Just in time for Christmas, here's our usual, image-based recap of the previous livestream, both with pictures from the Taiko Team's twitter page and directly snapped by us. Let's begin!
First things first, Etou gives out the answers of the mini notecharter quiz that has been the topic of December 11th's blog entry. Turns out that the mysterious song being charted by Etou is Yami Mahou Shojo (again, mainly featuring newcomer notecharter Shika@ni~san), while the notecharter of Idolm@ster song Jibun REST@RT turned out to be charter veteran Kuboken.
On with the regular schedule! After listing this stream's goals for the Comments Challenge (all being unlocked during its course, obviously), we jump on to the Meiji x Taiko collaboration.
There's nothing much new to the event since the last time: Banapassport players can both choice a faction to score points for during the event and gain new Kigurumi outfit parts by scanning a box of Meiji sweets before playing. The event's website also had brief online games on it!
At the time of the stream, in the campaign's first 4 days the Bamboo Shoot faction has lead the crowd in every single Japanese prefecture, so Etou and Masubutchi temporarily joined the Mushroom faction in order to balance things out for the day with one of the recent IOSYS songs, with the Taiko Team leader playing on Oni and his supporter playing Muzukashii with one hand. Ouch!
After the Taiko Team attempt of restoring the balance between the two factions, it's time for some arcade announcements. Aside from the already-known content from the latest software update, new events and surprises are upon Banapassport players, starting with a new Donder Hiroba tourney.
The Winter Festival 2014 gives players the opportunity to challenge every Japanese players in three different divisions, featuring the Futsuu division for the first time! Started the day after the stream, the tourney ends today.
International Taiko players have the opportunity to join the Oni division as well, but the whole thing is shifter to a dedicated Facebook community, where players have to bring photo evidence of their high scores (complete with Banapassport-registered data, of course). The Asian division for the Winter Festival runs from December 18th to the 28th.
Now on to January 2015's new unlocks. The DonChare song from the month will be the very first t+pazolite song for Taiko games, which has been illustrated later in this very stream! The January '15 2-part outfit is the Geisha, achievable only next month through both arcade plays and the Rewards Shop.
The last thing mentioned on this subject is the recent Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls content, but since we already know (and got) what the Taiko side of the collab consists of, there's nothing left to say about it. Next!
After the Kimidori Version talk, we have our much anticipated guest corner time! The first one to join the Taiko Team is Tatsuya "Zeami/Tatsh" Shimizu, coming with a strange sign on his back...
A closer look to the illustration and everything is clear: before the new song talk there is a small advertisement for his next album, FRONTIER, which includes what looks to be a new spin of the Taiko no Tatsujin song Yuugen no Ran. We remind you that the album will reach the stores next week, on December 30th.
The FRONTIER promotion is followed by the discussion about the third and possibly last 'no Ran' song, together with the stream's viewers. At the end of the talk, it has been decided that the song will have these features:
- Japanese-Sounding
- Instrumental, Dark Hardcore-inspired
- Oni mode rated as 9*, but chart closer to a 10*
This was one of the polls which took place about the name particle of the song:
With the poll results and an idea of what themes should follow for his new song, Zeami/Tatsh leaves the scene, closely followed by the introduction of t+pazolite. Give him a warm welcome, everyone!
The Taiko Team interview to this newcomer is quickly followed by the reveal of his first Taiko song's name: Shiny Kung-fu Revival! Again, this song will be January 2015's DonChare reward.
In order to celebrate its reveal, t+pazolite heads towards the room's Taiko machine in order to play its Muzukashii mode. However, things don't go along quite well, as the room is being owered off in the middle of the play. What a pity! The accident makes t+pazolite leaving the stream shortly after.
Now, here's a shocker: against what has been said before, the incoming stream guests actually managed to come in, in spite of just providing a brief video clip from them. With that said, here are the two girls from the unit Tanqun! ... sorta.
As it tuned out, the Tanqun girls themselves didn't manage to come in for the stream, so their producers joined the fun instead with videos and drawings from them. Here's a selection of what they have made for the Taiko Team!
From the top to the bottom we have one of Tanqun's ideas for the Girls Pop Mania's album art, their two twin cats and a Meiji-inspired drawing of what team they are supporting. The underdog team is having a lot of appreciation!
Among the miscellaneous stuff being poured during the interview, here's a nice piece of trivia that links Tanqun with the Taiko no Tatsujin franchise even further. For the early-2000 clay-nimation show about Taiko no Tatsujin, Tanqun have sung the Taiko brothers' birthday song that can be heard in the show's very last episode. Interesting,isn't it?
Before leaving, Tanqun's producers stated that Taiko games in 2015 may have the chance to see yet another song from Tanqun, possibly for the J-Pop genre.
This leads to our last guest appearance for the stream, closing the Girls Pop Mania circle as well. Meet the composing unit Phenotas!
Though if their contribution to the Taiko franchise isn't as early as of Tanqun's, they're super glad that one of their songs managed to become a playable tune for the series! As the interview went on, the lead singer showed a couple of drawings about her idea for the Girls Pop Mania album and Pheontas' orientation towards the Meiji Taiko collab's teams, with two bamboo shoots out of three!
Before leaving, Phenotas' bassist and singer played their own song on Taiko for fun's sake, with the former failing its Oni mode (but give him an A for the attempt, it's not that easy for a 9* Oni) and the latter barely passing its Muzukashii mode.
After that, this guy appears. You already know whatdoes this mean...
Of course you do: it's Taiko 3DS DLC talk time! Sasaoka wanted to state though that these two will be the last ones for the monthly-released pack series, consisting of both songs and extra Story mode chapters.
Coming out this Friday, December's DLC pack sees the return of the Dokon Gang for a Taiko-oriented Christmas special in the desert. As such, most of the songs in this pack are related to the scenery found! As stated before, both Jingle Bell No.765 and DESERT STORM change their genre to Namco Original for this particular pack.
The January DLC pack focuses instead around a festival being issued by Hana and Tetsuo, where a more sinister version of the Time Dyne Professor threatens the festive mood, and some more real-life members from the Taiko Team want another bit of spotlight... Try finding your favorite livestream personality in this last pack!
Released near the end of the month, this pack also holds a peculiar merit: all of its songs are somewhat related to the traditional Japanese festivals! After all, what you expect from an extra Story chapter called "Endless Matsuri"?
In other talk, we also have the pairings for the Namco Sounds x Touhou Project collaboration. Expect to hear more about these songs in the future!
After the 'main' online tournament reveal, the Taiko Team also wanted to mention the two, more sectorial ones that are about to begin soon: the World Hobby Fair '15 one and the Huis Ten Bosch Cup. We already introduced those in great detail before, so let's move on.
The team also had some spare time to introduce the Taiko x Last Boss collaboration for the first time. Prepare your outfit designs for singer Sachiko Kobayashi's song on Taiko , in order to have her dressed in the best ones for her songs in both arcades and Wii U!
Around this time, the 100k comments cap has been reached, leading the streamers to vote for a new title part. Despite the novelty of having a furimuki picture for a title part, the accident with t+pazolite's new song lead the victory to LivestreamAccident. Maybe next time, maybe next time.
This was followed by the final planned activity for this stream: playing the latest Taiko Wii U game with the latest luxury Tatacon model by HORI! In the image below, the guy on the left is a representative of said company, explaining in great detail its features.
For the grand finale, Zeami and t+pazolite came back in order to watch Etou and Takemoto playing Shiny Kung-fu Revival one more time, resulting into a smooth yet loudly confusing finale for 2014's last livestream session. See you next year, folks!
