Day 11 - 12 Days of Taikomas

On the eleventh day of Christmas, a worn-out darts board has sent to me:

random gaming artists
a staffers grab bag
multi-track drifting
nine keysound burgers
surrender peer-pressure
some jumpscares

m̸̧̛͙̝̤͍̠̺͔̓̽͌̋̒̔̏ỵ̶̛̈́͂͑̇̌̕̕ ̸̧̢͉̳͔̰͆̅̄̐̀͐͜ͅb̶̟̘͚̺̌͝ĺ̷̙̯͕͚̬̘́͆̂͛̀̃̋ȇ̸̹̣̱͕̮͖̿͗̔̔̍͝ë̴̳̭̤͖̺̬̎̀̌͋̕ͅd̵̡̧͎̦̘̤̙͓͐̌̅̀̌̀̈͆i̵̘͈̗̳̱̿̾̔n̴̬͇̩̗̞̹̱̉̈́͝g̵̛̼͍͕̝̩͗̎̐̄̕ ̸̭̇̈̔ȩ̵̻̮͎͔̤͕͛̈́a̷̻̎̊͌̀̉̃̇̌r̴͉͈͍̄̓͗s̶̡̢̙̳͇͚͚͒

colorblazing madness
a coaster ride
one ghostly inn
and Linda AI-CUE under the tree.

Jack-the-Ripper◆ sasakure.UK


I acknowledge the ever-helpful suggestion from people over the #12-days-of-taikomas channel to have an online wheel randomizer to sort out eventual dubous-choice decisions, but with Christmas being one of the times of the year where tradition is the keyword (and my will of avoiding to talk about why I hate Mars bars) I've decided to crank out the bullseye-and-darts combo for this particular day once more. The first of these gravity-influenced targets was this really lucky BMS submission, requested by swigz.

Jack the Ripper has been many things across the years, from a relentless mysterious murderer of women in the foggy streets of London to the collective embodiment of all of these women's unborn sons. For the nick-named sasakure.UK, however, add a diamond sign and becomes a suitable title for a 'progressive'-genre BMS submission! More specifically, this song was the 2nd-ranked submission for the 2009 edition of the recurring THE BMS OF FIGHTERS Be-Music Source contest by the subtitle of -revolutionary battles-, only losing to Nankumo's DRAGONLADY. According to the song comments left by the author for the contest, this track was made with the objective of conveying 'the joy of long noteholds' of IIDX/BMS charting, with live guitar and violin support from the nicknamed sweetz and its music video (plus album jacket art, later on) by Yasutaka 'sta' Senoo (妹尾泰隆), a composer on his own who later on went to make its own mobile music game -Tone Sphere- which, over time, managed to welcome one of Jack-the-Ripper◆'s versions from sasakure.UK's rock-dominant UK Rampage (有形ランペイジ) act in its first ever mobile foray (link).

The original version of the song also had its share of music gaming involvment, touching upon Konami's SOUND VOLTEX series, the Switch installment of Taito's Groove Coaster as one of its earliest max-difficulty newcomers and each of the currently-active, non-Vocaloid-fashioned Sega arcade series (maimai; CHUNITHM; Ongeki). Prior to any of these music gaming landings, the song got released in a slightly-extended form in August 2012's MetroJackz album, the artist's 7th release. Two different arrangements of this song exist at this point: the aforementioned UK Rampage rock version that premiered in the act's first album Yuuru Katachi (有ル形) and a pluri-artist collaboration made for the same BMS OF FIGHTERS 2009 edition's compilation album, titled Jack-the-Ripper♦♠♥♣ and crediting BlackJacksBand as its creator act.

Yagate Onna wa Kirei ni Narudarou (やがて女はきれいになるだろう) Rhythm Heaven Fever


Coming from berstep's request, it's time for another major player in the mainstream rhythm gaming sphere! The 'newbie' bouncing around these spaces today is Nintendo's Rhythm Tengoku series, prizing the will to find the rhythm in the most random scenarios as its raison d'etre with lead composer Mitsuo 'Tsunku♂' Terada (寺田 光男) at the helm, resulting in a greater variety of visual and audio cues to take care of in a music game... and this rings ever so true when one of its many Remix songs are involved!

Ever since the Japanese-exclusive GBA series kickstarter, Rhythm Tengoku/Heaven games feature a bunch of 'Remix' stages where a handful of individual minigames from the preceeding courses are used together back-to-back in a slightly-different apparel with a unique BGM to the stage, testing the player's adaptability skills on both previously-absorbed beat-catching mechanic inputs and how to integrate them with a new song at hand, often available in multiple versions for different markets. For the Remix 9 Stage in 2011's Rhythm Heaven Fever for the Nintendo Wii was Japanese idol group Canary Club (キャナァーリ倶楽部)'s Yagate Onna wa Kirei ni Narudarou (lit. 'Eventually The Woman Will Be Beautiful'), which got an English version for the game's versions outside of Japan by the title of Beautiful One Day, by Annette Marie Cotrill and Aimee Blackschleger.

Rhythm Heaven Fever's Japanese version of the Remix 9 song managed to spread further than the rest-of-the-world English counterpart, not only for appearing in both the Wii game's dedicated JP soundtracks from 2011 -Minna no Rhythm Tengoku Complete Music Collection (みんなのリズム天国全曲集) and Minna no Rhythm Tengoku Complete Vocal Collection (みんなのリズム天国全ボーカル集)- but also for appearing in both albums as an extended cut from the playable version, the one you can hear right above these very lines! As confirmed by a DM inquiry to one of the English singers of Beautiful One Days, there never have been any plans to give an extended treatment to the localized version of the original. While the English version remains the only playable alternative of Yagate Onna wa Kirei ni Narudarou worldwide, it is known that the source game's Korean version (by the title of Rhythm Sesang Wii) does have an on-text Korean translation for the song, something all other versions can't boster for any of the other countries the game was localized for!

Himiko (卑弥呼) Suzaku vs. Genbu / beatmania IIDX


I'm kinda glad the last dart has landed on this very space, considering we actually got this song request for the yearly Wish List extravaganza even before the requests-on-Discord-only rule announcement of mine! And so, through private DM from Reichisama (which also got forwarded by Ice Queen Yumi on Discord), here we are talking about beatmania IIDX again, seeing how the shaman-queen protagonist from Namco Original Yamatai★Night Party is well revered in foreign rhythm gaming grounds as well...

Joining the roster of beatmania IIDX 16 EMPRESS as one of its ONE MORE EXTRA STAGE unlocks, this is the last song (to date) to star Yoshitaka Nishimura (西村宜隆) with his Suzaku (朱雀) alias, in his first collaboration track with fellow bemani composer Jun Wakita (脇田潤) as Genbu (玄武). References to Himiko and Japanese folklore in general don't shy too far away, with a golden-clad creature revealed by in-game files datamining to be the 8-headed Orochi as well as the led-in message that pops up when this song is picked as the OMES choice on the arcades: "WELCOME TO MY COUNTRY 'YAMATAIKOKU'", referencing Himiko's origins. This has also been one of the many 'Konmai moments' in bemani typo history, as the message displayed the wrongly-spelt word 'CONTRY' instead near its release, up until the release of a patch fix.

This "ESOTERIC SPEEDCORE" track -labeled as such to mark it as the polar opposite as Suzaku's "ESOTERIC SLOWCORE" style showcased with Ganymede- has also had quite the following among the Western sphere of Konami fans, but it's less about the song/charts in of themselves as much of a... fanbase-pushed inside joke. Concocted by one user from Bemani-related forum SolidStateSquad after a particular scene from David Lynch's 1986 movie Blue Velvet, it was pushed for a while the tendency to spam the comment 'Himiko? FUCK THAT SHIT! PABST BLUE RIBBON' in every video of the song on both YouTube and Nicovideo, flagging as spam all the other on-topic ones instead. The stunt had its lasting effects, sure, but by the words left from many people online (such as select bemani wiki Remywiki editors, among many), you can tell how the joke eventually fell far off its course for some...