Hey! c: Welcome to the Vocaloid fandom.
Yeah, your friend's right! Vocaloid is not an アニメ in any way, shape または form, but a software used to create songs.
Many people think it is an アニメ because of the アニメ 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 あなた see are all mascots for the voices in the software, so あなた have a representation of the character when あなた listen to the music.
The voices in Vocaloid are not computer generated; they hire people with good 歌う abilities to record all of the syllables in the Japanese language to create a voicebank. Once the voicebank is ready, a Vocaloid アバター is created to represent the voice. In this way, a Vocaloid is a virtual singer! :)
With Vocaloid, あなた can create your own 音楽 and songs with a personal singer in a box. It's a pretty neat concept, right? Some ボーカロイド sound almost just like people.
あなた can watch Vocaloid PV's (Which are like 音楽 videos) on many video-hosting websites like Youtube. Also, if あなた have a Nico Nico Douga account (A Japanese equivalent to Youtube), あなた can watch many 動画 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 アニメ personas means あなた can connect and meet so many people that like the same songs and singers あなた do.
Here are a few of my お気に入り Vocaloid 音楽 videos- yes, the singers are all from the software! I hope this helps clear things up for you.
link (Sung によって Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin)
link (Sung によって Hatsune Miku)
link (Sung によって Megurine Luka)
link (Sung によって Kagamine Rin)
link (Sung によって Hatsune Miku)
link (Sung によって GUMI and Len Kagamine)
There are thousands もっと見る songs than these, and many, many もっと見る ボーカロイド to discover! :D
