Hello, everyone! The month of December has always been a big one when it comes to near-month expectations, thanks to the jolly holiday to lead them all. Christmas is approaching fast, and we're going to greet it in the same way as last year!
Every day of December until the 24th, there's going to be one choice song among the ones suggested by all users on our Discord server to be "dream picks" into Taiko gaming, be it with blog/server staffers or any and all server attenders or blog readers! After the jump is the selection as a whole, while every window of this peculiar advent calendar will be filled with hyperlinks for a quick redirection, over the small grid below these lines.
Every day of December until the 24th, there's going to be one choice song among the ones suggested by all users on our Discord server to be "dream picks" into Taiko gaming, be it with blog/server staffers or any and all server attenders or blog readers! After the jump is the selection as a whole, while every window of this peculiar advent calendar will be filled with hyperlinks for a quick redirection, over the small grid below these lines.
Have you caught up to our latest holiday surprise yet?
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Catch The Future Border BreakWe're kicking things off this year with a request from Yonokid, for one of the most Japanese takes a Western-popularized gaming genre could get in the third millennium. Quoting the same user behind this pick, "5 years ago this could have actually happened" and considering the many gaming franchise tie-ins the series got between poprable Sony systems and Android/iOs, this isn't that far of a guess to make!
Catch The Future is one of the vocal BGMs for Sega AM2's 2009 third-person mecha shooter Border Break (ボーダーブレイク), born on game centers as the first arcade to be powered by the custom Celeron CPU-powered Sega RingEdge system board. This Asian-exclusive franchise pits two teams of 10 players against each other as the controllers of their own Blast Runner, a customizable flying mecha available in four different classes, with the objective to take down the opposing team's energy core in third-person-shooting fashion.
While a 'spiritual successor' in heart to the company's formerly-released mecha sensation Virtual On, the game ended up being developed as an oriental take to shooter franchises in the likes of Counterstrike and Battlefield, which Border Break's devs played a lot of during the development window; as such, they only expected this game to have a 5-year lifespan at last... only to make it to a flat 10 years of continued service! With the arcade version shutting down in early September of 2019 with one final event, the developing team's will to carry on with its legacy afterwards ended up with the creation of a (once again, Asian-exclusive) free-to-play PlayStation 4 port of the game on August 2nd, in 2018. Alas, if by any chance the gaming incipit up there has enticed some of you reading this into giving it a spin, you're out of luck once more- this PS4 version, in fact, just shut down on September 9th earlier this year, incidentally on the exact day the original arcade was released (and shut down, too!) in Japan beforehand.
Despite Border Break ending up with multiple official soundtracks on its tally, the artists behind most of the overall score were not fully profiled for every song, although for Catch The Future here we have quite a name to talk about: Seeichi Hamada (濱田誠一). Currently part of independent unit ACT-AGE with a fellow former-Sega-AM2 colleague (Tomoya Koga), Hamada has had quite the gaming musical portfolio on his side, starting out as one of the core musicians for Data East and some of its most iconic titles, from Windjammers to the Heracles no Eikou/Glory of Heracles series.. This partnership would last from 1988 to 1999, after which he would join Sega's arcade-versed branches up until 2015, mostly on duty for everything Border Break and Virtua Fighter, under such tenure!
Tambourin Chinois Friedrich KreislerAround these times, we usually have just one recurring requester of Classic-leaning tunes, in form of fellow Taiko Time blog writer ngitrox/hisashiyarouin. Imagine my surprise then, when the name randomizer I use falls on such a song, but not being requested by him! Indeed, it's Nedmara the one we owe this little trip to about a century ago with quite the lively violin piece from quite an unique composer...
Hailing from an Austrian genealogy, American violinist Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler (1875–1962) has been one of the 20th Century's most renowned composers, activer for the entirety of its former-half of a century both as a composer and as a performer, with credited scoring for several Broadway musicals and operettas (including 1919's Apple Blossoms and 1944's Rhapsody). The violinist was also behind the score of the 1936 movie The King Steps Out, based on the early years of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.
Among other things, Kreisler went down in history as one of the most prolific composers in history of what has been collectively defined later as "musical forgeries/hoaxes", original composition that were inspired by the works of former composers (most prominently Gaetano Pugnani, Giuseppe Tartini and Antonio Vivaldi, for Kreisler's case) but that are intentionally credited as works of such artists of the past instead. In 1935, he revealed an impressive number of sixteen works from other artists being actually pastiches of his own making and while critics of the time were not pleased with that, Kriesler's rebuttal was simply with "The name changes, the value remains", making the argument that these pieces were already warmly received by public and critic alike, thus whoever was behind them doesn't change their own musical merits.
1910's Tambourin Chinois, Op. 3 was composed for violin and piano in a pentatonic scale, for about 4 minutes per execution of the piece. It was widely believed how Kreisler was inspired to make this piece after attending a traditional Chinese music play in San Francisco for both the theme and the musical scale choice, but the same composer stated how there's no connection relating the latter aspect in his composition with his visit to said Chinese performance.
Memosepia (メモセピア) sajou no hanaA literal technicalnintendolearner (that's the handle, after all!) is at the helm for our next stop! surprisingly, is has some times with other licensed works that Taiko gaming already hosts in official forms...
One of the ending themes for the 2nd season of the Mob Psycho 100 Anime, Memosepia stars in the second single release from the Anisong unit sajou no hana (lit. 'Plum Fruit'), in activity since 2018. The March 6th, 2019 single release with Memosepia, while not the best-performing one for the act, was one among the best-received ones, picking 66th at Oricon charts while also housing other special ending themes used for the same Season 2 of Mob Psycho 100: Gray (グレイ) and Meo no Ura (目蓋の裏, lit. 'Behind the Eyelids').
A former Warner, now-KADOKAWA label unit under the Smile Offices, sajou no hana consists of three members as of now: Anisong composer/keyboarder Watanabe Sho (渡辺翔) with former ties with both ClariS (Puella Magi Madoka Magica's Connect) and LisA (Sword Art Online's crossing field), Kitani Tatsuya (キタニタツヤ), bassist/guitarist and former Vocaloid song producer Kitani Tatsuya (キタニタツヤ) and the nicknamed sana as the vocalist. Coming up with the unit's name was Kitani as a impression-based descriptor of the debuting singer sana's stance and singing style, as a way to leave "an abstract picture of the band" behind the songs, so that listeners could focus on their quality rather than attaching it to those behind it. This ending year is also the last one for the act to function as it is now, chainging it into a solo act in 2024 that focuses on the singer sana alone, with the other two former act members being summoned as occasional supports for sound production.
Got a over score? E.G.G. vs MASAKI / Groove CoasterA bittle later than usual for the collective "Taiko Time Wish List" standards, but here we are: a rhythm gaming song request! This one pick from BEPIS v2 brings us to a similar scenario to what we've met on the first day with Border Break, with an arcade-spawn franchise ultimately meeting its end. What we have at hand here is a similar, but quite different tale...
Indeed, in order to talk about this one Groove Coaster boss song, we have to see on which grounds it was introduced to begin with... that is to say, the Taito franchise's final stretch of content for the arcade family, currently ending with Groove Coaster 4MAX DIAMOND GALAXY. During the October 2022 broadcast of the Taito Otoge Club series of livestreams (link here), it was revealed how it wasn't possible to keep on with the Groove Coaster series on arcades with the currently-employed Taito Type-X2 cabinets from 2013, leaving room for one final update alone. Shortly after the broadcast, series creator Reisuke Ishida (石田礼輔) further addressed the situation on social media (in tweet form, no less!) about the employed hard drives nearing the GC cabs' space capacity limits being the main factor behind future content's distribution stop, only allowing them to rerun old events and the online infrastructure of the arcades.
That left arcade goers with one last stretch of new songs being released weekly: a series-launch song series' new installment in COSIO's Music Plot Type X, Morimori Atsushi's PUPA, some other BMS thing I've already endured two times too many and this here song, the latest in E.G.G.'s "Groove Anagram" songs as well as the latest "vs. MASAKI" collaboration boss songs, all rolled up into one package! Being the song to close arcade versions' journey, its background animations are all callbacks to visual props used for songs from both artists across the decade-old franchise. Aptly enough, the title of this song's letters can be scrambled to give out "Groove coaster?" as an extra layer to make things go full circle.
The Groove Coaster journey lives on as extended DLC distribution for the Nintendo Switch installment (Groove Coaster Wai Wai Party), but Lord knows for how long will it stay that way...
Wo Pei PLAY (我呸 PLAY) Jolin TsaiSometimes along these lines, I get to talk about artists with songs already in Taiko gaming, only to be requested for another of their picks... and before having one of their already-in-Taiko songs as a regular SotW feature beforehand! Thus is the case related to berdstep's request, taking us to a quick glance at the world of the so-dubbed "Queen of C-Pop" before talking about her actual Taiko-released songs in the past...
Play is a 2014's second single for Taiwanese singer/songwriter/actress Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), hailing from Tsai I-ling and strong of a rich university curricular upbrings with merit, as a first-ranked for English literature major of Fu Jen Catholic University. In activity in the musical scene since the second millennium's tail-end year, her versatility with musicalò style as well as her renowned emancipation that has led her to mantain control over her career's every twist and turns made her one of the greater China's most respected and influencial dance-pop artists, with each and every single studio album of hers peaking 1st n national rating chart in each of their respective release years.
Such was also the case for November 2014's 13th studio album Play, the single centerpiece of which making its debut the month prior. This was another of Jolin Tsai's self-produced ventures since its very public reveal, strong of a world tour conclusion on April 2013 and only to take the rest of that same year on music/dance/active courses, all to gather new sounds for a "future project" at the time. The Play album was one of Tsai's her own making on a monetary fit as well, with a projected NT$50 million budget for its production and a delay from Summer 2014 to that year's end, a delay ultimately met -once again!- with chart-peaking trends all over Asian countries, including FM Taiwan's Yearly Hot Singles and half a dozen "Best MV"-related accolades from YinYueTai to QQ Music and Taiwan billboards again!
Let's Go Away Daytona USAWe've got a request this year to feature under these lines one Ridge Racer song that's... incidentally already in Taiko gaming, so as a rebound suggestion I got on my hands something else, from a game notoriously created in order to outscine Namco's flagship racing series in game centers everywhere! As requester rockzoneami has posted this one link from one of the later outings, however, I'm happy to oblige with the later-released referenced game... as well as talking about the related videogame's origin story!
The first game coming out under the Sega Model 2 arcade board, Daytona USA was one of 1994's most notable token-munchers everywhere, releasing simultaneously in Japan and North America on March 1994 (with Europe getting it the month after). Strong of the former Sega Model 1 board debuting with another popular-racing title (Virtua Racing), the higher-ups from the Sega AM2 arcade development team pitched a NASCAR-based racing game, with American Sega arcade management president Tom Petit and AM2 lead director Toshihiro Nagoshi (nowadays also of Super Monkey Ball/Ryu ga Gotoku fame) being the spearheads of that suggestion, in spite of Formula One racing proposed by other Sega higher-ups.
The arcade division's drive to make a game to beat Namco's Ridge Racer on arcades was to steer away from the simulation angle and instead going for a more wacky and energetic route to its racing feel, while still feeling grounded to NASCAR racing (minus the license). So much so to put its development team on high duty on studying anything related to the sector, from simple race attendance to satellite imagery snapping of the whole Daytona International Speedway. Some even went to such lengths as to walk the whole way across the iconic Daytona circuit or going the game designer Makoto Osaki's route of watching NASCAR-related content for reference (including watching the movie Days of Thunder a hundred times, as the same Osaki did!). Ultimately, the bet paid off big time and left an everlasting positive impression across general/critic arcade goers, spawning a number of console ports across the years (some with the real-life-location license-free naming of Sega Classic Racing) and a spoonful of sequels down the road.
As a stark contrast to the well-researched angle the rest of Sega AM2's team has taken for the game's development, Daytona USA's whole scoring was handled by an individual with no prior experience to stock car racing: Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (光吉猛修). Wanting to take a different direction from the Ridge Racer series' techno score, Mitsuyoshi opted for an overly-energetic rock/funk route with his own voice to lead the charge, sampled inside the arcades' Yamaha-based chip alongside all other audio/sound cues and reconstructing with variations according to when these are going to be played ingame, as a clever way to circumvent the Sega Model 2 board's audio limitation. Let's Go Away can be heard ingame as the Attract and Medium course track, later in the line being ported to music games such as the above-referenced Samba de Amigo from the Dreamcast and once again in arcade music gaming with maimai. To this day, the very same Takenobu Mitsuyoshi still has the time to appear in other Sega games with his own voice... among the latest ones being for a collaboration with USAO, of all people!
Tanaka (田中) Rish feat. Choco (立秋 feat.ちょこ)Coming up next is sixsixonefour's request, starring a couple of artists that have already gotten their Taiko-original share to bolster (see more here and here). It's been a number of consecutive years by now that this duo is fishing for BMS glory at a yearly base, with this being their fifth step across their journey!
After a couple of years with BMS contest entries ranking fairly high, for a number of editions the duo of Rissyu and Choco have earmwormed their way into Internet fandom with earwormy denpa songs based on allitterations, a trend that started in 2020 with the pluri-million-views Take (竹) for BOFUXVI and that continued the year after with Tanaka, debuting for 2021's edition of the BMS of Fighters tornament, Vision the Retro Future. Tanaka's MV even starts literally with a reference to the preceeding Take's final ranking in its BMS event (4th), something that in the aftermath might have been akin to one overplaying its hand, considering Tanaka's smaller video view rate and BMS standing in comparison (ranking 9th in Singles). Still, playable ports for this song have been made the same for Sega music gaming (maimai and CHUNITHM specifically), not to mention JOYSOUND karaoke stations letting you to sing it!
Halcyon xiTwice in a row, we've got a BMS hit to talk about! Arguably, wool_aries' pick for us might be one of the "safest" Wish List picks to have a chance to become reality yet, considering how not only the Taiko series has been eager to star his maker for Namco Original songs... but also for multiple BMS entries of his making, too! Arguably Daisuke 'xi' Ishiwata's finest hour in music gaming recognition, this is the dice-avatar-donning composer's first victory across BMS of Fighters contests, originally released for the 2010 edition of the reoccurring event (subtitled The Evolution of War).
The original lengthy comment left by xi on the song submission page sheds some revealing lights upon the song's name and tone being directly referncing one of the many myths from ancient Greece lore. Alcyone, Thessalian princess, became the queen of Trachis after marrying its ruler Ceyx, one who loved and was loved by in so equal and strong bonds to equate themselves to the godly couple from Olympus of Zeus and Hera. Having caught wind of the couple's sacrilegous godly namecuddling as an act of unforgiveable hubris, Zeus himself killed Ceyx while traveling by seas, as Halcyon was consulting an oracle by sea. Getting informed in a dream by her spouse's death, she was overwhelmed by sadness at the point of drowning herself at the the nearby seabank. Being saddened by the whole situation
As days went by and the 2010 BMS contest's results went live, xi chimed back in with more impressions behind the Halcyon song's making. The base idea for the song was just a self statement of "there's no one who doesn't like chuji (=chuuni music), so might as well try", while the chart-making approach went on a more dedicated drive to create a speed-shifting chart that even people not liking irregularly-frantic tunes would enjoy, even if xi himself at the time admonished himself for coming up with something that was a bit on the unrefined side of things. BGA maker yama-ko (blog link, archived) willingly made many a reference to the Greek myth as an intended course of action, but due to the at-the-time constraints between real-life events and an invitation to the MV-sharing online event FRENZ, he ended up taking not as much time has he wished for to Halcyon's MV, only taking 5 days.
It's easy to underestimate the importance, but arguably nothing has ever yielded more benefits to the BMS scene's worldwide recognition than some of the more iconic songs from that sphere making their commercial debut on Rayark's Cytus, with xi's BMS entries being some of the most prominent frontrunners. Not only it was one of the earliest Story chapters' songs, Halcyon was also one of 5 tunes to be mashed up for the million-download Cytus pack's memorial song STORIA, merging Cytus-originals with BMS cornerstones alike (also including AXIOM, a BMS piece of Sakuzyo's!). Other notable portable homes for this song include Arcaea, Muse Dash and TAPSONIC PRO, but there's also its hefty share as a shorter cut between Groove Coaster, SOUND VOLTEX and Sega's music game triumvirate.
Shounen A (少年A) Remixed by Shounen Radio (少年ラジオ) / beatmania IIDXThe next person to be picked up by my name randomizer of choice is the nicknamed shoxk, for whose entry request I had to spin the wheel once again due to multiple suggested picks on its part... all bemani-based, no less! The one that was picked up is a remix of quite the boss song from quite the figurehead composer across Konami's ongoing music game subdivision...
Debuting on the 15th iteration of the beatmania IIDX series (DJ TROOPERS), Shounen A (lit. "Boy A") is the remix of the iconic A from Takayuki "dj TAKA" Ishikawa (石川貴之) from the 7th IIDX game (7th style), bearing a title that is also used for public accidents/disasters as an anonymous notation used to report missing kids. The nicknamed Shounen Radio (少年ラジオ) -one of the many many aliases from bemani regular Jun Wakita (脇田潤)- also recalled that TAKA himself used to don an English-written "KID A" badge when he was little in the Shounen A song production notes (link, archived), something that also played a part of making "KID A" the song's official localized name. Shounen Radio also fely really sorry for the chopped state he made his song remix for the playable cut, as Shounen A was originally made as one of the remix tracks featured in dj TAKA's first album (Milestone) and didn't expect his remix to become playable in later bemani games.
Another curious layer surrounding the apparel of this IIDX-exclusive piece is coming from the song's vj/animator/overlays designer Goli Matsumoto, also from the same song production page. With A being his favorite song across bemani games to that point, hearing from Shounen Radio that a remix for it would be made as "Boy/Kid A", his first thought was to make a kid clown character, to match the adult clown character made for the original A. The "younger-self" clown character ultimately adopted -named Raje (ラジェ)- is actually one of the artist's earlier sketches designs as well, appearing as design no.288 in his own artbook, GOLIALIZZE GOLI MATSUMOTO ARCHIVES. Prior to becoming the design for Raje, the kid was also used for the overlays in the Akira Yamaoka song Minimalize, from the 9th IIDX entry.
GURUGURU Snail's HouseToday's addition to our evergrowing collective Wish List-ing season comes from the nicknamed arceusgreen and while it isn't something related to Pokemon as the nickname handle might suggest, it might become part of the green genre per-se, should it make the same Taiko journey as the already-ported Pixel Voyage, from the same author!
Yes indeed, what we have here is one of the latest releases from Ujico*/Snail's House, uploaded in late August this year on YouTube, in the same day its related debut album was released: Alien☆Pop IV (エイリアン☆ポップ IV). Being a song that's a little above three months old and with no "Author's Note"-y mentions to date, there really is little to talk about it for now, other than the fact of its YouTube release being brought by an external-collaboration-spawn music video from YT American animator Abby "memedokies" Goss (YouTube).
Iron Lotus Library of RuinaWell well, what do we have here... I happened to roll myself (Lokamp) for this year, and am in no position to use it for an "end-event story moral" piece like last year, too! Might as well indulge in something that has been wrapping me around lore-wise... and cosidering that this is coming from someone already versed into Type-Moon and Touhou Project, I guess the next step in my master plan after the works of Project Moon is to become a fan of "Touhou-Type" or something!
Released as an early-access Steam title on May 15th, 2020 by Korean-based company Project Moon, Library of Ruina is the second videogame being set in the City, an urbanized conglomerate divided in 26 districts with their own structure, unique traits and underhanded secrets. In it, after the events in Project Moon's first PC game Lobotomy Corporation, a building shrouded in mist and known as the Library has appeared and its creator has been sending invitations to every kind of resident in the City, offering a trial of strength against its librarians to grant a wealth of knowledge to the victors, while claiming the losers as books to enrich the Library. Gameplay-wise, this is a deckbuilding game where players take librarians from one or more of the Library's available floors to fight its invited guests and turn them into books, whose pages can be used in later fights as attacks or even to let the librarians inherit their original users' skills and traits. The game has had periodic updates up until its full release on May 28th of the year after and also got a port on modern xBox systems, along the way.
While the lion's share on the game's instrumental-leading soundtrack was made by the South-Korea-based Studio EIM, most of Ruina's pivotal story fights are instead vocal-powered tracks, including the one adopted for the battle against Xiao -one of the Liu Association Sector 1's directors- flashing above these paragraphs! For each of these, credit is instead owed to Japanese indie unit Mili, in activity since 2012 and currently consisting of five members: lead composer Yamato "HAMO" Kasai, vocalist Cassie "momocashew" Wei, bassist Yukihito Mitomo, drummer Shoto Yoshida and illustrator/animator Ao Fujimori. Sporting a name that is spawn from one of the later-discovered Grimm brothers' fairytales ('Dear Mili'), the unit's first Internet-popular sensation world.execute(me); has been followed with time with invitations to support later multimedia projects like 2021's ENDER LILIES videogame and the second season of the Goblin Slayer anime. However, the one company to give them their first push into fame was Rayark, with a song for the first Cytus game (Chocological) and a whopping TWENTY (20!) songs being distributed between both Deemo games, including YUBIKIRI-GENMAN, Ga1ahad and Scientific Witchery and UFO among those. The same Project Moon will eventually employ the assistance of the Japanese unit once again, for the ongoing gacha game Limbus Company.
Say Goodbye To The Holiday My Little Pony: Friendship Is MagicThe halfaway-stretch of our Drument Encore has been claimed by the My Little Pony fanbase en large, courtesy of TnT Discord server admin lilyshy. It's also our first Christmas-y song for this year to appear here!... kinda... sorta... not really...
Let's get to it with order- Say Goodbye To The Holiday is an insert song for one of the modern My Little Pony series' musical episodes from the Season 6 episode "A Hearth's Warming Tail". The "kinda/sorta" up here comes from the fact that rather than being about Christmas proper, it's based upon a fictional holiday in the franchise's land of Equestria that fits the same bill: the eponymous Hearth's Warming. Now, this one song here comes from quite the antagonistic angle to it, as it instead is about the will of unicorn Snowfall Frost to erase that dreaded celebration once and for all. With the plot also involving ghosts from Hearth past, present and future, you bet you have to tip that "Christmas Carol reference" jar the same!
Composed by Daniel Ingram with lyrics from former Hasbro VP Michael Vogel, Say Goodbye To The Holiday's first album release was with the updated 2016 digital rerelease of the holiday album It's a Pony Kind of Christmas, alongside the other songs that were introduced with the same A Hearth's Warming Tail episode. The same album would also see a full physical release in the same day, mashing together "non-canon" mentioning of Christmas alongside festive songs from the proper show.
Hitomania (人マニア) Sasuke Haraguchi feat. Kasane TetoIt took more than half of the event occuring, but at lost here's the obligatory Vocaloid parenthesis among our requests pool! Right here we have the pick from user Heap's abode, one UTAU Hall of Legend song from this year coming from quite the ecleptic and dedicated artist...
Hitomania (lit. "Human-Mania(c)") is the 15th single of the currently-20-aged Sasuke Haraguchi (原口沙輔) from the Ehime prefecture, an individual whose passion for music and its many expressions has led him to a number of roles from composing to singing and performing, both in dance as well as DJ Set/drummer performing! Particularly notable of his is to hold such tendencies since his very childhood, going on record to self-teach dancing since he was 2 and with his first loop-based music productions dating back at his 5th year of life, courtesy of Apple's DAW-GarageBand suite of pre-packaged music. Making of the motto "No Happy No Life" his mantra, Sasuke Haraguchi started making his own original songs under the personal belief of "it's not my own song if I didn't make it myself from scratch", going on record with citing for his style hi-profile chiptune figures like Ryuichi "Professor" Sakamoto, known around Taiko no Tatsujin grounds for his remixes of Sacred Ruin and the Mappy Medley.
The bulk of the artist's early life was the YouTube channel "SASUKE TV", which was sustained from 2015 to 2018, after which he became associated with Warner Music Japan for three years, only to return independent right after such tenure.- To this day, all of his songs are available as digitally-distributed tracks with no physical releases to date. This of course counts this near-ending year, during which the song Hitomania was released on Nicovideo and Youtube with the UTAU Kasane Teto as his singer. Not only scoring the Hall of Legend within the year's end, Hitomania managed to top Vocaloid charts since his debut with the Vocalo Summer Top100 charting, managing to stay at the top spot for 11 weeks in a row!
Jupiter Pop Wintermute feat. Hatsune MikuThe wheel demands it, and so we're back on Vocaloid turf again! This pick from o8643 takes us to the works of a long-time Vocaloid producer, one of many examples of people willing to go on with his/her own synth-voice-based projects, regardless of the notoriety gained with all the produced works!
This up here is the 6th single release from the nicknamed Wintermute from Osaka, acomposer well versed into the alt-rock subgenre of shoegazing, a British islands-popularized trend of guitar riff distorsions and overpowered vocals for a dream-like musical mood. Released in August 2006, this was the album-starter for Wintermute's second (to date) digital releases on Japanese music-selling platform KARENT: February 2010's Stray Light.
Tokyo Reggie Masayoshi TakanakaI have to say, the lead artist behind sunnydeez2000's Drumvent request is one that is close to my standalone musical listening journey as well, as I happened to stumble across his album releases in retail/used album stores near my place a lot of times
Born March 27th, 1953, this is a prolific and jazz/fusion-versed guitarist and musician from Tokyo, one whose works are often quoted as highly influential to the birth of the City Pop subgenre. Since he was 17 and for 8 years, Masayoshi Tanaka took part in a number of acts that lasted for a handful of years each, from The Evil as a guitarist to Vertigo Distributions label's Flied Egg, during which tenure he started learning the bases of music theory, while being reluctantly relegated in the act as its bassist and in complete odds with his preferences. Tanaka would later return as a guitarist for a couple of acts with the same members up until 1978, as a member of the Sadistic Mika Band and the succeeding unit Sadistics.
Already during the Sadistics act's tenure, each of its members started branching out with solo publications, starting from the same Masayoshi Takanaka who released his first studio album via Kitty Records: Seychelles. Regardless of it being a solo album venue, the other members of the Sadistics also contributed and are credited in the same: bassist Tsugutoshi Gotō (後藤次利), Yōsui Inoue (井上陽水) and the late Yukihiro Takahashi (高橋幸宏), penning the lyrics for all of its tracks, not just Tokyo Reggie, Side A's 2nd Track in Seychelles! This album would later see CD rereleases down the road, debuting as a cassette tape release in 1976 and with the first CD rerelease six years later. If you're the vinyl kinda person yourself, you can even try fetching the album's rerelease of March this year, for the debut album's classiest record rerelease yet!
Programmed Genom kors k / beatmania IIDXIt's TWO DEE ECS
Brought in by the 30th beatmania IIDX arcade entry, Programmed Genom is the 6th of the "Programmed" songs trend that started out way back to IIDX 17 SIRIUS, currently consisting of Programmed Sun, World, Life, Universe and the album-debuting Programmed GAIA from kors k's 2015 album release Let's Do It Again!!. Programmed Genom itself would be featured in its own album for this ending year's M3 music fair's release (S2TB Files8:Visionary), alongside a full version for it.
For the song's production comments in the IIDX 30 RESIDENT website, kors k talked for a bit about how inspiring the works of longtime inhouse bemani contributor Toshiyuki Kakuta (角田利之) have been for kors k, both professionally and in their own private lives. Especially impactful for Kosuke Saito were three of the songs of Kakuta that were signed under the L.E.D.LIGHT/L.E.D.LIGHT aliases: his debut beatmania track GENOM SCREAMS, HELL SCAPER (which the same kors k would end up remixing later on, for Reflec Beat) and THE EARTH LIGHT, a IIDX/DDR simultaneous debut. Nearly 20 years after GENOM SCREAMS, kors k felt inspired once more to fashin one of his songs as one of the L.E.D.LIGHT songs and thus Programmed Genom came to be! Its BG video designer Ray also fashioned its background to better resemble the flashy presentation of the original beatmania song.
Ruma (ルマ) Kairiki Bear feat. Hatsune MikuThe third tune joining this Drumvent Calendar's Vocaloid ranks was requested by user catwithoutboat, coming from an artist who already had a handful of his own works in official Taiko gaming between Darling Dance and the v flower-powered Venom. His Miku roots shine the most for this one, though!
Born September 30th, Kairiki Bear (かいりきベア) is a Vocaloid producer that has found himself in the position of mixing/mastering the works of other producers as well, with credited -yet scarce- roled for select Touhou Project music arrangements down the line. I'm not offering a translation for this artist's nickname as a service of its origins, as the Kairiki Bear name was chosen after the eponymous bear enemy appearing in the second of actor Shigesato Itoi's beloved RPGs on Nintendo platforms, Earthbound/Mother 2 (link).
Ruma made its debut on November 23rd, 2019, counting approximately 30 million views between the official Nicovideo and YouTube uploads. While not getting gaming-worthy ports as of yet, it was featured a couple of years later in the artist's solo album Darling Syndrome (ダーリンシンドローム), from June 2021.
Sqlupp owl*tree feat. yaki*tree / CHUNITHMWe (and Groove Coaster players, I guess) know well what does it mean to have a major commissioned composer being concealed for years behind a nickname with no hint to the bearer's identity for years to come, with Tatsuya Shimizu as Zeami/Xeami. The fabled Sega music gaming trio of non-Vocaloid music franchise have had their own unique take on the concept for years, something that I can gent to talk at last thanks to tamacosine requesting one of the many songs that are concealed behind the owl*tree alias.
There's no "spoiler alert" in a trivia-oriented piece to bear, so here goes: the artist behind the owl*tree handle is none other than Kennosuke Ono, a doujin artist more commonly seen around under the 'onoken' alias with credited doujin scene contributions dating as back as 2001, with his first rise of otoge notoriety being with his songs for bemani gaming, especially for pop'n music (Stories; Celsus among many). In later years, Onoken also became notorious for his curious tendency of making songs for certain mobile games' pivot/ending story portions, which has been the case for the original Deemo (Fluquor) and Arcaea in more recent times, with the song Last (and its dual-ending two variants!).
Kennosuke Ono's owl*tree nickname came to be as a reference to the location of Sega's old headquarters in Tokyo's Otori, hence the phonetically-similar "O(wl)*Toorii" pronounciation. Just like what happened for Tatsh's PERSONA art name reveal, some incredible and independent scouting from random Internauts was what brought first to light the identity behind this handle, as all the guest/assist artists for owl*tree songs in his first album (2020's pvq) have both the "*tree" nickname and their real identities credited, all turning out to be recurring collaborators for other Kennosuke Ono songs, be it inside or outside the music game scene (full discussion here, in Chinese). The official "alias coming-out" moment, however, has happened just last month for the live music cross-music-games event Amusement Music Fes 2023, a late-November 2023 concert the same onoken didn't fail to mark down for all non-attenders over his own Twxtter account, in the aftermath (link).
Released for the original version of CHUNITHM AMAZON, Sqlupp is the owl*tree song that required some trumped-based assistance in form of the nicknamed yaki*tree aka Yoshizawa Tatsuiko (吉澤達彦), incidentally the only one among *tree aliases not to have a prior history of shared works with onoken! The song's extended version was found in both the CHUNITHM ALL JUSTICE COLLECTION ep.II soundtrack and the aforementioned pvq from 2020, which also contains a remix of it by Camellia (the so-dubbed "Camellia's "Sqleipd*Hiytex" Remix", which was also made playable for maimai over time).
Tricolor⁂circuS Aa... Hisui Chadsuke... (ああ…翡翠茶漬け…) / maimaiWe're not going away that much from Sega with today's entry either, as it comes from another of its long-running arcade music series! TnT Discord server moderator Nabix proposed for Drumvent Calendar scrutiny this one song, a case for which it may be argued how the sum is greater than its parts... in more than a way!
Behind the colorful "Aa... Hisui Chadzuke..." alias lies a trio of BMS artists with their own spin on instrumentals between chiptunes, bitpop and technocore blends: the nicknamed Aaaa (ああああ), Hino Isuka (翡乃イスカ) and Umeboshi Chadzuke (梅干茶漬け). Together in the act, it was well accomplished not only for coming up with their own songs' accomaning MVs, but even for their later joined music gaming productions, from more Sega-endorsed affairs (#SUP3RORBITAL) down to song specifically made for the recurring osu! world tournaments ,with stεganography... Hey, we can talk about osu stuff in the same league too, considering how some of these tourney songs are getting ported into commercial music games now (and by a Sega party, again!)
While each of the unit members has had its own unique share of otoge-affine portfolio to bolster, for the trio's joined-act debut in Sega's maimai franchise with Tricolor⁂circuS it was a celebration of their individual maimai hits... grouping together as one! It might be a loose connection for one of the composing trio, but the three animals are likely meant to stand for each of its members' former maimai original songs for previous iterations of the franchise, a link which is supported by at least acouple of them: the male cat character for AAAA's Koro Kara Hajimaru Prologue. (ここからはじまるプロローグ。) and the jolly rabbit pal for Hino Isuka's Paramount☆Showtime!! (パラマウント☆ショータイム！！ ). That said, no peppy lion lady anthro is to be found among Umeboshi Chadsuke's original songs for Sega games (let alone maimai!), but I guess it might be read as a stand-in for his maimai song NAGAREBOSHI☆ROCKET which had a female cat as its protagonist, so at this point it's likely to assume how the third animal friend's race for the Tricolor⁂circuS MV was because there already was a cat in the trio and thus it's the closest felinidae-not-cat at a palm- er, a claw's reach!
To dispel further speculation, at the very least it can still be linked to the three composers by the Aa... Hisui Chadzuke... unit's signature acronym letters of A, H and C poping out in the MV.
ABC feat. Sophia Black PolyphiaAt long last, a genre jump! This one is brought to us by Discord user deltacidity, letting me to take a cursory glance at the contemporary American progressive rock scene...
Founded in 2010 and based in Plano, Texas, the unit known as Polyphia made a name for itself in the ongoing modern music scenario for their meshing of genres with their own guitar virtuosisms thrown into the mix, coasting from their pop-song-cover-based beginnings to original tunes that don't shy away from former trends either, like the end-80ies' Math Rock. As expressed in a 2013 public interview, Polyphia as a name comes from the 'polyphony' word acting as the band's mantra: no one voice or instrumental string leads the whole performance's excecution, but racher each of the members with their own style onto it -guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage, bassist Clay Gober, and drummer Clay Aeschliman- all as a mean to convey to its listeners about how every person has their unique identity, one to make them dynamic and propositive in one's own trail of life.
Coming a month ahead its album debut for Polyphia's fourth (and latest, at this time) studio album Remember That You Will Die, ABC is a collaboration piece starring the tri-lingual, LA-based pop star Sophia Black as the singer. Even as part of a bigger music release, it still played a part for its debut album becoming the unit's very first chart-topping hit on the USA's Top Hard Rock Albums, as well as the very first time of Polyphia-sourced media hitting the Billboard 200 charts (topping at rank 33th).
Listen up Misuto Suzuki / beatmania IIDXThis year's lucky-draw pick from longtime blog contributor crystalsuicune continues to follow the asker's beatmania IIDX-shaped tangent of past forays, this time leaning on the last original piece from one artist whose later gaming association would eventually resound more loudly than ever before... stretching to popular blockbuster gaming releases of the past few years, no less!
Meet Mitsuto Suzuki (鈴木光人), a former DJ with a knack for electronic and synthesizer-based music. Having made his musical debut at age 20, his early career is closely associated as an arranger for game company TOSE and Konami's music gaming branch, thanks to the success of his first EPs and the tribute album Electric Satie, revisiting in a modern key many of Erik Satie's most known pieces like the also-remixed-in-Taiko-lore Gymnopédie No. 1 (one of his first bemani songs was another Satie remix/tribute, in of itself!). The bemani partnership went concurrently with his independent banding act with the unit OVERROCKET, with both venues being abandoned in lieu of joining Square-Enix as a composer since 2006, as a synthesizer player. Mitsuto Suzuki is still retaining such a professional affiliation, leading him across the years not only to arrange songs but to make a few of his own, mostly gravitating titles from the Final Fantasy series; from XII to Mobius FF, to the XIIItrilogy and even the ongoing Final Fantasy VII Remake series, he's sure to be gathering a far greater audience than the Japanese scene alone!
As written in this piece's incipit, Listen up was Suzuki's very last song before leaving bemani, a IIDX-exclusive piece to this day whose debut entry was the 12th one (HAPPY SKY). On the song creation notes, he novers how the playable as it came out to be is the result of him going 40% into the mix-down process and noticing there wasn't enough gameplay for what it was made that far. This was also a ground for testing for its video maker as well -Maya "MAYA" Takamura- as this was one of her first mainly-3D-graphics implementation projects for a IIDX song. The end result ended up along the way to double as an HAPPY SKY leitmotif reference, with all the ups and downs forming the shape of a cloud! Listen Up would eventually end up with a nearly-7-minutes extended version of its own for the IIDX 12 official soundtrack, under the label of "Post-Production Mitsuto Suzuki".
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Fantastic★Toryanse！ (ファンタスティック★通りゃんせ！) Yuya Kobayashi (IOSYS) feat. Yamamoto KanaFor a number of years, we've had quite the plentiful slew of original radio songs in Taiko gaming coming from talents of the always-Touhou-popular IOSYS doujin circle, most of which becoming the main body of the so-dubbed God Collection circle of songs. Even if those years seem to be long behind us, it appears we've got someone nostalgic of such times, among out freshly-drawn requesters... This one's for you, mariodp9!
As you can tell for the title alone, this Fantastic★Toryanse sounds and plays around the eponymous children's tune from the Japanese folklore, or what's collectively known as Warabe uta (童歌). The original folk song was used as a way to teach kids about when it's safe to cross a road in the city and while its founding time isn't precisely dated as of today, the past-times higher mortality ratios surely comes across from the Toryanse's body of text, if whoever sings is grateful for a kid safely reaching the 7th year of age!
This radio pop Toryanse 'modern retelling' of sorts comes from composer Yuya Kobayashi (コバヤシユウヤ) and lyricist Yoshimi Yuno (夕野ヨシミ), with leading vocals from Yamamoto Momiji (山本椛). It was the leading track in April 2017's Haipaa Denpa Collection! Fantastic Yamato★Edition (はいぱぁ電波これくしょん！ ファンタスティック★大和編) doujin release, with the circle self-releasing the song on their social media/music-sharing accounts roughly a month later.
Tanko Bushi (炭坑節) MINYO CRUSADERSWell, ... talk about a fated wheel spin- what I happened to get today as a Wish List pick actually managed to become the reason behind our latest Song of the Week entry! The Tanko Bushi managed to receive a number of covers ever since the first song recording back in the World-Wars times but it's quite hard to match the scope and reach of the one attempted by quite the energetic Japanese unit!
The Tanko Bushi version from server user jcindahouse's request is brought us by the Minyo Crusaders (民謡クルセイダーズ), a 9fold-members ensemble whose mission is to push the worldwide revival of traditional Japanese music (or Min'yō, 民謡), thanks to unique genre blends from all over the world. The act is heralded and co-founded by vocalist Freddie Tsukamoto (フレディ塚本) and Katsumi Tanaka (田中克海) and carries out both musical and choreographical performances of many Japanese folk songs with traditional outfits to match, as a way to claim back the Min'yo sounds to the working people instead of later years' pandering to upper-echelon social standings.
The MV here for their Tanko Bushi stands tall as such of an example: here are the Minyo Crusaders in Fussa City, donning many a Matsuri-callback outfits and cheerfully singing the Tanko Bushi in order to let people remember the old times' tunes! This cover has originally made its debut in 2017's Echoes of Japan (エコーズ・オブ・ジャパン), the Minyo Crusaders' first studio release, only to reappear in the online two years later, as part of the unit's own Mais Um publishing label. People attending this year's Japan Festival in Texas could also see them performing the song live, so that their history-preserving musical mission is extended to more countries than Japan alone!
5150 Van HalenOne day more to Christmas and we'll be celebrating it in a rocking way! At reisenfumo's request, it's time to talk about the album-title-giving track that has been quite the turning point for one of America's most beloved rock bands. Let's just JUMP into it!
Long before Pasadena became known by millennials as the main setting for the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, it was the place to see the birth of Van Halen, a band whose high energy on stage performance and lead guitar virtuosisms across the ages are often credited as the main factors to restore hard rock music as the musical scenario's frontrunner worldwide. It was founded by the Dutch-based Van Halen brothers -guitarist Eddie and drummer Alex- after years operating as a duo act under a number of names, from The Broken Comb to Trojan Rubber Co, Genesis (changed to Mammoth due to that name being already taken) and finally, the year later, starting to welcome more members across the years, with their roster up until 1985 consisting of the extra recruits of bassist/side vocalist Michael Anthony and lead vocalist David Lee Roth, who formerly aided the brothers' early acts by renting them a sound system for the earlier performances.
The course of the Van Halen band, in fact, drastically changed after the end of the album-advertising 1984 Tour, after which the same David Lee Roth left the act in order to pursue a solo career. The succeeding Van Halen lead vocalist became Sammy Hagar, a former singer for Montrose whom Eddie came acquainted with due to a mutual friendship with a trusted car mechanic of both parties. The first major project of Van Halen with the new vocal lead was the 1986 studio album 5150, a direct reference to Eddie's "Fifty-One-Fifty" home studio, as well as a California law-enforced term to label a mentally-disturbed person. Despite the general public's concerns for the vocalist change and the album's more love song/ballad-reliant tracklist in contrast to VH's former discography, 5150 became Van Halen's very first release to top USA's Billboard Hot 200 chart, on top of becoming a pluri-metaled seller in other countries in the world, among which it was a multi-Platinum hit in the US, Australia and Canada. As you can tell by the appointed video's title here, the 5150 album got a remaster in this ending year by Donn Landee, as part of the LP/CD-available The Collection II set with all the releases that have occurred during the so-dubbed "Van Hagar" years.
mnbs 81.0x19 / Soundodger 2Christmas is here, heralded with yet another music game to check from the seemingly-ever-growing list for the genre! It's even from a rhythm game that comes from this near-concluded year... well, the sequel of it, that is!
The chosen pick from yojijuku5 comes from April 2023's sequel to Studio Bean's PC-only Soundodger, after a 2-years-tenure as an Early Access game since October 2021. Born as a collaborative project with Adult Swim's gaming branch, this is a game that asks players to dodge whatever bullets are on screen, all the while one of the game's many dedicated songs blasts through your audio speakers. The original game was retrofitted with a level editor as part of 2013's commercial release of its game (Soundodger+), while the direct sequel Soundodger 2 ups the ante by tripling its base song list portfolio, while retaining the level-editing option from the revised first game.
Among the newcoming SD2 artists is the nicknamed 81.0x19 (SoundCloud), who penned two different songs for the game: Feeling Again and this one. The same 81.0x19 has also shared his own songs ingame, as they appear across all available difficulties in the game (link)! It also gives us an insightful glimpe on their respective charting, with all three original modes of mnbs being charted by the same Micheal "MrBean" Molinari, the creator of both Soundodger games.
I hope you've had your Christmas of the merry type, this year! I'll catch you later soon, even sooner that you'd think...
Ouverture 1812 Tchaikovsky...what? You thought we were done here? Silly you- this year, we're walking the whole extra mile in order to cover up the remainder of the month with one last spoonful of picks before the year ends!
From blog writer ngitrox/hisashiyarouin comes another choice pick for the Classic genre, one whose composer has already made the rounds in Taiko lore for one choice Classical remix from the days of yore! Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) has been the very first person from Russia whose music became famous all over the world, struggling ever since his graduation at age 25 from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to reconcile what has learnt on musical notation with what has been practicing beforehand, ultimately ending up with an unmistakeably Russian composition style thoughout his career.
The bulk of Tchaikovsky's most popular scores were for battets and theatrical plays, including (but not limited to) The Nutcracker and Swan Lake (with no ducklings of sorts to be found); however, one choiuce concert ouverture shines the brightest in tune with his Russian upbringing is The Year 1812, Solemn Overture, Op.42, an E-flat major-scaled piece that Tchaikovsky has written 8 years prior to his death. The ouverture was made as a commemoration to the Russian country's stoic resistance against Napoleon Bonaparte and his Grande Armée's invasion in the campaign of 1812, leaving the French ruler to an army that was a tenth of its original size due to the many losses that Russia's cold Winter has brought upon the invader, on top of the armed losses. The patriotic nature of the ouverture was also the reason behind its debut on August 20th, 1882 nearby the soon-to-be-completed Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, another building made as a tribute to Russia's defense of 70 years prior.
Scored for brass/percussions/strings and woodwinds, the 1812 Ouverture has the peculiar distinction of having a military-fueled finale, with a military-lead brass band performance and even the live firing of actual cannon shots! In later execution of the performance, the explosive finale is often replaced with a round of ceremonial field artillery's fire or even fireworks, as employed during several Independence Day parades in the United States.
Twilight Light (トワイライトライト) 25-Ji, Nightcord de. x Hatsune Miku/Project Sekai COLORFUL STAGE!Our after-party journey continues with TT Discord moderator Pulsar's request, one from a fictiona unit that was SO on the rage for last year's Drumvent Calendar that it ended up appearing twice in the event (even THRICE, if we also count the one song that wasn't randomizingly-fished out last year!).
Twilight Light is the image song of the VOCALOID-powered gacha Project Sekai: COLORFUL STAGE's fictional unit romanized as "Nightcord at 25:00", one which -as anticipated- have already digressed upon last year, and in greater lengths (here and here). This fan-favorite external unit among Taiko Time readers/contributors has had an originally-commissioned song from 10-years-contributing producer toa (とあ), with one choice body of lyrics to make it only fit for a full-unit SEKAI version, with Hatsune Miku and the Nightcord girls singing!
In fact, each of the four girls' final spoken line for the song all contain a unique nod to each of the members' respective voice actress, be it for their final line starring a kanji from the seiyuu's full name -Tanabe Rui (田辺 留依) for Mafuyu and Satou Hinata (佐藤 日向) for Mizuki- or a kanji with an alternate reading that calls back to a seiyuu's VA, which is the case for Kanade's VA Kusunoki Tomori (楠木 ともり; read '灯る' as 'tomoru') and Ena's VA Suzuki Minori (鈴木 みのり; with '向' in the lyrics body being readable as 'minori'). Not only that, toa also snuck in some choice lines that call back to the lyrics body of IDSMILE, his first Project Sekai commission song (and yes, also the same one we've touched upon last year, too!).
Zunda Party Night (ずんだパーリナイ) Namigroove feat. Zundamon (なみぐる feat.ずんだもん)Always from Vocaloid pastures is also our next stop, suggested by Discord user colinmcguire. More than often we've been on point to talk about how many digital singers out there, but did you know that even said Vocaloids' pets/companions can have a fair share of hits under their belt? No kidding!
Such is the case of Zunda Party Night, a track that made its debut on Spring 2023's very first day! This one is brought us by Navigroove, a 2-years-publishing composer whose online activities on the vocal synth scene date as back as 2016 for several other minor projects, laying under different art names like namihentai. The Zundamon vocalist starring in the song is the pet of Tohoku Zunko (東北ずん子), a different VOCALOID3 voice bank made in June 2014 by AH-Software Co. Ltd., featuring Satomi Satō (佐藤聡美) as her voice actress. As it became norm for other Vocaloid/pet pairings, the voice of Zundamon became the one of the related Vocaloid with a different pitch, paving the way for a module setup more versed for denpa earwormy creations in the likes of this one here!
Zunda Party Night also made it to Project Sekai later on this year (link), but the circumstances that led to its first otoge porting came with its sizeable load of controvercy. The Sega/Craft Egg wonder gacha/rhythm game has hosted a number of popularity contests and collaborations to add licensed Vocaloid tunes as playable tracks and among the latest ones for the latter camp was the yearly online festival dubbed The VOCALOID Collection. Among all newcoming songs submitted from the less-experienced producers out there, the winner of its Rookie tournament would manage to become playable in Project Sekai: Youkoso, Shichuu Udon Sentou e!!, from a composer whose nickname would easily make Tokoro Tennosuke from Bobobo-bo Bo-Bobo proud. However, this one track from the Nu-centric composer was discarded by the ProSeka team due to the copious amount of profanity and parodies displayed both with words and its music video, which is why the 2nd-placed Zunda Party Night was picked up instead.
Don't Call Me a Noob Mr MilnIt appears that these December fan-driven features can't fully escape the embrace the YouTube-spawn digital celebrity sphere! This year's specimen from such camp was requested by Discord user selide.
This is a parody song from YT User Mr Miln from Australia, taking a dig at one of the last decade's most popular games amoung the youngest crowd: Roblox. Created in 2004 by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel, this is a title that lets anyone to create and share their custom games, starring an original array of assets that one would mistake for a sub-label of certain block-building toys brands of yore. Roblox was originally released in 2006 as a computer game, ballooning into modern systems and iOS in the later years and garnering an impressive amount of monthly users, with select surveys pointing out how more than half of 16-and-under-aged kids from America alone!
Following the footsteps of Minecraft's fanbase, the Roblox community would soon be seeing a surge of parody song with lots of "gamer words" as a testament of its most active playerbase, with Don't Call Me a Noob being one of the most notable spearheads... I mean, if over 11 million views on YT don't amount to such degrees for a parody song, what else does?!
Itsudatsu-sha-tachi no Mugekō 〜 Kingdam of Nothingness. (逸脱者達の無礙光 〜 Kingdam of Nothingness.) Touhou Juuouen ~ Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost The release-schedule hiccup for the year's final SotW article release was also reflected here, which is why today we're looking at the two final surprise-fished-up runner-ups for our Drumvent celebrations! To (partially) steal the words of Discord server mod/song requester jorj, let me tell you the story about "that time ZUN bought a 100$ Mongolian voice sound pack to add something new to Touhou music"...
Nothing to talk about a Comiket-launched game like the day another of its editions is running live! Launched with the hobbyist-driven fair's 102nd edition of this year's Summer, Touhou Juuouen (東方獣王園) ~ Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost sits as the 19th main installment of the ever-prolific curtain-fire shooter series, as well as the third one to engage the 1v1 gameplay style that was popularized by SNK fanfavorite Twinkle Star Sprites as well as another couple of past Touhou games, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream and Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Each player takes one half of the screen and has to take down the other player by cancelling incoming danmaku as chain reactions by taking down other hostile entities flying around or the very opponent's own attack deliveries. Drawing from the more recent "conventional" Touhou entries, animal spirits will interfere with both players' danmaku-dodging action and a character card will be given to the player in Story mode rounds after defeating each opponent.
Story-wise, the game also picks up from the situation being brought up by the latest titles' events (Unconnected Marketeers and 100th Black Market), with that one being the mass opening of market trades between youkai creatures. The opening of such markets has left much of Gensokyo's land in a 'loss of ownership' state, a status several agents from the Animal Kingdom and Hell are trying to take advantage of. While the matriarchs of the three leading Animal Kingdom tribes are waging their war in a more open way, the human-turned-oni Zanmu Nippaku (日白残無) is trying in the game to subsude both Gensokyo and the Spirit Realm as part of her domain of Hell, by letting the Animal Kingdom matriarchs exaust each other off while diverging other interlopers' attentions via hidden warp traps that would lead to her instead. The character of Zanmu was based on the one of Buddhist monk Zanmu Nichihaku (日白残夢) from the Sengoku period, going on record as a very eccentric individual across records of the time.
The song that could be translated in English as "The Deviants' Unobstructed Light ~ Kingdom of Nothingness." is in fact the one played when Zanmu is fought. To better emphasze the character's mysteriousness and ever-changing aura, her theme was made as one repeating, strong phase with alterations as a testament on how different points of view on this one character lead to a different image of this formerly-human creature. And if you thought I was ditzy once again with the title-mentioning at the beginning, I am not- the song's original title really spelled out "Kingdam" in that way!
Shoujo A (少女A) siinamota (椎名もた)And to end things up for 2023, something to go full circle with an earlier Drumvent pick of this year! We've already had a 'Shounen A' to talk about and now -thanks to cornwallius's request- here's the 100%-unrelated 'female side' to that end!
Originally released on October 17th, 2013, Shoujo A is a Kagamine Rin-powered song made by GINGA producer Mizoguchi Ryou (溝口遼), mostly known online by his aliases Powapowa-P (ぽわぽわP) and siinamota (椎名もた). Starting out with simple 'desktop music' works, the artist's affiliation with the label has begun in 2012 up until the year 2015, the year which most notably has seen the author's own death. While the causes were never publicly disclosed, it's often speculated to be a suicide case, considering the strong allusions to suicide across his songs -including Shoujo A- up to Powapowa-P's very last tune that was published an half-hour prior to his death, Aka Pen Onegai-shimasu.
One surprising thing about Shoujo A is its posthumous Hall of Legend status, born not out of its maker's passing but due to unrelated social media viral sensations, nearly a decade after the song's release. Thanks to anime-based remixes of the song via TikTok, the track managed to go from a meager 600k combined YT/Nicovideo viewcount to well over 50 million views to this day.
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At long last, this marks the word end on this year's extended Drumvent celebration, as well as the year for Taiko Time in general. Hopefully for you as well, the hop into 2024 will make you all roar like a dragon! Take care.
