I guess. There is the first official art and you could think of it as Vanilla Miku The basic construct of her body and the voice is her “canon”. This is almost the same case with Touhou characters – ZUN never really revealed enough to make something official, either by purpose or by accident, and that’s why it was left up to the interpretation of the fans to create a Touhou world to their own bidding.
I guess you need more than a basic construct to like a character or world, and that’s perfectly understandable. You are correct that it basically boils to a fan’s attachment with his/her subject of fandom. If you feel strongly about the default Rei Ayanami for example, you would tend to either ignore or hate alternate depictions of Rei Ayanami. An Evangelion fan may be really into Evangelion yet you don’t see that fan playing an Evangelion pachinko machine. What I’m saying is there are many ways to approach a fandom, and that depends on your attachment and your time devotion for it. You don’t have to embrace everything about a fandom to enjoy it. I will honor, and laugh at, a person who can prove that he/she knows about everything related to Touhou… because it’s IMPOSSIBLE to know everything related to Touhou.
I may be a Vocaloid music fan, but it would still depend on the popularity of the song and the visuals that come with it. I don’t have time to wade through thousands of Vocaloid songs and PVs, so I rely on the rankings primarily. This is how I approach Vocaloid.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Looking at your comment, and JellyfishMarine’s above, I see now that amongst Vocaloid fans there are those who are more into the music rather than the characters, and vice versa (and I suppose there are also those who like the two equally).
Your comment that it’s impossible to know everything about Touhou is interesting – that too could be part of the appeal as such a lack of being finite is attractive to certain people, whereas anime characters exist in a story that has a beginning and an end (eventually). I believe the reason a lot of anime stories end by leaving things up to the viewer’s imagination is make them less finite and forever keep fans discussing them.
What I find fascinating about Miku is the technology “she” is built on. Miku has the potential to allow music to be more open-source. Basically anyone with a computer can express themselves in a different way. What really made it successful was the same phenomenon that took place in the mid 2000’s (thanks to the internet), collective/collaborative social media group sourcing. Ironically, it had the same effect on anime with fansubbing and manga with scanlations.
Now would making Miku more “realistic” detract from her appeal? I don’t really know but Sega seems intent on continuing with those “live” concerts.
I attribute music the same way I look at art, different things will appeal differently to different people, all it has to do is evoke emotion, heh.
Anyone with some know-how about the Vocaloid software being able to make any song they want indeed makes music more reachable to more people. You can not only have her sing any song, but even sing them in different ways than the original. Definitely something that goes beyond the realm of otaku and into the music world in general.
I’ve been a Vocaloid fan for a couple of years now.
In terms of characters, I like some of their voices, I like their character designs. They’re cute and appealing. I love Vocaloid fanart! Especially when there’s art for a specific video.
But I never really gave the fact that they didn’t have designated personalities much thought until I read this. I guess I subconsciously gave them my own ideas for their personalities as well. Like I made Miku the Pluck girl, and Meiko was the onee-san.
I’m guessing that the Vocaloid creators left them so ambiguous to make story telling through the songs easier, so it wouldn’t be like, “Oh my gosh, this song is so out of character for Miku!” Or something like that.
But I don’t particularly mind that their characters aren’t set in stone. I think it makes them more fun that way. It gives you much more creative freedom.
I understand what you’re saying about ‘not knowing her’ but I like that versatility to her and the others.
Not being able to accuse anyone’s fan art of being OOC must make Vocaloid fans less prone to disagreements than anime fans XD But I’m sure they have their own things to argue about and some personalities for the Vocaloids are more accepted than others.
I think you’ve made a good point about the backstory of an anime character being important. Like you, it’s the world of the anime that also fleshes out the character for me. Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell and Mizunashi Akari from ARIA are very different characters, but they exist in worlds that are very real for them as characters, as well as being very nuanced and detailed for me as the viewer. I can’t place the Vocaloid characters in any world, and I think that’s because they’re designed to be “plug-and-play-and-perform” kind of transposable characters. (As a side note, I also don’t really like the way Miku sounds as a singer, but then again I’m kind of old-fashioned.)
Lack of setting, like lack of backstory and personality, are again things that certain fans will love and others not. Like you and me, some fans aren’t looking for that great a degree of interpretation for characters, while others are, which is what Vocaloid provides. As with many things like this, it just comes back to personal taste ^^,,,
I can’t understand how people can get so into the Vocaloids. I tried and make a big mistake of purchasing the puchis. Even though I like some of the characters (especially the males) I still can’t have the passion for them as I do for anime characters. It’s not because they lack personalities (since they definitely created with a personality in mind) but because I am not a fan of that kind of music. Also, they don’t have a character development.
Yeah, even though I like the look and designs of the Vocaloid characters in their fan art, videos, etc., the overall sound of their singing just isn’t to my liking. Even without character development, I could still like them more if I liked their sound, but usually it’s character development that gets me really attached to a fictional character.
I’m not so strong a fan of vocaloid, so I can’t say for sure, but for Touhou, I see it as this:
ZUN, making games fairly lacking in detailed dialogue, left a lot open.
However, the fanbase is vast and powerful. Over the years, the characters with most visual “pop” has gotten a lot of love. Random things that stick out in a gameplay standpoint become endearing traits. These are simply things people clamp onto and agree are hilarious.
However, I do not think the strength of Touhou is in the malleability of the canon. In fact, I don’t think Touhou is malleable at all.
Imagine it being first set as a raw block of soft clay. You can certainly mold it, and in fact many people are doing so. One guy occasionally does something exemplary, and a lot of people enforce that work against deconstructions of it. After a while, the clay dries and it’s set in stone.
At some point, the character traits of Hong Meiling were fairly variable. But over time, with the strong fan references of her as “China”, and consistent depictions of her as being a bad and lazy klutz of a gate guard, that depiction has been set in stone.
There isn’t really much room for construing her as intelligent or competent at her job. She effectively has gained a sense of canonity, just as Flandre is consistently insane or homocidal, or how Alice is consistently construed as strongly attracted to Marisa.
While there is a lot of free space to navigate, there’s little doubt that Touhou does have some level of canonity, especially at this point. Cirno is not popular because everyone has their own version or perception of Cirno; she is popular because they enjoy a funny 9 (baka) who always insists she is TEH STORNGIST etc. Or because she likes freezing frogs, etc.
So rather, I would say the strength of Touhou is two fold. First, it does start off largely a blank slate, though as the series has gone on, the dialogue has gotten somewhat more involved, mostly for extra stage bosses, final stage bosses, and second last stage. The fighting games have also gone a long way of setting some level of concrete canon.
But due to this starting state of a blank state, Touhou has the charm of a community project, despite being an entirely solitary project. The fandom community as a whole, projects their image, based on the art and sort bits of dialogue and ZUN’s notes in the manuals, onto the various characters, gradually, collectively, and democratically creating and agreeing on a canon for them. Once this is in place though, there’s little way for turning it back, and new comers to the fandom aren’t going to reimagine them into something wildly different. They’ll just merely move onto another character, who fits their tastes more.
Which brings me to Touhou’s other strength: the sheer volume of characters. On top of being a sort of democratically driven canon, there is just a huge amount of Touhou characters. And the number persists to grow as ZUN comes out with new games, novels, etc. Should you be dissatisfied with how a character turned out, it’s very quick to find another one, that might have similar character traits, but has a different design, or there’s a small few quirks that will separate them.
Through this sheer volume, it’s quite rare that a person won’t find a few characters to like, much less when their personality is essentially determined by the mass consensus of all those attracted by that character design + vague backstory + whatever funny idea is generated due to realistically non-consequential gameplay quirks.
Like Cirno’s entire image of being a baka, entirely because ZUN labeled her in the manual as one once, and because her ultimate spellcard in lunatic doesn’t actually hit right in front of her… at all. Through a grand set of evolutionary development of the character, where new canon developments are essentially determined by what portrayals catch on, and which ones die out, you eventually reach the current idea of Cirno, with the powerful 9 and ATAI SAIKYO memes.
Wow, thanks for that long but fascinating look at how Touhou fandom develops. Fans creating canon themselves out of nothing but vague “official” details about the characters is definitely something interesting =D
Well, to me vocaloids and anime characters are on a completely different world. Sure, vocaliods may have an anime style to them, but I cannot really call them anime characters… I mean, they have no “character” by default. Just a voice and look. So I have no problem with Vocaloid fans, I understand they like that “character” solely for the looks, and voice, and environment it’s designed around. Nothing wrong with that I guess. Not my thing, but nothing wrong with it. We all like different things I guess.
I share your thoughts that an anime character has to come with the full package. Looks, voice, personality, reactions, etc. So to me vocaloids are simply not anime characters, but an anime look-alike that can sing.
Rather than grouping them in with anime characters, I guess they could be called characters with an anime-style design ~_^ But yeah, the two are very different mediums and have traits that will appeal to different tastes.
Hmm. Very interesting. That’s kind of true too, because we don’t know much about Miku we can imagine anything we want about her. But that also means that we can’t connect to her as well as we can the characters in novels. But i’d like the try and make a character simular to Miku in the sence that we don’t know much about her or him but we still like them.
Right, some people love the fact that we can imagine Miku as anything we want, while others can’t relate to her for the exact same reason. Again, it just comes down to how you approach your fandom.
That single reason you pointed out in the post, where her background and personality can be altered and manufactured depending on the person is the main reason why I can’t get into Vocaloids myself. While I can be as imaginative as anyone else, the lack of a concrete backstory to a character makes him/her really distant to me. I feel like there is a lack of connection.
This connection is part of the reason why I got into anime and manga in the first place. Proper character development, a solid background, the relationships they create and destroy etc make the characters human, therefore you can relate to them one way or another. Love or hate a character, there is still at least some sort of feeling born from the way they were made, and the canon-ness of it all makes it that much more believable.
So I’m pretty much with you on this one. Vocaloids is something I respect, but it’s not something that I particularly understand. I choose to admire it from afar since the designs and artwork are usually spectacular but until they give me something concrete, the distance I feel to the characters is just a gap I can’t cross.
Looks like we’re on the same page with this =) I agree that “canon-ness” is what makes me love anime so much. I could still like other related things like Vocaloid, but story/character development is what makes me get attached.
Hmm, I’d say I like vocaloids because that lack of background can be a good thing, because there’s nothing there for you to not like them. They can be anyone you want them to be, cutesy or dark. You’re basically building them up how you want them to be. It’s also good because of what I can see there’s less of the “I hate this character (s)he’s so mean!”. They’re a blank slate for the fans to work on.
Also I love the music. The earlier vocaloids can sound pretty robotic, but the newer ones like Lily sound almost human. If they figured how to make them convey emotions accurately would we even need real singers anymore?
That’s an interesting point how you can’t pick out personal flaws in Vocaloids because they can have none if you want them to. But at the same time, at least to me, you can just make up anything you want to like about them, which isn’t all that enjoyable to me. Like I said in a previous comment, finding love in someone else’s character seems more worthwhile, for me at least.
Miku appeals to me because of her thigh highs and skirt. Coincidentally, her hair just happens to be my favorite color. I like characters that I can relate to. And the reason I can relate to Miku is because we both like music and wear headphones all the time.
Miku is also an idol, something everyone strives for. To me it doesn’t matter if she has a background or not. I like her for who she is, not who she was.
Ah, it seems that you like Miku a lot for the relatively few things she has been given canon-wise; her looks and status as an idol singer. That’s cool =)
I’m not a huge Vocaloid fan but I do have a few of their songs on my ipod and I enjoy watching videos to the songs every once in a while.
Personally I think I mostly like the characters for their voices. It’s sort of like liking singers, I don’t know them really as people but I know what they look like and their songs and even when they are about various things I feel like that’s enough for me to like them.
They have some slight characteristics in my mind and it’s always fun to see them in different situations in videos but I’ll probably never be able to connect to them more than through the story of a single song at a time. So I probably connect far better with anime characters and care about them more.
Anime characters are like my friends, I know them and care about them, while the Vocaloids are just singers whose songs I enjoy.
If Vocaloids became singers I really liked, I could relate better to them than real singers precisely because I know they don’t have that distinction between their public image and their private life. Vocaloids (and anime characters) don’t hide anything that we won’t eventually know about XD They’re exactly as we see them on TV/the Internet and don’t have a side that we won’t ever see.
I’ve had difficulties getting into the Vocaloid fandom myself, for same reasons you have mentioned already. However, i’ll admit I do have a liking for Luka Megurine, in fact, I like her alot more than Miku.
I have always held a high respect and like singers who could sing in more than one language. Because Luka can sing in both Japanese and English, I happen to like her in the same way as other musicians and artists who are multilingual….and cause she looks so dam cool. =P
I’m in the boat of not really being into Vocaloids, and a lot of that is just a matter of not liking their songs. The voices weird me out. But at the same time, I do like Miku for her cuteness. That’s all. Like you, I can’t know anything about her because there’s really not anything to know and where does that leave me? That leaves me with some moe girl just like every other moe girl–bland, no real personality behind the cute face.
I’ll admit I do want to cosplay her someday, but that’s only because I like her outfit. So that still comes down to the looks.
Basically I agree with you wholeheartedly on this post–I have to be able to know the character to really be into them. Meaning there first has to be something there for me to know at all.
I agree with you, though I superly-duperly love Miku. I think this love is mostly because of how I interpret Miku; absolutely, for this interpretation is as unique as someone’ like Monkey D. Luffy on Onepiece.
Vocaloid, basically is a software, so you can interpret Miku as being a cyborg, who is. initially, devoid of any characteristic trait when she comes into being. So, whatever she is subjected to, by the people around, she learns from that.
This Miku is basically what impression you have in your mind. Exactly like Wolf’s Rain and The Full-Metal Alchemist; i think Alphonse Eric is a little evil. Everything in the world depends upon interpretation, and that is how everything goes about.
I was just randomly googling things, and began reading all these comments. So I have just one thing to say: Vocaloids DO have story and character development. Nearly every single song they sing has a story embedded into it and implies some kind of emotion. However, the character development has many paths, since there are many songs, ideas, and composers. So you can visualize them however you like.
But my main point was that they do have a lot of depth. You just need to watch a lot of videos… :)