The Chinese New Year celebrations are drawing close once again! It's a perfect occasion for us to do yet another double feature about some of the elder Asian Taiko arcades' exclusive tracks.
Xiao Maolu (小毛驢)| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x1 (???) | x2 (???) | x4 (???) | x7 (322) |
Taiko 11 Asian, 12 Asian
100
none
???Starting on safe grounds, here's one of the Children/Fol songs that is shared in both Taiko 11 and 12's Asian counterparts! Xiao Maolu (lit. 'Little Donkey') is a nursery rhyme coming from the Shaanxi (陕西) Province's popular culture, with its historical roots still shrouded in mystery and passed on between generation by word of mouth. By telling the story of taking a donkey to the fair, the song's lyrics play on the different pronunciations that the many Chinese varieties can give to the same words in similar contexts. making the language differences noticeable by actual pronunciation rather than by reading the lyrics on a sheet of paper.
The popular children song on Taiko fares with a drumroll-less Oni challenge consisting of many slow clusters of varying dimensions. Since the video above also comes from one of our staff members, feel free to stop by and say hi!
Tan Tan Taan! (タンタンターン！) Kirarin Revolution| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x3 (???) | x4 (???) | x5 (???) | x7 (342) |
Taiko 12 Asian 130 none ???For another version-exclusive trend, the Asian version of Taiko 12 featured some exclusive Anime tracks from Japanese Anime series who already got some of the related tracks on the main Japanese Taiko arcade line (or at the same time with the Asian ones), pairing some already-spread tracks from popular series with something that still holds up as territorial-exclusive Taiko songs.
Among the exclusive Anime songs we can find Tan Tan Taan, the 7th opening theme of the Kirarin☆Revolution (きらりん☆レボリューション, lit. 'Sparkling Revolution') series. The original manga by An Nakahara (中原杏) has been serialized for 5 years on the Ciao magazine since March 2004, telling the story of 14-years old Kirari Tsukishima. She's a food-obsessed girl who is clueless about how a love relation works; however, after the encounter with the idol male boy Seiji from the fictional unit SHIPS, Kirari aspires to become a top idol in order to have a chance of dating him.
Among the series-related merchandise, Kirarin Revolution has had an handful of videogames for Nintendo DS by Konami, as well as a special Tamagotchi model with Kirari's pet cat, Naa-san. For the Anime series' last stretch, the name of the show was changed into Kirarin Revolution STAGE3, featuring new voice actors and 3D animation in hi-quality graphics.
Another noticeable addition for the STAGE3 serialization was the foundation of MilkyWay (ミルキィウェイ), an idol unit joining Up-Front Group's"Hello! Project" idol project that consists of Morning Musume member/soloist Koharu Kusumi (久住小春) and Kirarin Revolution dubbers Sayaka Kitahara (北原沙弥香) and You Kikkawa (吉川友), providing the voices for Noel Yukino and Koeni Hanasaki. The MilkyWay idol unit is also responsible for the STAGE3 portion's Opening and ending themes, such as Anataboshi (also on Taiko games since the 12th installment) and the Asian-exclusive Tan Tan Taan, both of which also managed to become commercially-released singles, with the latter's single getting released in October 2008 and peaking 8th in the Oricon weekly charts.
Featuring an almost-specular amount of Don and Kat notes (with the Kat ones taking the crown), smaller clusters are the main feature for this slow-paced song, with a more prominent preference to note couples and hit-balloons in the Go-Go Time section.
