...f**k it, we're doing the Wish List first
BabeL ～Grand Story～ Ako Atak/pop'n music
163Sit around for another bit of Storytime with Lokamp; in all these years that I've ever been a fan of the broader rhythm gaming sphere, this ending week has been the very first time in which the public release of a major installment into an arcade series of games was announced for the first time in one day... and then released the very next day after, straight out of the blue... and for quite the music game veteran, no less! As a way to celebrate the sudden drop of pop'n music Kaimei Riddles (pop'n music 解明リドルズ), I'm changing my own Wish List pick with what still is my favorite song from the entire series, anticipating its drop from December's last week. Even before our regularly-scheduled Taiko song feature too, this has to be done first!
Long-time Taiko Time readers might remember that I have quite the... embarassingly flattening admiration towards freelance musician Tsugumi Kataoka (片岡嗣実) and the amount of wonderful cheese he brought to the table with his own songs, up to the point of invading this very blog a few April Fools ago. One side of his musical portfolio we didn't cover enough back then is how his talent was also put into the creation of brilliant instrumental-only pieces as well, starting out on the pop'n music series and eventually branching with piano-lead creations that made their way into bemani's more-recent series Nostalgia, with the songs Dream of You and Datte! Brand-New Me!!. What to me, however, is the apex of his musical talent sits tall as one of the three final songs in the 19th pop'n music arcade entry (TUNE STREET), a crescendo of difficulty and emotion behind a tempestous tower's building that starts out with BabeL ～Grand Story～.
Behind the one-time alias of Ako Atak -the Romanized reading of the composer's surname, only spelt backwards- also lies the instrumental guitar work of two other giants in bemani music-making lore: Daichi 'PON' Watanabe (渡辺大地) and Daisuke '96' Kurosawa (黒沢大佑), back when he was an inhouse Konami musician. The same PON (as 'Power Of Nature') has also gone on with the second BabeL song's creation (BabeL ～Next Story～), while two more songs sit behind a similar nomenclature: the also-from-TUNE-STREET BabeL ～roof garden～ and, many years later, a Next Story remix going by the name of BabeL ～MODEL DD101～, using as its rival character the 2P palette of the Tower that was scrapped from its debut with the original song trilogy.
Despite this song didn't make the cut into the later-released boss song medley Popperz Chronicle with the other BabeL songs, Grand Story still garnered quite the lineage across the years, thanks to the port it received into the beatmania IIDX series' 24th entry (IIDX SINOBUZ) and to its many alternate/remixed versions that Tsugumi Kataoka has made across the years. Together with the other two songs in the original, Grand Story was remixed into the 19th pop'n music game OST's "ending theme" as BabeL ～Stairway to Heaven～; the updated release of the artist's Princess Piccolo album came with the jazz-styled arrangement titled Downward Spiral Stairs (下降螺旋階段), while later on a vocal and a piano arrangement for the song were released respectively on the track-name-giver Rasenkaiden (ラセンカイダン) and PUNCH-UP SYMPHONIA! albums, the latter bearing the name of BabeL Grand Story -Quadra Strings-.
Anpanman Taisou (アンパンマンたいそう)| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taiko 10; Taiko Anime 2 | x1 (67) | x2 (86) | x2 (291) | x3 (164) |
| Taiko 11-14; Taiko 0-0 R; Taiko DS2 | x1 (67) | x2 (86) | x3 (291) | x2 (164) |
| Taiko + | x1 (67) | x2 (86) | x2 (291) | x2 (164) |
| Taiko Wii 4 | x1 (60) | x2 (79) | x3 (291) | x2 (128) |
Taiko 10 to 14, 11 Asian, Taiko 0 to 0 R, Taiko Anime 2, Taiko DS 2, Taiko Wii 4, Taiko + 135
none
anp3 / anp3s (Wii4 only)Now that my inner fanboy has been put to rest, time for our regularly-scheduled buisness with a song from Taiko gaming, a request from chatbox user Yoshiko Yips. We've already talked about Go-Go Tamagotchi! as part of its Anime series showcase, one which we had to axe due to the really fun copyright claims we got for all Anime showcases a few years back, so hopefully this feature will make up for it!
Together with the also-on-Taiko Yuuki Rin Rin, Anpanman Taisou is one of the ending songs to the Soreike! Anpanman (それいけ!アンパンマン) children's show, starring the justice-donning Anpanman character we've already digressed on under the SotW spotlight, circa 8 years ago (link). Like great part of the songs that were made for the show, Anpanman Taisou's lyrics were penned by series creators Takashi Yanase (やなせたかし) and Tsutomu Uozumi (魚住勉), with the composing and arranging jobs being taken respectively by Koji Makaino (馬飼野康二) and Hiroaki Hondo (近藤浩章). The song's original singer was the nick-named CHA-CHA (Makaino's arranged version) while its current rendition is performed by Anmanman no March singer Dreaming (ドリーミング).
Debuting as an Anime Special song, Anpanman Taisou boasted a continuative life in the arcade scene, not missing a single entry ever since the 10th arcade and even including the first of the 2nd-gen Asian versions, as part of its Anime genre's counterpart grouping, the 'Cartoon Animation Music' (卡通動畫音樂) genre. This journey, however, came to an end as it got removed from all 3rd-generation arcades starting from Red Version, locking the arcade venue of such song despite its source show still airing on Japanese national television, quite like the aforementioned Yuuki Rin Rin (for the same show, no less!). Among its console portings, the most notable one is the one for Taiko no Tatsujin Kettei-Ban, where Anpanman Taisou was cut short of the first few playable stanzas in comparison to all other portings of the same track, hence the brief SongID change.
No matter the chosen playable version of the track, it's an easy stroll with drumroll-friendly markers to have some hi-scoring fun with, especially so when weighting in the pre-2nd generation scoring systems in play. It's still quite impressive, however, to spot some beginner-unfriendly DKK note clusters in such a low-rating Oni chart!
Pure Furies ～Whereabouts of the Heart (ピュアヒューリーズ ～ 心の在処) Touhou Kanjuden ~Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom 176We now flip-flop back into our Wish List shenanigans, with our next track being picked by ArceusGreen from the TnT Discord group. Of course, the ongoing rhythm gaming scene teaches us how it's far more plausible to expect playable ports of custom arrangements out of Jun'ya 'ZUN' Ota (太田順也)'s Touhou Project games' score rather than the original tracks themselves, but for our Wish List it's not relevant; dream big or small, the most important factor to our Xmas-y features is to dream!
This ominous-sounding piece is what awaits Touhou players at the end of the series' 15th mainline game -Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom- as the BGM track played against one peculiar entity from almost the entirety of the game's cast: a blonde woman whose eternal grudge against the Lunarian deities led to discharge her own being and refine herself into a sagacious spirit of purity, only known by the name of Junko (純狐). Such a high degree of purity is also reflected into her ingame bullet-based attacks, focalized on killing their target rather than stunning it with its pattern's intricacy and inner beauty, a trait that the same ZUN wants to highlight with her boss song the same, from the track's author comments:
"I think this song says, "now this is unmistakably the final boss!"
I didn't try to make it too complicated, or to add cool parts, or just overthink it in general.
I hope you can enjoy her danmaku simply and purely."
Pure Furies～Whereabouts of the Heart is one of the original Touhou songs that managed to get an official soundtrack release, with the 13th Reitaisai (May 8th, 2016)'s ZUN doujin album release Enseki Hakubutsushi ~ Dr. Latency's Freak Report (燕石博物誌～ Dr. Latency's Freak Report). As already anticipated, the Touhou Project tracks in music gaming are paid tribute to in form of custom arrangements' playable form from other doujin artists, with Junko's theme adehering to such norm the same. On bemani fields, we can find Hiroki Arai's Gense no Kanata (現世の彼方) on jubeat, while SOUND VOLTEX got their hands on Yuuhei Satellite's Mune no Naka de Dareka Ka (胸の中で誰かが). The same share of Junko passion was also shown among Taito's entries of its Groove Coaster series, with a port of Tatsh and Yu Oda's White World as well as the commissioning of a series-exclusive instrumental arrange to Beat Mario, which lead to the creation of Joker Junko～Eienno Junka (ジョーカー・ジュンコ ～ 永遠の純化).
Bit Crusher Tekken 4 ???Last in line for today is a song request from Nether, bringing up what seem to be one of the two inevitable habits for our venturing into Wish List territoriy: beatmania IIDX tracks and music from formerly-released Bandai Namco games. It's a Tekken track, and one coming from the title immediately preceeding the one holding songs that got ported into Taiko to boot!
Released on arcades in August 2001 and on May of the subsequent year in Japan's PlayStation 2 systems (September '02 for the rest of the world), this installment of the Tekken series became notable for being the first one to introduce "enviromental hazards" to keep players' combos up with each scenario's unique elements to smash their opponent against, or to turn the tides when cornered in select occasions. Another change introduced by this Namco System 246 entry is an enhanced graphics engine that would in turn prefer a slower and more fluid movement approach while still retaining a proper lighting and dynamic game physics.
One of the more peculiar aspects about Tekken 4 lies between its two main different versions, with all the related changes that run between the arcade and the PS2 rifts. Not only the former focused more on the series' plot than the arcade counterpart, but the two also included a series of small diversions, with their soundtrack among those. The version of Satoru Kosaki (神前暁)'s Bit Crusher featured on the top of these paragraphs is the arcade version, while the song's venue on the PS2 version was greeted with a slightly-different arrangement, much of the same that can be said about the remainder of the OST for its home console conversion. Bit Crusher is the BGM piece for the game's Shinjuku stage, with its arcade version getting ported into the game's official soundtrack of May 2002. Watch ouf if you're looking after such album, as some bootlegs of it are reported to exist online!
