...you know what? ***k it, I give up.
It's the THIRD TIME in a row I'm getting distracted at the 11th hour by talking about something on a Saturday matter than actually adehering to the self-planned schedule, so you know what? This officially becomes a SotW themed month, right here and now! As you can see, the theme is nothing but "let's delve into how Lokamp's mind association loosely works", and see some of the weird-ass motivations that drive me out of the marked path, right as I'm about to pen the pre-ordained.
So, you might ask, "what's up this time around"?
Well, ...
Re : End of a Dream uma vs. Morimori Atsushi
uma vs. モリモリあつし
| Game | Genre |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC Nijiiro (Y4) |
 |
★5 (215) |
★5 (276) |
★5 (445) |
★7 (602) |
★10 (999) |
106-212
???It's time for another fresh song release, this time for the arcade front with a couple of indie artists that are well renouned on their own as well as together with their collaboration pieces! Most notable for me of the two is Morimori Atsushi, mostly due to an unique present he has received from one of his fans in video form, hiring quite the energetic crowd just to wish a happy birthday and being funny enough for the artist to upload the kind gesture on his own YouTube channel. Now, not only the fresh announcement of this cold-classic BMS release had my mind jump back to that bit of hilarity, but I even came to dream it after a post-working power nap today, so whatever- Dreams is the theme of that song, so it must have been a sign to talk about the newbie-drumming BMS. No time like the present, I say!
The Hard Renaissance-genred Re: End of a Dream was the third BMS contest entry from the aforementioned Morimori Atsushi (モリモリあつし; Twitter, SoundCloud, YouTube), owner of the Hikagyaku Rhythm (非可逆リズム) label and quite a fan of wicked hermits from the looks of his avatar icon of choice in online personal pages. For 2016's iteration of the BMS OF FIGHTERS tournament series, he joined forces with fellow indie composer/Astral Sky label owner and real-life friend uma (Twitter; Tumblr label page; SoundCloud), together with other shared-friends contributors for its BGA and music video's creation, mentioning for the latter reccurring contributors masiro and adaptor (both also composing music and/or singing for those on their own, too!). Bottom-line, while it may be a "Vs." track, it sure is so ripe with friendship-forged energy to move the very same Morimori Atsushi on the song's original BMS entry description: it might have been such a hurdle to make to tempting its genre label as a 'Hurdle Renaissance' instead, but his friends' support on it made him feel truly blessed for the shared bond between all contributors!
While landing at an unfortunate 17th place in the "Legendary Again" BMS contest edition, Re : End of a Dream could bolster its own share of fame across the years, both for being one of the many uma vs. Morimori tracks to start with e-mail-affine prefixes (Re: / To: and such) and for being part of one of the two artists' "shared song series" to come from another rhythm series as a contest-winning entry... Yes, indeed- in the same vein of Scarlet Police on Ghetto Patrol 24PM, this is the second of a series of 'Dream' songs starting out from a winning SOUND VOLTEX contest (Pieces of a Dream) and branching out to later entries that eventually ended up in the same series: the album-original Record one's Dream and the also-contest-winner FIRST : DREAMS.
All four tracks have garnered a number of extended and remixed versions across uma and Morimori's collaboration albums, which for the BMS-spawn Re : End of a Dream have both happened on the eponymous album release, both the extended version from the original duo and a remixed one from Hino Issuka (翡乃イスカ) aka Umeboshi Chazuke and Iriss, one of the earliest art names for the otoge-recurring s-don. Being one of the duo's most known pieces, Re : End of a Dream got also namedropped as the album title of the later-released (and Dream song series unrelated) Touhou Project music remix albums starring the two composers, the latest of which from M3-2022 also intertwining the rising Eurobeat circle Chocofan (ちょこふぁん).
Let it be known that both uma and Morimori Atsushi have also put themselves on the Taiko contest fore before! Even if ultimately fruitless for a potential Namco Original debut for both (or any other honorable mentions of sorts, for that matter), uma went the solo route in 2021's music contest with Fireworks (ファイアーワークス), and the year later with Autobahn (オートバーン), while both him and Morimori Atsushi joined forces in 2020 to create #Psychedelic Megurogawa (#サイケデリック目黒川), starring the same movie-making contributor masiro as its vocalist. Unfortunately, I can't link to you this last song's original 2020 contest entry page, as this was one of the tracks to get removed by its makers after the competition's ending in order to be able to release it in other commercially-available sources, thus ending up becoming an original song for PeroPeroGames' Muse Dash instead, a year later (link).
Quite the opposite scenario can be told for Re : End of a Dream, considering the very generous servings of ports in music gaming across the years... and thanks to Morimori's own listing in the description of the song's original MV release, we can even give you the exact order of release in foreign series thus far! Prior to Taiko no Tatsujin, here are the other music games that have been eager to reply to oniric conclusions with the iconic BMS track:
As you can see, all of these titles surely didn't spare punches for the uma/Morimori classic's hardest difficulty settings, ever since their respective debut on each. On our turf, however, the situation is quite the different tale to tell, as its debut fares with a middling 7* Oni and a rating-shared KFM set to boot, all on the usual 200+ BPM scaremongering wave. Flash-forward to just a month after its original release and that statement becomes null and void, as a fearsome top-starred Ura Oni is introduced as the final 10-Dan Ranking Dojo song for Nijiiro's fourth course lineup! Said debuting Ura Oni also became a purchasable item at the seasonal-refreshed Rewards Shop, for those who want to play it outside its Ranking Dojo trial set.
Something that is shared by all available charts, however, is the notecharter's committment to emulate the original Re : End of a Dream BMS charting layout thanks to choice scroll changes and a few stanza bars' trickery. It's easier to see the BPM-halved giant notes to emulate the speed lane shifts in the original Be-Music Source release, but a nod that's harder to spot is at the height of the Oni mode's 7-hit balloon (or the first drumroll marker, if you're looking at the Ura Oni). Watch closely these stanza bars and bear in mind their placement, as it's the exact same one on that portion of the song that the original BMS charts have as well! Start checking at about 1:40 on the Taiko video and compare it to the supplied BMS link at around 1:30 for better results.
