Xiao Meiye

Xiao Meiye (Simplified Chinese: 小梅叶; Traditional Chinese: 小梅葉) is a male derivative of the UTAU Xiao Meihua.

History[]

In late 2016, a question was asked on Meihua's defunct Facebook page: "If Meihua was male, what would his name be?". One person suggested "Xiao Meiye". This was not revisited again until years later.

In the summer of 2018, preparations for Meihua's 3rd anniversary began. It was decided that a special video would be made to celebrate her release. This video was to be a cover of Aria-P's original Hatsune Miku and Hatsune Mikuo song "Hikari". Because the original featured a gender variant of an existing vocal synth character, it was decided that the cover would do the same, prompting to build upon Meiye's character design.

In August, Purpled completed a headshot of Meiye, which was used as Meihua's Twitter icon in September as an event. Users could interact and talk to Meiye instead of Meihua for the whole month before the account was reverted back to Meihua in October.^[1] At this time, a reference sheet for him was produced and was distributed to commissioned artists for the "Hikari" video. Throughout the production process, art and references of Meiye can be seen, but his role was not elaborated.^[2]

The "Hikari" cover was uploaded to YouTube, bilibili, Niconico, and SoundCloud on June 3, 2019. Meiye was given his own webpage on the JAE UTAU PROJECT website and his own biography, however, he is treated as an "officially recognized derivative" of Meihua. The group encourages users to create their own interpretations of him if they wish.^[3]

On December 21, 2019, Meihua was released on DeepVocal. Meiye could be "created" by adjusting the GEN parameters within the software. He was also given a design.

On April 5, 2024, two silhouettes were uploaded to JAE VOCAL PROJECT's Twitter page with no information other than the illustrators involved: Mian and Ruthreford Brand.^[4] The next day, after uploading a new demo,^[5] it was confirmed that Meihua was expected to release with a DiffSinger voicebank in the future and would be sharing the voice with Miyo, serving as an alternative representative of the voice should users prefer one or the other visually.^[6]^[7] Meiye was also given a DiffSinger design to match with Meihua,^[8] however, unlike Meihua, who was entirely designed by Ruthreford Brand, only Meiye's clothes were designed by him. Meiye's hairstyle and head accessories was designed Mian, who also illustrated the final key art and reference sheet.^[9] It was also announced that Meihua and Meiye were officially listed as pansexual. Originally, they had no set orientation, making them open for interpretation.^[10]

Concept[]

While his biography was written by his creators, it is not strictly canon. Meiye may be depicted in any way as long as his character and software terms of use are not broken.

Meiye is a shy young man who tends to be distant toward strangers. Whenever he socializes with someone new, he stumbles over his words and blushes often as a combination of bashfulness and embarrassment, and has trouble smiling as it sometimes appears crooked. He enjoys writing notes and reading novels, and while he is not very good at video games, he finds that having fun is more important than winning. Although he denies that he likes romance, his lack of understanding for love leads him to turn to novels and dating sims even though they may not be realistic. He tends to be distracted and become flustered when someone points out that he's forgotten something.

But like his counterpart, sometimes people find him difficult to approach due to his red eyes and stay away from him. He does not react well to others bullying or antagonizing him, and would respond with aggressive or violent actions involving a nailed baseball bat, but would never react in such a way unless provoked. He has difficulty with making new friends as he is well aware of his violent tendencies and is afraid of hurting his friends or frightening them, and this may lead him to be clingy and rather possessive.

He has a pet blood red corn snake named Edna (艾德娜; Àidénà). She is a loyal, precious, and endearing friend to him. Her owner is very willing to protect her and vice versa, and sometimes spoils her like a princess.

Likes: Plums, smoothies, dating sims, novels, writing, video games, red velvet foods

Dislikes: Bugs, sharks, shaking environments, losing friends

Etymology[]

His surname, "xiao" (小; xiǎo) means "small" or "little". His given name is made up of two characters: "mei" (梅; méi), which means "plum", and "ye" (叶; yè), which means "leaf". Combined, his entire name means "small plum leaf". His name is contrasted to Xiao Meihua's name meaning of "small plum flower" or "small plum blossom".

His name is rendered in kana as "シァオ・メイイェ".

Appearance[]

Xiao Meiye is a young man with red eyes and short pink curly hair with parted bangs. The hair length is past his neck and he wears a red headband wrapped around his forehead. The clothes on his upper body consists of two layers. The bottom layer is a white asymmetrical shirt with four buttons on the left running from the collar down to the middle of his chest. The sleeves are puffy with lavender belts at the ends while the shoulders flare out into wing-like shapes. For the bottom half of the shirt, the left side is longer than the right. While the right ends where his pants begin, the left side is reminiscent to Meihua's three-tiered skirt, poking out from under the top layer. The next layer is a short-sleeved pale purple shirt with the collars folding down and exposing the second layer. A long lavender ribbon is tied underneath the collar and is exposed fully on his back. He has plain brown pants and short fingerless brown gloves with lavender belts tied at the wrists. Unlike Meihua, his shoes are lavender laced-up boots. The toe cap is white while the outsole and heels are a darker shade of lavender. Frills are seen above the toe cap.

Relations[]

Xiao Meihua - The UTAU Meiye is derived from.
Xiao Naidong - Younger brother. Meiye and Naidong generally get along well, but sometimes tease each other. Meiye is often jealous of Naidong's taller height and becomes irritated with his antics.
Seishi Starchaser - Friend. Seishi slightly thinks of Meiye as a brother figure. Meiye finds Seishi to be a pleasant person and doesn't mind spending time with him.

Voice distribution[]

Voice	Reclist ; Range	Description ; Download
Mandarin 1.0	CV+VV; B3~B5	"Meihua's original Mandarin bank. Uses Migi's natural voice. This voicebank was developed by bajucy. Uses October's reclist.; Retired"
Japanese 1.0	CV; A#3~D#5	"Meihua's original Japanese bank, A voice-acted vocal with a childish, bright, and sweet tone. This was intended to be her official voice. Developed by Purpled. Uses GrayOblivion's reclist. Can achieve "Meiye" with g+20Mt+50Md100Mb+30 as the configuration; Retired"
Japanese 1.1	CV; A#3~D#5	"An updated oto, added missing hiragana (h samples), added a vocal sample, made vowels compliant with typical Japanese aliasing (- a compared to -a), added vowel endings (a -), n is now a vowel. Developed by Purpled. Uses GrayOblivion's reclist. Released in 2018. Can achieve "Meiye" with g+20Mt+50Md100Mb+30 as the configuration; Dropbox Baidu Drive (Password: avph)"
Mandarin 2.0	CV+VV; Mezzo-soprano	"Consists of two voicebanks: Natural and Sweet. This update improves on pronunciation and sound quality. Developed by bajucy. Uses October's reclist. Released on April 19, 2019.; Dropbox Baidu Drive (Password: ehoh)"
Arpasing English 1.0	CVVC; Mezzo-soprano	"Consists of two voicebanks: Natural and Sweet. It is noted that the Sweet voicebank may not be faithful to Sweet for other languages. Developed by bluCitris. Uses Kanru Hua's reclist. Released on June 26, 2020.; Dropbox Bowlroll"
Japanese 2.0	CVVCV; Mezzo-soprano	"Consists of two voicebanks: Natural and Sweet. This update improves on pronunciation and sound quality. It is noted that the new Sweet voicebank may not be faithful to the original release. Developed by Kale and peYton. Uses Zurui's reclist. It is also available on DeepVocal since December 21, 2019. The UTAU version released on September 18, 2020.; Dropbox Bowlroll"
Mandarin 3.0	CVVC; Mezzo-soprano	"Consists of two voicebanks: Natural and Sweet. This update improves on pronunciation and sound quality. It was created in order to be used in both UTAU and DeepVocal as the CV+VV format may not be functional in the latter. Developed by ryan-kun and Feng Quan. Uses Risku's reclist. Released on April 16, 2021. Please note that only the Natural voicebank current has the oto adjusted by Feng Quan. Sweet will be re-released later and only uses Ryan-kun's original oto.; Dropbox Baidu Drive (Password: 1pj2)"

Voice details[]

Input - Romaji encoded and Kana aliased
System - Microsoft Windows
Optimum - Genre: Ballads, Tempo: 100~200 BPM (Mandarin 1.0), 100~200 BPM (Japanese 1.0/1.1)
Details - Meihua's voicebanks generally have two tones of voice: a natural and a sweet tone. As the name implies, the Natural voicebank uses Migi's natural voice and was the tone used for the original Mandarin voicebank. The sweet tone was recorded for the Japanese voicebank and sounds brighter and childish compared to Natural. Other tones for Meihua are being considered but not prioritized. Using the "g+20Mt+50Md100Mb+30" configuration on Meihua's CV Japanese 1.0 or 1.1 voicebanks is one way to create "Meiye's voice".
Issues -
- The original Mandarin and Japanese voicebanks' qualities were relatively poor and samples, especially those beginning with "b" and "p", had "popping" noises. This was due to the voicebanks being recorded on a dynamic microphone built for video games and that socks were used as pop filters.
- The tones between the original Mandarin and Japanese voicebanks are drastically different. This is due to the fact that the sweeter tone of the Japanese vocal was meant to be the character's official tone of voice. However, this could not be replicated in the original Mandarin voicebank. Migi had difficulty voiceacting while trying to focus on pronunciation, so the voicebank was recorded using their natural tone of voice instead. If a user intended to use the vocals together, but did not like the difference in tone, this was a drawback. Future voicebanks may come in a Natural and Sweet pair by default to correct this or may feature Natural only depending on the difficulty.
- If using the configurations listed above, 20Mt and 50Md are moresampler-only flags. Users must obtain this resampler in order to achieve this particular tone of voice.

Voice samples[]

Playlist - bilibili
Playlist - SoundCloud
Playlist - YouTube

Additional information[]

Character Terms Of Use[]

Do not claim JAE VOCAL PROJECT's interpretations of Xiao Meiye or official artwork as your own.
NSFW content is allowed. This does not apply to MMD models and other works from people who are not from the JAE VOCAL PROJECT group. Please follow the rules of the creators! If their works are not allowed to be used for NSFW content, then do not use them for NSFW content!
For commercial use of his character, permission is not required as long it falls under doujinshi (self-published) works. Contacting JAE VOCAL PROJECT is optional and encouraged as the members would like to see and support the work.
Shippings and pairings are allowed, but do not force as canon. Do not portray Meiye and Xiao Shancha as a romantic couple as they would still be considered canonical siblings. This also applies to any derivatives based on Shancha's character. Do not ship Meiye with characters under the age of 18.
Do not use Meiye's character for hate speech.
Political use is not allowed.
Roleplay and ask blogs are allowed if permission from JAE VOCAL PROJECT is given. If permission is granted, the following must be adhered:
- Must credit JAE VOCAL PROJECT and/or Migi for character rights.
- Must credit the appropriate artists if using official. Do not use art from non-members without their permission.
- Cannot violate existing ToS (no incest, shipping with minors, hate speech, etc).
- For any questions, please contact JAE VOCAL PROJECT.
Any relations with NFTs is prohibited.
Creating the character of Xiao Meiye through AI artwork generation applications and software is prohibited.
Using artwork of Xiao Meiye to train AI artwork generation applications and software is prohibited, especially without the explicit consent of both JAE VOCAL PROJECT and the original artist.

Voicebank Terms Of Use[]

Do not claim Meihua's voicebanks as your own.
NSFW content is allowed, but do not use the voicebank in songs portraying him in a relationship with those under the age of 18 or with Shancha and her derivatives.
For commercial use of Meihua's voicebanks, permission is not required as long it falls under doujinshi (self-published) works. Contacting JAE VOCAL PROJECT is optional and encouraged as the members would like to see and support the work.
Oto.ini editing is allowed.
Do not edit Meihua's samples especially to create Meiye. It is encouraged that users should create "his" voice through the adjustment of flags.
Do not use Meihua's voicebanks for hate speech.
Political use is not allowed.
Voicebank redistribution is forbidden for Meihua.
Any relations with NFTs is prohibited.
Using Xiao Meihua's voicebanks (which is used to create Xiao Meiye) to train and create, use, and distribute AI voices and voicechangers is prohibited without explicit consent of both JAE VOCAL PROJECT and Shi Wei Migi.

Marketing[]

Meiye has an official Mii provided by Migi on the JAE VOCAL PROJECT website. This could be downloaded for the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo WiiU systems.^[11] A Nintendo Switch version was later distributed in May 2021.^[12]

Meiye was later given an official Twitter account on August 26, 2019. It is used for interaction with fans and roleplaying.^[13] The Twitter account officially closed on December 1, 2021.^[14]

Meiye officially began receiving merchandise since January 10, 2021.^[15]

Trivia[]

Like Meihua, Meiye initially had no official sexual orientation and can be paired with anyone as long as they are not under 18 or Xiao Shancha and her derivatives (such as Xiao Naidong).
- As of April 6, 2024, Meiye was officially listed as pansexual.
As of March 2022, Meihua's age was changed to 22. This also affects Meiye.^[16] He was originally 19 years old upon introduction.

A friend of Migi's suggested "Baihua" as a name in 2016 but this was not used.

Older concepts of Meiye in 2016 included him with facial hair and a more muscular build, but this was done as a joke. He was not a "serious" concept until 2018. Other concepts portrayed him in a basic white long-sleeved shirt and lavender tie, as well as short and straight hair.

For his Japanese DeepVocal design, it is also referencing the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, but is based on the Hunter and the Big Bad Wolf rather than the titular character.

His Chinese DeepVocal design was inspired by the action role-playing game by miHoYo, Genshin Impact. On February 25, 2021, Migi revealed an illustrated commission by Parapa-kun of what Meiye may look like if he was in the game. In this concept, Meiye was noted to be a Pyro equipped with a catalyst. The outfit was inspired by the region of Liyue. However, Meiye was noted to not be "from" there and was "from another world" due to this only being a crossover headcanon.^[17] This design was reused for the Mandarin Chinese DeepVocal release, but unlike Meihua, Meiye was only left as a concept and the art was not re-illustrated to remove his Vision and his companion, Edna. The theme color is based on volcanic skies.

According to a tagged meme on Migi's Deviantart account, he is apparently less violent than Meihua is and appears to be weaker. However, some of the information given was scrapped in favor of the current biography on his webpage.

In the same meme, it was noted that his Halloween design is a devil.
He is Chinese American and is from New England. He would love to visit China some day.
He is commonly interpreted as human or android although neither is canon.

He is sometimes portrayed to be insecure of his height.

When carrying Edna around in public, she hides in his shirt.

Like Meihua, his favorite dating sim series is NTT Solmare Corporation's "Shall We Date?". He has the same favorites as she does. However, he is far more embarrassed to play such games, especially when caught.

His favorite characters from Obey Me! are mainly Beelzebub and Belphegor, however, he likes all of them so far.^[18]

His Halloween devil outfit was designed in 2020 by partialkakera. The differences between his and Meihua's designs include:

He has longer fingerless gloves.
He is wearing shorts with no leggings.
As with all instances, he wears a red headband and not a bow.
His horns and wings are more dragon-like while her wings are shaped like a bat's.
- This was chosen specifically due to Migi's headcanon of Meiye being more serious than Meihua is. Theoretically, if he were a demon or devil, he would take on his role with pride and work hard, especially to make up for his short stature. He desires to be respected while Meihua would care more about being cute and having fun.