For the last feature of the year, our pick's title will mimic the same question that plenty of people of all ages have been asking themselves when getting any knid of wraped package for Christmas!
Say with me now...
What's in the box? Ujico*| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x3 (100) | x5 (150) | x7 (300) | x10 (750) |
Taiko 0 G
227
none
???In the the same year that Taiko gaming greeted one of his most popular works, Keitaro Ujiie (キータロ ウジーイ) also supplied the currently-ongoing arcade line with an original instrumental track, one of the 5 tunes which entered the scene as a AI Battle Performance-gated unlock.
Donning the same alias that was used for his Taiko-debut work Kokorobo, this is a song where all of its game modes sport a Max Combo notecount that is a multiple of 50, from Kantan to Oni. However, exclusive to the hardest difficulty setting (aside from the max-star difficulty rank) is a different BPM/scrolling speed treatment which -unlike the KFM set running at 113.5 BPM- gets its native value doubled up while also halving the scrolling speed of the song, for yet another DEBSTEP!- affine chart where the difficulty bump is all into the player's chart-reading skills on low scrolling values. Note cluster combinations are considerably easier to the formerly-mentioned CreoFUGA song's Oni chart general mood, so a cool head might lead newcomers sooner to a song clear, or even a FC attempt.
Taking a page from Namco Original FooFoo Cassette, the song's ending beats are punctuated by stanza-separator barlines with no notes on them that reach the marker on time for each beat.
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We've all had our festive fun, and the December celebration times are close to an end yet again. With that said, I still have some more "Wish List" song picks from a number of different people, laying on the cutting room floor for some weeks by now... Why wait one more year to cover those?
Let's have our last hurrah with what arguably is the most bombastic mix yet!
BLOCKS SPARKER/beatmania IIDX 141IIDX-cember is not going down without a fight! For the last time, a beatmania IIDX is under the spotlight for this post-SotW project, as requested by Taiko no Tatsujin Discord moderator (and Nue arrange appreciator) Sayaka.
The all-caps nick for this IIDX 11 RED track's creator might be unique, but it's in fact a name we've heard a couple weeks back! Indeed, the man in charge for BLOCKS was Takehiko Fujii (藤井岳彦), taking the alias for his KEYBOARDMANIA songs and a bunch of other tracks that appeared in both beatmania series, including REFERENCE (from IIDX 7th style) and BREATH, which premiered alongside the very same BLOCKS' debut IIDX arcade. Most notorious in the online fandom, however, was the song's existence as part of an inside joke due to humurous mispellings that have left their mark into fan-driven contests altogether, from the title becoming BLCOKS to its song genre and artist credit transmorphing into TRNACE and SPRAKER!
In official Bemani fandom, two are the main remarkable notions about this intrumental track: it was the very first song since the introduction of level-12 Another Single charts to have its max-difficulty Another chart re-rated to a Lv.11 and it received a remix version from Shu Okuyama from the S2TB unit, who later went on to also make music for Capcom's CROSSxBEAT series (OKONIKUKOD).
Yakko's Universe AnimaniacsOur wish train has been going strong for this peculiar line of features... and wonder of all wonders, it's not entirely due to staffers alone! A comment from HerbietheLoveBug4Ever of a few weeks back has brought us to talk about some American-driven animation cold hit once more, which we're labeling with the generic 'Anime' umbrella genre as we've done about a certain 'boy genius' a few years ago.
Created by Tom Ruegger, Animaniacs was one of the first shows created as a collaborative effort between Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and the Warner Bros. Animation branch, resulting into a roughly-100-episodes variety series that was originally broadcast between 1994 and 1998. With the Warner studios' headquarters in California being the main dropout location starring the three Warner dog brothers Yakko, Wakko and Dot, this was an animated skit-based series which featured a wide array of characters, some of which inspiring the creation of dedicated mini-series in the later years (most notably, Pinky and the Brain). Associated to the series are also a number of videogames released between PC and home/portable consoles spanning up until the year 2005, as well as a series revival project, which is expected to go live in 2020.
Yakko's Universe is an insert song from the show's third episode, primarily starring the voice of Yakko's VA (Rob Paulsen) with some backing-up action from Jess Harnelle and Tress MacNeille (Wakko and Dot Warner respectively). The song has been heavily inspired by Eric Idle's Galaxy Song (of Monty Pyton fame, no less!) and was composed by Randy Rogel, already a famed TV series composer for his works in Batman: The Animated Series. While under the assumption of making a planets-themed song, Rogel worked out the song's first lyrics set to reflect that, up until being made aware by the staffers that another artist was already making a planets-themed song (The Planets), so he had to change the original third verse (and part of its chorus). Later on, Yakko's Universe was featured in one of the show's Christmas-themed episodes, and the original lyrics set was performed live as part of a special event for Rob Paulsen's podcast (Talking Toons) in August 2012.
Akari ga Yatte Kita Zot (アカリがやってきたぞっ) GYARI/Cocoa Cigarette-PWe've seen some strange requests from a lot of people, but funnily enough the only one I forgot to talk about up now... was mine! After that huge sea of Bemani talk, I can't drown you into another sea of 573 shenanigans yet again
Under the title translatable as "Akari Has Arrived", this is a song who premiered online on September 22nd, 2018 by the crafty hands of comic artist/Vocaloid producer Cocoa Cigarette-P (ココアシガレットＰ). More known nowadays under the GYARI nick handle, this is an artist that is active in the indie synth voice scene since April 2008, becoming popular for his quirk to both make songs and their related videos to go along with, hitting new highs by the adoption of the scribbling style featured in this song and many of his former works.
This onomatopoeia-based tune features the voice of the VOCALOID4-series Kizuna Akari (紲星あかり) voice bank, provided by Madoka Yonezawa (米澤円). While the white-haired Vocaloid's attempts in her official song video above to grab the attention of a gaming-focused Yuzuki Yukari are proven fruitless, it sure has made its voice heard all around the world, considering that it was heard more that 10 million times on Youtube alone, as of December 2019! Not only that, it already has been subject to the music-game treatment, seeing as Akari ga Yatte Kita Zot managed to become playable in five different series thus far: maimai, CHUNITHM, jubeat, WACCA and Groove Coaster!
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And with that, we're really done with Song of the Week for 2019! See you in 2020 for more weekly song trivia silliness and to all of you, happy holidays!
Padoru Padoru Fate/Extra
