You wanted to see it, so we deliver! The uplifting J-Pop song loved by many, and played by many over a wide array of rhythm game series.
GLAMOROUS SKY| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x4 (174) | x4 (216) | x6 (503/476/405) | x5 (667) |
Taiko 8, Taiko PS2 6
150
none
nanaGLAMOROUS SKY is a rock song and the 16th single of Mika Nakashima (中島 美嘉), and the first song in which she uses a stage name 'Nana starring Mika Nakashima' since she sung this while starring in a live-action movie called Nana, based off a manga of the same name. It's Mika's first rock song, and she is not without help from other prominent people in the industry; Hyde from the visual kei band L'Arc en Ciel composed the song for her, and the original manga artist Ai Yazawa wrote the lyrics.
Mika was born in Kyushu on February 19, 1983 and grew up in a small town there called Hioki. Her break into the music industry began when she was 17 and accidentally attended an audition without knowing what it was for. This landed her a first acting-cum-singer role in a TV drama, Kizudarake no Love Song (傷だらけのラブソング), in which she was the lead actress and the singer of its theme song 'Stars'. Stars became a best-selling single in 2001, and so were most of her subsequent singles released over the next few years. To date she has 32 singles (a lot are used in Japanese drama series) and several compilation albums to her name. She also won three 'Best New Artist' awards in three different Japanese award ceremonies, all in 2002. A rising star indeed.
Now more about the song itself. As soon as it was featured in the Nana film in 2005, the Glamorous Sky single released in the same period flew off the racks and to date is Mika's only number one hit on the Oricon Singles Charts, selling an impressive 423000 copies in the remaining months of 2005 alone, making it the top selling female single in Japan for that year and 10th overall in the world. It was so impactful that you've probably played a rendition of this song in at least one other rhythm game; it was included in the songlists of both Guitarfreaks and Drummania V3 from Konami, and Ouendan 2 from iNiS.
Despite Glamorous Sky being a generally awesome song and a mega hit at that, it was seen in no more than one generation of Taiko no Tatsujin, and is limited to only arcade Taiko 8 and Taiko PS2 Rokudaime (licensing probably had something to do with it). Don't be misled by the low Oni rating; if you are lucky enough to be able to play this, it would give even the toughest of modern 6* Oni songs a run for their money. Ever had a song of this low difficulty throw a 9-note stream at you, or changing combinations of basic clusters? It's more difficult than the top 5* bigwigs Linda Linda and Sobakasu (putting it into perspective, this song was upped to 6* Oni on Taiko 0) and is recognized as the most difficult 5* Oni to full combo, and also the one with the highest max combo ever (higher than even the record-holding My Mine (635 combo) for the 6* Oni tier!). The song is also rather long so stamina also becomes a key factor. It's a great obstacle for budding experts, and even for the top players it is still a decent song to relax to.
