This ending week, on the Taiko fandom side of things, we have seen the effective closure of Wikihouse, arguably the biggest Japanese fan wiki about the Taiko no Tatsujin series as a whole, with a great bulk of its content being relocated by volunteers on the Wikiwiki platform (currently active at this link).
Seeing as we've always been avid browsers of its ever-developing branches for a great bulk of our English-based blog's content and apparel across the years, I've decided to give its former digital house a proper sendoff, by featuring some of the songs from the freshly-released School Graduation playlist from the ongoing Donderful/Rhythm Festival. Here's to a swift graduation towards a wiki just as valuable as the original one!
360° From Doraemon Movie: Nobita's Space Heroes
「映画ドラえもん のび太の宇宙英雄記」より
| Game | Genre |
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wii U 3 3DS 3 |
 |
★2 (76) |
★3 (122) |
★5 (280) |
★7 (381) |
- |
| NS RPG2 |
 |
★2 (76) |
★3 (122) |
★5 (280) |
★7 (381) |
- |
| NS2 (MP) |
 |
★2 (76) |
★3 (122) |
★5 (280) |
★7 (381) |
- |
158
dora36 (Doraemon 360°)Just as Wikihouse truly served as a repository for everything Taiko in Japanese at a whole-encompassing angle, let's start from a tune whose title sure has all possible angles covered! It's also a means for us to come back talking abount one of many anime series whose former Song Showcase page on this blog was axed on the grounds of Bandai Namco claims on another of such Anime-rooted showcases, despite it being on a purely-informative angle on the songs and their surroundings as per usual...
Despite being over 40 years old and with the unfortunate passing of the Fujiko Fujio (藤子 不二雄) manga-writing duo who penned the bulk of its most memorable stories, the Doraemon franchise is now over-50-years ages and still going strong with modern animated transpositions, with dozens of TV shows and movies to its tally! The 35th movie in particular, Nobita's Space Heroes, was released on March 7th 8 years ago, in commemoration on both animated series' Aniversary milestones of the time (the 35th anniversary of the first series and the 10th anniversary of its more recent outing). The plot of the movie involves Nobita and his friends shooting a movie about space battles with the aid of the many futuristic gadgets brought over its time from the robot cat Doraemon, only to be attracting an actual alien asking help to the group of kids in order to get rid of an actual space threat on the mice-populated Pokkuro planet. While it's a given how movie grossing for the movie fared well on its home soil with about 3.9 billion Yen on its box office back (about 32.7 million $), it's been more than surprising to hear that the movie's greatest foreign success story comes not from any of the other Asian countries projecting the movie, but Italy of all places with about 1.3M$ on overall box office to boot!
The movie's opening theme 360° was performed by the art-named miwa (ミワ) with composition/track-down duties from NAOKI-T, in a piece whose single managed to peak the Billboard Hot Animation charts while reaching respectable bests at Oricon's daily (3rd), weekly (5th) and monthly (20th) charts of that year. On Taiko grounds, it plays like a slower-paced Orion o Nazuru, sans surprise longer streams (it still is a Doraemon song, so I wager kids can't be that scared!). It's also one of the few console-only themes to have genre changes between generations, starting from J-Pop (Pops in the Ninitendo Switch port of the final 3DS game) and ending up as an Anime pick in the latest home console entry.
Kassai Kanjani∞
喝采／仕分け∞
| Game | Genre |
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|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NS2 (MP) |
|
★2 (144) |
★4 (251) |
★5 (428) |
★6 (644) |
- |
161.5-170.7 kjksi (Kanjani∞ Kassai)The choice of this second "school graduation song" is pretty much a given, considering how many of the really really limited venues with playable Taiko songs not appearing anywhere else would have become completely undocumented without the combined efforts of anonymous and nick-named Wikihouse users. Among such limited forays for arcade Taiko gaming's third generation are the handful of songs exclusive to the Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai's first BanNam outings and the licensed tunes that were featured in 2013's Kanjani no Shiwake Eight variety show, made playable for bystanders near the hosting TV Asahi studios for quite a while (see more here!). It's more than heartwarming to see how after all this time, the show hosts/ongoing boyband members Kanjani Eight (関ジャニ∞) have finally had a song of theirs becoming publicly, non-limited (as long as the online distribution models can hold their ground) playable on official Taiko games, after all this time!
As we've already digressed into the neo-enka unit's surroundings in a feature of oh-so-many-years-ago (link), we're focusing today on the release of Kassai (lit. "Cheers") instead, seeing how this is also the Kanjani Eight act's latest single to date. Released as the 47th band single on July 7th, 2022, Kassai is Kanjani Eight's self-professed return to its energy-boasting band origins, as it was specifically made and revealed live on stage as the song for the act itself's 18th anniversary since founding. As such, the piece composed by Shingo Kubota (久保田真悟) and Akira Kurihara (栗原暁) is available both as '1st-half' versions starring one of the 5 members singing right alongside the "full version" available in Taiko where everyone's in the party! This one track managed to top both Oricon Daily/Weekly/Monthly charts as well as Billboard Japan Top Singles, with a respectable 44th place on Billboard Hot 100 for 2022.
The first song ever to be released alone on a Taiko Music Pass update is also another notable overall first in Taiko series in a very long while as a song release from artists associated with Japanese talent agency Johnny's, considering how the previous track from such grounds -NYC's Yoku Asobi Yoku Manabe- was released about 11 years and 5 months ago, as part of Portable DX's songlist! That aside, it's one of those high-note-amount-bearing 6* Onis where clusters hardly come by with both note color markers to be hit, with many a fluctuating BPM adjustment along the way.
Cheers tho those who make it through this track with energy and -once again- cheers to the fellow Taiko no Tatsujin fans from Japan who have ever contributed to Wikihouse's legacy, over the years!
