Today's featured track is the latest release of the top-difficulty 10-star Oni chain to grace both arcades and console players! I'm talking, of course, about...
Dangan Notes (ダンガンノーツ) coSmo@BousouP| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x5 (223) | x7 (338) | x8 (503) | x10 (923) |
Taiko 0 B, Taiko PS4 (DLC), Taiko Switch 2 (Music Pass), Taiko xBox (DLC), Taiko RC, Taiko iOS/STH (discontinued)
105-210
none
csmdngThe nick-named cosMo@Bousou-P (cosMo@暴走P), already heard of in Taiko lore for the once-Namco-Original remix of his Vocaloid hit Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu and the SDVX crossover song Kyokuken, had its first 'proper' commissioned Namco Original song released for the Blue Version players, quickly ascending to the status of boss song alongside the '2000' songs and many other super-hard hurdles before it. Like for most of the former boss tracks in Taiko history, Dangan Notes' coming was anticipated by key events, although one might argue its coming to light wasn't fully intended by the Taiko games crew as it played out...
During the Blue Version firmware's lifespan, several newcoming Namco Original songs were occasionally released at a week's end, without any update/Rewards Shop rotation or other events of sorts. The first round of these sudden reveals has happened starring this song and Kaneko Chiharu's Ai WANT U, with official preview clips in Bandai Namco's channel on June 29th, 2018. That, apparently, was not the intended date for the two clips to be displayed, as they were quickly removed in the same day in a matter of seconds! We can tell this tale thanks to other Taiko fans reporting the odd episode and reposting the previews on their channels (our coverage of that here), with the official clips of the songs re-appearing on Bandai Namco's channel weeks later (Dangan Notes's has returned on July 17th, for a quick reference).
Flash-forward to a few months later and Dangan Notes has already managed to get a console game port in Session de Dodon ga Don/Drum Session, thanks to the overwhelming contribution of Japanese and General-Asia Taiko fans, who made it become the most voted song for the Pittari Song 4 U campaign. The top-placement scored by the song in the DLC-suggestion poll has made it so to become the third of the 6-Donder-Pack purchase bonus song for packs 13 to 18, succeeding to the former purchase bonus picks Infinite Rebellion and Taiko Drum Monster. That, however, is a reality for the Asia-leaning players alone; as of this post's original writing, Dangan Notes is one of the few DLC songs that is not available in either of the European and North American versions of the game, as of its launch. With the passage of time on our side, not only we can tell the endeavour was replicated worldwide, but even on most of the West-localized Taiko romps to boot, too! An "Extend Version" of the song was released for the cosMo@BouSouP Instrumental Collection vol.2 (cosMo@暴走Pインストコレクション vol.2) album of 2018, premiering at that same year's Comiket 94.
On September 2022, several years after Dangan Notes' debut, the song has received its own official upload, courtesy of the same coSmo@BousouP uploading it on his own channel (link). It stars one of the composer's original characters Noa, one kid who can also be seen on previous song MVs of the same author: 2013's Shonen Noa to PHI no Kaigo (少年ノアとΦの邂逅) starring GUMI and 2016's full-instrumental Sekainoowari ni Aimashou (世界の終わりに逢いましょう). A correlation between the latter song and Dangan Notes is also hinted at by the same author, not only due to the same drum 'n' bass approach but also via their respective upload descriptions, both starring the inquiry (in Japanese) of "What if piano notes rained down all over the world from the skies, like bullets?"
Bearing the visual flairs of Variety pick Asteroid between scrolling mixtures and trippy barlines/seemingly-overlapping small drumrolls, Dangan Notes' Oni chart is not one for the faint of heart, with its repeating set of note clusters mainly drawing combinations from the 1/16 tempo pool, with some 1/24 mono-color spikes and some 1/12 eyecandy with big and small notes of opposing colors quickly alternating from each other.
This, however, is not what made it for the song's true test of skills...
Dangan Notes (ダンガンノーツ) coSmo@BousouP| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | - | - | - | x10 (1167) |
Taiko 0 B, Taiko PS4 (DLC), Taiko Switch 2 (Music Pass), Taiko xBox (DLC), Taiko RC, Taiko iOS/STH (discontinued) 105-210 none csmdngThe third song in the current rating standard to do the following after Souryuu no Ran and 8OROCHI, Dangan Notes is a song that made its Day 1 debut with a top-difficulty chart set, as well as the inclusion of a 10-star Ura Oni from the get-go. Also together with the two songs mentioned earlier and Black Rose Apostle, it's currently the 4th song overall to have both a 10-star regular Oni and a 10-star Ura counterpart!
What sets apart this song's extra difficulty layer, aside for the really generous note quantity, lies in how it's peppered all throughout the song, following the same 'freeform' approach of mixed note clusters in a number of different tempos (mostly juggling between 1/16 and 1/24) that can also be found in the Ura Oni of Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu -Gekijouban- ... except that said approach is commonplace for almost the entirety of the chart, as opposed to a couple of song-ending spooks! Little to no eyecandy-features from the Kantan-to-Oni notechart set are to be found: it's just the player and this fearsome note salad. Are you a bad enough dude to live to its end?
