Newbies and veteran fans alike, a first glance at Mitchie-M is enough to sniff out his exemplary manipulation and tuning of Miku's voice with tender realism. While vocaloid may conjure the uncanny valley image I mentioned earlier, Mitchie-M disregards it with minute care in giving Miku human-like quality, in her short breaths of pauses and a warm timbre that eases up the synthesizer nature of it all.

I recommend checking out a few songs off his The Greatest Idol album to get the gist. Though I tend to levitate towards pop-rock and metalcore producers like Jin and Yuyoyuppe , Chinese water torture wouldn't be able to make me claim that Mitchie-M's dance-pop isn't overly contagious and catchy. And COVID-19 would have met its match had Viva Happy been a tangible pandemic.

Other than Po pi po, that is

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It's a baribari tune!

Baribari a Japanese onomatopoeia roughly translating along the lines of working hard and being active, Viva Happy establishes itself as a cheer-up chant. It may come off a bit factious with its goofy character animation and Miku's moe adlibs always following the rather sullen lyrics addressing those "sad and down" and "alone at the moment", but rather than stewing in downcast, it attempts to communicate to the audience to brush off their troubles and look where the grass is greener.

"Common Sense" is a slang that adults use

As if the bright colors and flashy visuals didn't make it clear, Viva Happy sells itself to a younger audience. As the lyrics suggest, perhaps those troubled by tense interpersonal matters, comparisons to others and lethargic sense of self. Though, this all could just as easily apply to said adults, as well. The main Miku model acts as a loose audience self-insert, with the video following her clutzy trips-and-falls and her mediations consisting of her cheerful dancing and other Miku models reassuring her. Well, I don't mean this all to sound like an exceptionally written societal critique foisted inside the epileptic visual bubble that Viva Happy is.

Every night I cry and talk to myself

I wouldn't exactly refute someone who'd voice that Viva Happy is a denpa song, with how nonsensical the lyrics can be accompanied by its deliriously catchy tune. Though the song seems to be an intent to address the audience's worries, it simultaneously feels like Miku's own problems hidden under that agenda. Then again, I did claim that the main Miku acts as a self-insert so it's not outrageously inconsistent with the narrative. I suppose Viva Happy is Miku projecting her own problems onto the audience and assuring both herself and us that it'll all be alright with some self-lovin'.

Of course, Viva Happy wouldn't be Viva Happy without its congenial visuals done by cort. Carrying flamboyant, kinetic color palettes and typography that put Studio SHAFT to shame and warrant a preliminary epilepsy trigger warning, the entire video is well-suited to Mitchie-M's just as colorful magnus opus and its pièce de résistance is cort's meritorious dance animation. At a time where janky character animation and MMD models were still a common sight, Viva Happy was one of the astonishing exceptions with its finer-than-wine, sillier-than-geese dance choreography almost on the same plane as the Hare Hare Yukai. The remainder of the MMD features moderately less kinetic animation with Miku's clutzy antics, with colorful transitions, background colors and framing acting as occasional stagehands to give them a boost. Despite the silliness of the MMD, it doesn't take away from the impressive effort put in both Miku's realistic tuning and kinetic animation.

Hachune Miku FTW

You know, Mitchie-M isn't my all-time favorite producer, I consider myself more a devotee of the Gumi sector and I classify myself more as someone being nostalgic about vocaloid rather than a hardcore vocaloid fan but that doesn't deny Viva Happy of being one hell of an MMD. All in all, this was a surprisingly entertaining way to pass the time during my in-between class break.