One of the reasons behind why I've endured writing about everything Taiko for so much time is due to the impact some of the songs have left onto myself on their passing. Now, you too can catch a glimpse of what it feels like!
Unchained Girl! Mini
アンチェイン・ガール！／みーに
| Game | Genre |
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| AC Nijiiro (Y3) |
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★4 (155) |
★5 (259) |
★6 (459) |
★8 (725) |
- |
155
???While we wait for the last of the 3rd current-gen Taiko contest winners to come out, here's another of them who's already in! Meet Mini/Mini_hiori (Twitter/YouTube/personal website), an indie songwriter with a proficiency on Vocaloid/Voiceroids and other voice banks for her own creations. As penned by the authour herself over Twitter (link), the lyrics were self-made and an independent voice bank was used, although Mini wanted to not mention which one was used for it (at least for now).
The first time this self-made artist was heard of in Taiko was with the 2020 music contest, with the Miku-powered song Akikaze Ambivalence getting an honorary mention from steμ, lauding the very-complex beats in play while on the same time lamenting how the brazen vocal/sound mixing at places made it nigh hard to make engaging and coherent charts for it and got discarded. Fast-forward to 2 years later and here it is, the same artist claiming a winning slot! Making things full-circle, the very same steμ was here to give the judge's remarks on the victorious result, claiming how the skillful implementation of 9th times with the popping sounds in the song made the overall result feel more refleshing to the point of claiming how this one track gave out to him the greatest immersive feeling to it, while listening each of that contest's songs!
Arcade donders who want to prove themselves as "Unchained Donders" as the Oni unlock title propmptly displays (and, at the time of writing, only them as it's currently an arcade-exclusive) will have to deal with a Kat-dominating first half of smaller clusters combined with longer 1/12 sequences and little to no time to lay down both drumming hands. All the thrills of modern mid-range Vocaloid songs like Darling Dance, all as a contest-awarded Namco Original!
Monochrome Voice cosMo@BouSouP feat. Hatsune Miku/GUMI
モノクロボイス／cosMo@暴走P feat.初音ミク・GUMI
| Game | Genre |
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| AC Green NS2 Plus STH |
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★4 (155) |
★6 (259) |
★7 (459) |
★10 (961) |
★10 (1305) |
240 csmmon (cosMo@BouSouP - Monochrome Voice)The final firmware of the third arcade generation sure went out with a bang, as the same prolific Vocaloid composer who blessed its coming with the infamous Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu -Gekijouban- marked its ending with not one but two Vocaloid-powered songs to pre-emptively salute its days. Here's one of those, arguably the harder one in the couple at that!
One interesting facet about this and the other 'companion song' of sorts is that (thus far) both have reached the same official games -either together as a visible/unlocked ordain or in later days for each- but never alone. You just know there's also something behind it when even the goroawase Max Combo shenanigans are back in town with the 'warui' (961) value shining on for its regular Oni as to better denote which of the duo is the evil one... The evil still lies on the poor, unsuspicting players where in both scenarios the hand being dealt with is one of a peculiar 240 BPM kind, making commonpace most of the 10-star Onis of yesteryears and out-density-ing even other speedy Onji colleagues in the likes of Venomous from the Game Music!
Of course, this is telling half the story, seeing as the Ura Oni not only ramps up the cluster density even further (we're talking an average of 9.70 hits/second, with absurd peaks of 15.13 hits/s in the craziest portions!) where traces of charting past can be found alongside quite the scary-to-look-at 1/16 note cluster, scrolling in speed both up and down while also splicing in dangerous Kat notes. Suffice to say, there's no slouching around when we're dealing with such fast tunes bearing notecounts as bountiful as Infinite Rebellion's and ≠MM's!
Colorful Voice cosMo@BouSouP feat. Hatsune Miku/GUMI
カラフルボイス／cosMo@暴走P feat.初音ミク・GUMI
| Game | Genre |
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| AC Green NS2 Plus STH |
/ |
★5 (215) |
★7 (373) |
★7 (597) |
★9 (876) |
★10 (1121) |
240 csmclr (cosMo@BouSouP - Colorful Voice)Of course, we can't talk about Monochrome Voice without having some insight one the precursor tune behind it! After all, both songs are tied together with the common idea of seeing how a medium (in this case, music) can be employed for either good and bad deeds to affect the world.
The more conventional of the two scenarios, of course, is the first one to debut with Colorful Voice starring a Miku sister/nun who is willing to become an idol in order to share her song of salvations, with the aid of a somehow-unwilling regular schoolgirl played by Megpoid Gumi. Six months later, a glimpse of the opposite concept can be seen in Monochrome Voice, as the distortedly-overzealous will of "cranking it up to the max" turns the call of salvation into 'salvation' by oversensory death. Both songs are featured in cosMo@BouSouP's solo album Gossip no Umi (ゴシップの海), and both are also backed online by an official MV that is shared by the same author on his own YT channel (Colorful/Monochrome MV links).
As the two tunes are moved by the same motif but in diametrically-different directions, it's easy to see why the two also have their share of common charting trends on each, from the same tendency on goroawase play on the regular Oni's Max Combo (with the 'BanNam' 876 for the 'good' song,
