This is a request from Ventus, one of our readers from chat, and a fan of Japanese pop rock band Ikimono Gakari (いきものがかり), which has many songs in Taiko in both J-Pop and Anime. Guess what song we're going to review.
Joyful (じょいふる) Ikimono Gakari| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All arcade, Taiko DS 3, Taiko Wii 4 | x3 (92) | x4 (153) | x6 (310) | x6 (455) |
| Taiko PSP DX | x2 (92) | x2 (153) | x3 (310) | x4 (455) |
Taiko 14, 0, Taiko DS 3, Taiko PSP DX, Taiko Wii 4
159
none
joyfulBefore AKB48 was sweeping the J-Pop tracklists, there was Ikimono Gakari, and this is one of their biggest hits. After its debut on Taiko DS 3, Joyful became a welcome returning song on almost all subsequent major console and arcade release during that one year period! Before we go on to talk about the song though, let's divulge some info on the band itself as we haven't done that yet.
Ikimono-gakari - the band's name - is a term used in elementary school, referring to a group of children who are responsible for looking after plants and animals. Yoshiki Mizuno (水野良樹) and Hotaka Yamashita (山下穂尊) - the band's guitarist and lyricist - met by chance in 1989 in primary school, because they were both in charge of their class' ikimono-gakari, and that's where the inspiration for the band name began, though at the time they probably never thought that they'd start a band together.
Later on, the two long-time friends made their debut in the streets of Kanagawa on February 1999 with free live performances. In December of the same year, the newborn musical duo was joined by lead vocalist Kiyoe Yoshioka (吉岡聖恵). Ikimono-gakari's lounge rock style became popular in 2003, after the band's temporary separation due to Yamashita and Mizuno's entrance examinations to college.
Then we come to the September 2009 double YELL/Joyful (YELL/じょいふる), where the latter song officially premiered for the first time. After having most of their songs featured in several videogames and Anime shows, the single hit the No. 1 spot for the Oricon daily charts and the number 2 spot for the weekly chart, the highest rankings so far for any of Ikimono Gakari's singles. Joyful was later used as the song for a commercial of Japanese chocolate stick snack Glico Pocky (Mikado for the European market), and several cover versions of the song were made for many other rhythm games besides Taiko, from Taito (Music GunGun! 2) to Konami's rhythm franchise (jubeat knit, REFLEC BEAT, Pop'n Music 19 TUNE STREET and Guitarfreaks XG2)
On Taiko, Joyful's 6-star Oni features an unconventional stamina-drainer notechart, with a good flow of notes and small clusters. Watch out for the second half, as this part can be particularly troublesome for a 6* Probably due to a programming error, Taiko PSP DX's star ratings of this song are swapped with the ones of Arigatou, another J-Pop song of the game's default songlist, however the scoring for Joyful in PSPDX remains the same as it is in all other versions, further proving that it was a glitch.
