Pretender Official HIGE DANdism| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x2 (57) | x2 (80) | x4 (169) | x5 (311) |
Taiko N
92
none
???We're finally wandering into uncharted Nijiiro Version territory, here on Song of the Week! This track here was one of the few debut pieces that was playable at the JAEPO preview event earlier this year, before officially stepping in as one of the 4th arcade Taiko generation's licensed frontrunners.
Originally launched as a single on May 15th, 2019, this is the second piece from the J/Brit-pop band Official Hige Dandism (Official髭男dism), founded in July 2012 by a quartet of university students. Lead singer/percussionist/keyboarder Satoshi Fujihara (藤原聡) from the Shimane University got in touch with three more people for the act during the studying year: a couple of members from his same light music club in bassist Makoto Narazaki (楢﨑誠), Masaki Matsuura (松浦匡希) -respectively senior and junior members- as well as guitarist Daisuke Ozasa (小笹大輔), a good friend of Satoshi outside the university grounds. The band's title-giving godfather was Narasaki, with the idea of having an important-sounding name for the act; while the 'Official' in there bears no particular meaning, the 'Hige' (=Beard in JP) name portion was picked for the members' wish to keep on making exciting music even when they'll eventually grow so old to have beards on their own (kinda funny, considering how in 2020 none of the members have their own beard yet!). All the founding members of Official Hige Dandism are still sticking together to this day, in an act where everyone's a music procuder and there's no leader role appointed to anyone in order to let their music-creation opinions to be shared in an equal footing.
After 5 years as an indie act signed to the Lastrum Music Entertainment label, Official Hige Dandism eventually made it to perform under a major house with Pony Canyon, under whose partnership was released the song Pretender, also used as a theme for a movie titled The Confidence Man JP. This track's tentative title was 'Goodbye My Romance' (グッバイマイロマンス) and was released roughly seven months after their past work (Stand By Me's Extended Play), only to gather many an accolade in the following years. Not only this is the band's first physical single to break into Oricon's weekly chart sales (peaking 9th at its launch), but it also managed to rise to the top in 2019's Billboard Japan Hot 100 yearly chart, as well as setting the bar insanely high on the streaming charts of both Oricon and Billboard Japan. With 12 consecutive weeks staying at the streaming share top position, Pretender is the current consecutive-peaks holder in all of Japanese music to date, ousting the very same Marigold that was our spotlighted Song of the Week last Saturday!
As you may tell from the video recording embeded above, the gods of digital audio distortion are at work once again, as Taiko gaming has adopted the original version of the song. Lots of mono-color consecutive clusters between doubles and tribles are sure to entertain its players with yet another slow ballad among the cyan-colored song genre successor to the J-Pop naming. Many a version of this song is available in foreign music game shores as well, with the original appearing in jubeat and maimai plus a couple of custom covers for GITADORA and Nostalgia.
Gurenge (紅蓮華) Kimetsu no Yaiba| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x2 (46) | x2 (74) | x3 (141) | x6 (291) |
Taiko 0 G, Taiko PS4, Taiko Switch, Taiko Switch RPG, Taiko + 135 Anime -> Anime/Kids kimetuDrawing another parallel with last week's SotW, here's another licensed track that has already made the rounds of all the currently-active Taiko games on arcade/console/mobile front... including the already-existing Nintendo Switch title as part of its collective DLC lineup! Performed by LiSA of many a Sword Art Online theme fame, Gurenge is the opening theme of the Anime series Kimetsu no Yaiba (lit. 'Blade of Demon Destruction'), based on the manga of the same name by Koyoharu Gotōge (吾峠呼世晴) whose serialization on Shonen Jump started in 2016 and ended on May this year.
Set in Japan's Taisho-era, this is a story set in a world where humans can forfeit their humanity in order to turn themselves into powerful demons for their gain. In one demon rampage to a mountain village, the young Tanjiro Kamado has survived a fierce assault in which all of his family was killed with the exception of her sister Nezuho, which was turned into a demon instead. After encountering the demon slayer Giyū Tomioka, Tanjiro is made aware of the existence of an underground team whose aim is demon extermination, joining such organization -the Demon Slayer Corps- as a means to comprehend the truth behind his family tragedy while also looking for a way to lift his sister's curse. As of the manga's completion in May 2020, Kimetsu no Yaiba managed to be one of the eight Shonen Jump series whose sales surpassed the 100 million copies worldwide, between the physical and digital shares. Ufotable's Anime transposition -covering the first 52 chapters- also received an overwhelmingly positive feedback, both leading to a trio of manga spin-offs and other projects concerning the main series, including thus far a movie in 2019, a stage play and a mobile gacha game the year after and a PlayStation 4 videogame release slated for 2021.
Composed by Kayono Kusano (草野華余子) and arranged by Ryo Eguchi (江口亮), this rock-styled theme also popped up on GITADORA after its Taiko debut. Oni chart-wise, what I've said about Pretender is 100% applicable for this chart here, only under a more sustained tempo.
