Song of the Week! 28 October 2017

Another double-header Anime feature hits our shores! Let's take a gander at both the (recent) past and the future of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise.

 Cerulean (セルリアン) Gundam Build Fighters Try

Version
All	x4 (147)	x5 (222)	x5 (300)	x7 (434)

 Taiko Wii U 2, Taiko Ps Vita
 196
 none
 gdmbld


From its former roots as an Anime-linked toy maker, Bandai's name has been built upon the profitability of the figure-oriented merchandise coming from Sunrise's long-running science fiction, mecha-based Gundam (ガンダム) series, resulting into the later port of Gundam songs into Taiko gaming as early as the series's very first arcade release. With modern-day sales figures revealing that the popular Gunpla (ガンプラ, portmanteau identifying the many plastic Gundam model lines) make up 90% of the Japanese character plastic-model market, why don't give some relevance of this merchandise-y side of the Gundam franchise?

That thought process might have crossed the minds of the series's top men as well, as part of the franchise's 35th anniversary celebrations resulted into the release of a Gundam Anime series that is about Gunpla fighting models in more contemporary times! Released in 2013, Gundam Build Fighters (ガンダムビルドファイターズ) is a 25-episode series that is set after the 2nd popularity boom of the Gunpla figurines, during whose times have also emerged dedicated competitions where Gunpla owners battle other oppenents' models with their own remote-controlled fighter, in the so-called Gunpla Battle tournaments. With ties to other series/products in the general Gundam franchise, Build Fighters had a 25-episode sequel series in 2014, called Gundam Build Fighters Try (ガンダムビルドファイターズトライ); both seasons also had Original Animation specials to be aired after their run's end, as well as light novel adaptations.

Cerulean is the first opening theme of Builder Fighters Try, composed by the Avex Trax rock band BACK-ON. Formed in 2002 and in activity still today, both as the act itself and as part of the newly-formed BAReeeeeeeeeeN (バリーン) unit with the members of GReeeeN, BACK-ON has been in charge of the opening/insert themes of both Gundam Builder Fighters series.

Shika@ni～San (しか@に～さん) of the Taiko Team was the man in charge of Cerulean's charts, with an average-tier 7* Oni with more Kat notes overall (approx. 55% of the total note count). The song is a console exclusive to this day, with all its releases being gated behind DLC-based shenanigans.

 Groovy Duel Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt

Version
All	x3 (85)	x5 (185)	x7 (289)	x10 (655)

 Taiko 0 Y to 0 B
 140.7-148.6
 none
 ???


For a look at the "more-traditional" side of the Gundam franchise, here's instead the latest upcoming song release, spawned from the Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (機動戦士ガンダム サンダーボルト) series.

Penned by mangaka Yasuo Ohtagaki (太田垣康男) from March 2012, Thunderbolt is a manga spin-off whose event succession is chronologically set in motion during and after the events of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series from 1979, during the year Universal Century 0079. The conflict between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon is still going strong, but the pivotal battlefield on focus, this time around, is a shoal zone littered with debris from destroyed space colonies, dubbed the "Thunderbolt Sector" due to the frequent electrical discharges that said space junk generate over time. As the Zeon forces have secured the Thunderbolt Sector as a vital supply route, the Earth federation sends out the Moore Brotherhood spaceship with four of the best Gundam fighters in order to snag the strategic location away from the clutches of the renowned Zeon sniper Daryl Lorenz.

Counting 9 tankobon releases to this day and an English localization project issued by Viz Media, the Gundam Thunderbolt spin-off has been later on picked up by Sunrise to be ported online as an ONA (Original Net Animation), divided in two seasons of 4 episodes each. Both seasons of the Thunderbolt web-based adaptation have been also edited altogether as two compilation movies: June 2016's Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt: December Sky (機動戦士ガンダム サンダーボルト) and the newly-announced Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower (機動戦士ガンダム サンダーボルト BANDIT FLOWER), which is going to make its debut later this year between November 18th and December 1st.

Roughly one week before the BANDIT FLOWER movie's theatrical debut, the song Groovy Duel from the MSG Thunderbolt series was added to Yellow Version arcades as part of a mini-collaboration with the Gundam Thunderbolt lore. In said series, it's played during the 2nd season's 2nd episode and it was composed/performed by Ai Kuwabara (桑原あい) and Rei Yamada (山田玲).

After the Ultraman-related tunes, this is the first Anime song in the current rating standard to warrant a 10-star Oni, with an Oni mode whose compound cluster blend is not that much dissimilar to other modern Taiko challenges such as No Gravity's Oni. It can also bolster the shortest-interval-between-notes feat among the Anime genre's songs, trumping the also-recent Ura Oni for Mezase Pokemon Master -20th Anniversary-. Sharing a (dubious) milestone with J-Pop piece Telecastic fake show, this is yet another 10-star Oni license that has been effectively removed from the official Taiko series as a whole, with no other console game thus far bearing Groovy Duel after its removal from Blue Version's song list.

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Today's double-feature is also a means for us to recon a mistake we made for last week's Taiko x Gundam Thunderbolt collaboration announcement (link). On that instance, we stated that Groovy Duel was a song coming from the Bandit Flower movie, when in actuality it's part of the Thunderbolt ONA's second season score.

Welp, it could have gone worse, I suppose. I mean, it's not like some overly-lazy pundit on the Internet has been up to steal that article without credit mentions and keeping up that mistake, alongside some less-intelligible English writing than my usual typos... Right?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)