This July's Ura Oni slot is owed to one of the most-represented franchises in Taiko among Bandai Namco's many IPs! Although, one might not look at it that way, as of late...
| Game | Genre |
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC Nijiiro (Y4) |   |
★3 117 |
★5 175 |
★5 199 |
★5 251 |
★9 567 |
| All (2P) | |
★3 117/117 |
★5 175/175 |
- | - | - |
96-192
immrat (Idolm@ster MILLION LIVE - Rat A Tat!!!)Man, the Idolm@ster franchise had it all. Back in the second arcade generation, there was no Taiko console entry without a new playable song for the series for years (not to mention General-Asia debuts on toe!), up to the point of having dedicated dual-releases with tons of exclusives, something no other IP was ever granted the privilege to, so far! Halfaway the Taiko 0 firmware tenure, though, Idolm@ster representation became more and more sparce, with only recent times getting some breathing air between the latest spinoff branches. Hell, one year it even got the Touhou Project Arrangement treatment, with a tie-in arcade event being the only means to get a new song at all!
The year in question was 2023, heralding the coming of Rat A Tat! as a tie-in campaign for the anime transposition of one of the series' spinoffs: THE iDOLM@STER MILLION LIVE!, starring the 765 Production's idols from the original games alongside a few dozens new talents! With 2013's eponymous spinoff-starter game by Gree getting discontinued in 2018, the exploits of Producers managing the 765Pro idols would go on with the sequel mobile title Theater Days in 2017, following the game touch-based rhythm game approach that was also adopted in the Idolmaster Cinderella girls game Starlight Stage. Further extensions of the Million Live branch would include both manga works and the aforementioned 12-episode Anime run from the Shirogumi Inc. studio, broadcast between October and December 2023 in Japan, getting an official Taiwanese dub the year later. Both playable, printed and silverscreen mediums would introduce themed units among the MS-debuting idols, including the spinoff's flagship Strawberry Pop Moon (ストロベリーポップムーン), performers of the same Rat A Tat!!! that opens every episode of the anime run (minus the pilot). Mimicking the Cute/Cool/Passion idol classification from the Cinterella Girls spinoff, the unit includes one idol from each of the three types: Princess idol Mirai Kasuga (春日未来; CV: Yamazaki Haruka), Fairy idol Shizuka Mogami (最上静香; CV: Tadokoro Azusa) and Angel idol Tsubasa Ibuki (伊吹翼; CV: Machico).
Donning custom charts for 2-player action in Kantan and Futsuu modes, the upper-echelons of charting for Rat A Tat!!! in Taiko -while not as highly-rated as the song's hardest setting on Theater Days- packs in the same stamina-draining, 1/16-based blend we've come to know and love out of charts from other Idolm@ster songs in the past. Not only that, the song also has its own custom dancers set to house some of the 39 Project's girls that joined 765Pro in the MS branch, including the Strawbetter Pop Moon idols taking the center of the stage. It's like if 2015 never left!
