You've read it right: this Taiko-oriented blog project is about to turn into double-digit aging! While we wait for the fated day's coming, here's a song that's about as old as us in the Taiko no Tatsujin scene.
LOVE RAIN ～Koi no Ame～ (LOVE RAIN ～恋の雨～) Toshinobu Kubota| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x2 (111) | x4 (168) | x5 (251) | x7 (321) |
| All (2P) | - | x4 (162/162) (video) | x5 (239/239) (video) | - |
Taiko 14
110
none
loveraBetween the adoption of tracks in the likes of this song, LOVE 2000 and Love Zukkyun, it appears that the 2nd arcade generation's latter end licensing game has gravitated around the word of 'love' in their titles for some reason! Unlike the other two aforementioned tracks, however, LOVE RAIN's first rodeo inside the arcade game rooms was also its last one in the Taiko no Tatsujin fore to date.
Today's song is the 35th single release from the prolific R&B artist Toshinobu Kubota (久保田利伸), one whose fond appreciation for the genre have driven his skills to introduce its rhythms to the Japanese audience, alongside many other J-Pop sub-branches that are mostly comparable as diversions to Showa Kayo. Born in 1985 in a city that is nowadays annexed into the Shizuoka prefecture's territory, Kubota's liking of music takes root on his appreciation to African music, with which he had his experience on his studying years thanks to the seminars he took on Komazawa University's African Group Study class, which was also the subject of his graduation thesis as well. Post-graduation, he started working as a music producer under contract on Kitty Records, producing music for dozens of idols and units in his 20ies while refining his own act for solo/collab pieces of mostly R&B music. With such a curriculum to boot, it's no wonder why Kubota, among his many self-attributed aliases- was also dubbed in the general JP music scene as "The pioneer of black music" (ブラック・ミュージックのパイオニア), along the years!
Arranged by Yoichiro Kakizaki (柿崎洋一郎), LOVE RAIN is one song that (much like for Taiko's Season Dragon songs) sports a double-language title of the same meaning in both istances, a trait that is also shared to the Fuji TV drama series this song was used as the OP for: 2010's Moon Lovers (月の恋人〜Moon Lovers〜). The song's single release of June 16th, 2010 also pulled quite the favorable sales results, peaking 3rd at weekly Oricon charts as well as 14th song in its debut year for digital downloads, according to mora.
This track is one slow-flowing piece whose Oni chart grovels in backbeat-based percussions as well as repeating-with-increments stanzas, for one drumroll-less treat that everyone can enjoy. In quite the rare turn of things for single-game licenses, it also got custom 2P notecharts for the Futsuu and Muzukashii mode settings, no less!
