With this week's feature, we're finally done with the past contest-winning Namco Original entries... and one month in advance of the CreoFUGA website's shutdown, too!
Once again, today's artist on the spotlight has had his road paved to Taiko fame thanks to his first contest-winning piece, going out in far greater lengths than just one or two comebacks along the years!
Aisowarai (愛想笑い) Kaneko Chiharu| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x5 (185) | x6 (308) | x7 (445) | x8 (600) |
Taiko 0 S, Taiko Wii U2, Taiko +, CD CC-6
173-174.29
none
aisowrStraight from the 2013 contest, this is a song from a composer who arguably struck gold the biggest among all CF champions due to a contest-winning entry, tallying so far an additional six subsequent tracks lot to this day in the Namco Original genre. Did we cover him up for last due to such lineage? I'd say "partly" but, as you will see, that's definitely not the main reason for that...
Kaneko Chiharu (かねこちはる)'s Aisowarai (lit. 'Fake Laugh') passed the Taiko Team test with flying colors, conquering the simpaty of Taiko Team notecharter Kawamoto Yoshinori (川元義徳氏) just like Netemo Netemo on a double front: it's lyrics set -with punchy lyrics and a cute singing voice- and its rhythm changes that make the song's key point strike the more as unique and tailor-fit for Taiko gameplay shenanigans. On the CreoFUGA website, however... that's all that we can scoop up about it! This is our last stop in our CF journey, in fact, due to the original entry getting deleted by the creator himself shortly after the final results' announcement, possibly due to the track being signed under an early alias for the author -Chiharu ver.9.1.7 (ちはるver.9.1.7)- that really didn't jam that much on him, before settling to the Kaneko Chiharu alias he's been notorious in general music gaming talk with afterwards.
The only trace left by the song on the contest-oriented website that has seen its premiere is on the last bit of CreoFUGA knowledge we have left to share with you: a 49-seconds clip that was posted on the Taiko Team's official account on the website. Under the 'Taiko Team Staff (太鼓チームスタッフ)' CF user profile, in fact, have been posted a selection of chorus clips from CF contest winners at a reduced bit rate before their adoption into Taiko games, predating the Youtube preview trend by a number of years. Not a lot of tracks have been featured here, however, as clips from Aisowarai and four more songs from the very first contest (Koi no Shohosen, Dokidoki Mune Kyun Omatsuri Time, Kaze no Kuni no Ryuu to Kishi and Hanaoto Ura Hyoushi) have been the only ones to get such a treatment.
For the longest time, Kaneko Chiharu has been quite shy from sharing informations and stories about his real persona on the Internet, up to the point that not even the identity of the singer for Aisowarai and a couple more tracks of his creation (G Ishiki Kayou and Shounin YokkQ) were a question mark so blank that we've even had to speculate that Kaneko was the female vocalist for those as well! Years went by ever since and (some of) the picture is being revealed, with the vocalist/lyricist herself coming out on social media as such: Yuki Shizaki (紫崎雪) (Twitter). Aside another singing role for a Kaneko Chiharu song Hawawa w! Na Tenkai! (はわわw！な展開っ) from SOUND VOLTEX, this also-secretive artist has left a bigger mark in bemani music gaming role by often supporting the nicknamed VALLEYSTONE as the singer of his songs, which were also adopted into SDVX along the years as well (among these, Lovesick Lovetune and HEAVENLY SMILE).
As we've also seen last week, Kawagen Collagen is one charter who's used to chart the tracks that he has elected to victory in the CF contests where he fit the judge's shoes, and Aisowarai was no exception. A lot of chained small clusters (and handswitch-focused clusters on top of that) are the main guarantees of a not-stale time with its Oni notechart, despite the stanza repetitions. With nearly the same amount of Don and Kat notes being thrown into the mix (299 Don and 301 Kats, specifically), there's one song that will keep your drum's center and rims as equally busy as the other!
Kaidan (χ談) Kaneko Chiharu| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x5 (143) | x7 (245) | x8 (350) | x10 (550) |
Taiko 0 Y, Taiko PS4, Taiko +, CD CC-6 145-270 none kaidanWhile Kaneko Chiharu was had its commissioned fame via more female-vocal pieces, the artist managed to break the mold among the competition in several song contests aimed for new submission to the SOUND VOLTEX games, making it with a selection of full-instrumental speed demons (including Lachryma《Re:Queen’M》 and ILLness LiLin, among many) that would eventually lead to the status of commissioned artist for that series as well as the short-lived MÚSECA with Bolérrot and Zettaireiddo (絶対零度). With the coming of the Yellow Version, the Taiko no Tatsujin series would eventually had a taste of this flavor of Kaneko Chiharu as well, with this song starting the trend as a seasonal Rewards Shop unlockable.
The origin story of the song was supplied by Kaneko himself for one of the Taiko no Tatsujin official blog's posts (link), where he also stated his fond appreciation of Etou. You see, the Taiko Team leader wanted a Summer-.themed song to close Yellow Version's Summer Rewards Shop lineup of newcomers, and to that end he ended up asking to Kawagen Collagen for it to happen. Kawagen, in turn, asked Kaneko Chiharu for a song to fit such billing, ending up on a 'really scary and cool' song, so scary to make a great deal of his comment section a lot of 'scary' word repetitions! If you look closely at that blog post's peculiar paragraph, there are a few Kanji letters mixed in the 'こわい's in there, which taken out singularly and read in succession just come out as 'Thank you, Kaneko Chiharu' (かねこちはるさんありがとこわう). Talk about a wordy hidden message!
The first font in the song's short title is the Greek letter of 'Chi', which in this title is read as 'Kai', forming with the Kanji font the Katakana word Kaidan (かいだん) that in Kanji equal's meaning means 'Stairway'. This, however, is not an ascent/descent-only trip for those daring Oni players; the aggressive main BPM marking makes a lot of the song a commonplace trend of the Go-Go Time stanza threats inside Swan Lake's Ura Oni mode with its long single-note portions and several mono-color small clusters. Add into the mix several stamina-draining cluster spikes and a half-sped, half-scrolling threat a-la DEBSTEP! and you pretty much got a textbook pamphlet of how crazy the third Taiko generation's charting gimmicks can go, with the most fitting conditions available!
