Yes I know, the world championships isn't actually over yet (final round in Tokyo, Japan this July) but for the vast majority of the playerbase, myself included, it's the end of the line, so I feel comfortable to make this post. This also makes my first personally-written blog post on Taiko Time in...what feels like years actually! Have been moving on in life and in my career so I've mostly left it up to the rest of the team. Huge thanks to Tetsu and Lokamp for picking up the slack when I could not.
My event was in the Malaysia A region and I ended my run at 5th place in a pool of 43 participants (21 in attendance). While I could go on an existential rant about how I'm too old to continue playing at top level I won't, since that doesn't stop anyone from enjoying the game if they wanted to, and that hasn't dampened my love for the game. I will say I had a lot of fun, the local community still seems to be thriving and there's a great new generation of skilled players to keep us on the map. I'll tack on my personal feelings and experiences about the event at the end of this post.
There are a few things I feel like pointing out if Namco wants to keep drawing international attention to their competitive events, especially since the team have made it clear that they want Taiko to be played by a wider audience.
Production of the official MyBachi needs to be ramped up and distributed wider. For most cases at mid to high level play, the house bachi just isn't good enough to perform well on; they are way too heavy and sluggish and cannot drumroll as fast, especially if the ruleset checks for total score between all regional winners; having better access to the official MyBachi would make the playing field more level. Several regional locations, to my knowledge, do have one of each of the three MyBachi on loan for participants to use which I think is a great move, but I think a lot of players outside Japan would really appreciate an easier way to get ahold of a pair for themselves to practice on without having to wait for the limited orders to open on the official Amazon store, or having to buy from scalpers on eBay.
Open song composition contests to non-Japanese artists. This doesn't apply to TWC 2024 in particular since most of the competition songs are holdovers from the cancelled TWC 2021, but moving forward I would really like to see the rich musical talent from Asia or Australia or wherever arcade Taiko is being distributed in the future to be represented. Many are finding success on mobile rhythm games like Phigros, or submissions for BMS contests, and being able to submit to Taiko no Tatsujin, even if ultimately not everyone will be able to get a spot on the songlist, would still increase Taiko's exposure overseas.
Have more overseas participants be able to go to Japan. This might be a point of contention since the game is Japanese in origin, and there might be budget limitations given that Namco is footing the bill for flights and lodging for the four or so non-Japanese winners that managed to get into the brutal top 29 ranking. You could just say 'skill issue, just grind to be a Tatsujin-level player to earn your rank' but outside of a few countries in Asia, arcade culture and infrastructure is generally worse than in Japan, and players with passion for the game will be unable to push themselves up due to poor arcade cabinet maintenance, lack of locations etc. A lot of effort to foster skilled players will obviously depend on the local grassroots community, but Namco could allow a few more slots than just the one in a million that are able to go toe to toe with Japanese players. Even if an overseas finalist is edged out by a Japanese player, just the opportunity of traveling to Japan to participate in the finals is a huge deal! I'm sure a lot of Taiko fans here would appreciate the chance.
However, whatever that was there was quite well-managed; I can't imagine the number of logistics and scheduling issues they had to solve on the fly, getting in touch with arcade operators through all participating regions and negotiating dates where they're able to hold their competitions. Appreciate that they allow for 'satellite tournaments' (breaking down a regional event into more than one location) to ease the burden of traveling for players, and allowing for regionals to be scheduled past the stipulated deadline of 21st April for special circumstances. The in-game reward distribution has been on time so far too.
On a personal note I really want to thank Namco for finally starting to organize international competitions again, the first since 2016, and acknowledging that there are many, many fans of the game outside Japan. I realize that TWC 2024 was intended to happen three years ago but couldn't due to the COVID pandemic, but better late than never.
Just from my experiences in Malaysia A, I can tell that TWC 2024 has brought a lot of the local community together. New friendships were made, interest in the game was re-kindled at all levels, from onlookers to core players to likely, even better awareness among the arcade operators of how in-demand the game is. Can say it has applied to me personally as well, I have been talking to players and contributors to the Taiko community whom I hadn't talked to in a long while, online and in-person. It's also gotten me to improve my game and find entertainment in doing better, getting higher scores and accuracy, where previously I had not taken Taiko seriously in a long time, content with just clearing and FCing. Through the two or so months of me training for TWC 2024 I got my first arcade Donder-Full Combo and starting to feel that 10th Dan is no longer an impossible feat. Even though I was disappointed I didn't end up being at least in the top 4 despite my intense grinding and improvement, I still walked away feeling like I gained something out of the whole competition period.
Festive atmosphere at Malaysia A regionals (Photo taken by me)
I am especially heartened at the Malaysia A winner's dedication of their win to Taiko Time for introducing them to the game and rhythm game fandom in general (I was personally there to hear it, thank you so much!). Things like this is what makes me glad I started this blog so many years ago so everyone knows how fun this quirky Japanese drumming game is and are interested to pick it up and discover it for themselves.
Events like this, when organized properly, can only bring a net positive to our community. I will be keeping in touch with what Namco does in the future for competitive events overseas, and I hope everyone reading this who enjoys playing Taiko will too.
Image sources: https://taiko.namco-ch.net/taiko/en/wcs2024/
