At the year's final stretch, we got served with one more livestream to round up everything arcade-related in the near future, with a greater focus on the just-ended World Score @ Online tournament. Like in the past, our coverage will be a mix of our usual snaps, the Taiko Team's own recap post posted today on the official blog (see here) and a few SNS notices inbetween. Let's roll!
As per tradition, the first corse of action is to recall the new songs coming for Nijiiro Version's next update, the same that were already revealed a few days back.
Once again, the reminder was followed by a small video message from a few artists from the new non-cover additions, this time around being Nishiyama Daddy Daddy (Daddy's Style -Konya wa Daddy Daddy-) and Kishidan (Kegarenaki Kusoyarou-domo). Jump at around the 10:40 mark in the livestream video to see it once more!
The day after the update, the latest seasonal Rewards Shop lineup will roll out, filled to the brim with console-born/console-exclusive treats! This will also be the first time for Dajare de Oshare and Sayonara Varya's Ura Oni to be hitting the arcade front.
Of course, we got one noteworthy treat to warrant a slide on its own: the debut of a brand-new Classic Medley, the first one since the early DS game days! This Classic Medley (Winter Holiday Edition) will hit the same day of the other tunes as well. Have a small snippet of it too, at around the 13:40 mark (and the full deal on the YT channel, in a few days!)
Concurrently, the four songs from the Spring Rewards Shop '24 lineup -Seiza Wardo, Takkyu de Dakkyu, Fuuma Module 6768 and Tonde Mite- will become permanently available for everyone.
The December 17th update will also bring in a few changes on menu navigation screens, By popular demand for quick 2-player sessions, both 1P and 2P drums will respond almost instantly to join the game, after the relevant credits are slotted! Just watch for the message in the cloud before waltzing in, even in the Song Selection screen.
There's also going to be another change pertaining the insertion of special QR codes or player Banapassport data. After the update, these will work only before the Mode Selection screen, so if a second player joins while the other one is already inside the Song Selection one, the game will revert to the entry screen only for the 'default' Banapassport-less features.
The first of the unadvertised-on-blog-entry corners is upon us! This December, Banpresto crane game machines are receiving a handful of new Taiko-related merch, with a 6-set of soft keychain plushies to come two Tuesdays from now and a couple of items already out: the latest gold/silver drum siblings variants in the SOFVIMATES line and a rather unique drumroll marker giant plush.
As usual, click on the images for full resolution on each! At around the 24-minute mark in the broadcast, these are also shown on stage for size comparison means.
We then come to the customary stroll to the near-past memory lane, recording some of the latest IRL events the Taiko Team staff has helf in the past 3 months. Starting with the Real-Life Ranking Dojo, two noteworthy instances were shared this time: one held at Japan's namco Umeda store and another at the Shironeko Ichibanka store in Taipei, Taiwan.
For "greater-scope, broader-audiences" events, on the other hand, we got this time snaps for the events held in November at the AEON Mall Kobe Minami and two more in namco-owned joints: Bandai Namco Cross Store Koshigaya Laketown and the Namco Wonder City Minami-Kumamoto. The first of the three is particularly relevant for the competitive Taiko audience, as the World Championship 2024 winner Hiragi got invited to the event.
We also got some more memorabilia on this year's edition of the Amusement Expo, mostly consisting of what already digressed on a blog entry last month, so we'll just leave you with our own coverage of it instead.
Finally, one quick nod (again, so quick that not even the Taiko Team's on-blog recap hosts it) about the latest Nintendo Switch-only Donderful/Rhythm Festival online tournament was given!
With most of the finalists' seats already been taken (only the two "Last Chance" lucky redraws are open), the fabled DonKatsu Cup 2025/2026 will see its end on early January, with the Finals set to start on the 10th.
With most of the finalists' seats already been taken (only the two "Last Chance" lucky redraws are open), the fabled DonKatsu Cup 2025/2026 will see its end on early January, with the Finals set to start on the 10th.
And now we come to the ongoing arcade collaboration talk. After recapping this year's Touhou Project campaign (nothing new since its reveal here), on-stream it was revealed a new worldwide collaboration... which is actually an old one... which has been made new again: soon enough, it's Arknights time!
Just like the Touhou Project campaign, every Banapassport credit spent with one of the two Arknights song transplants from last Summer in the operational period will grant tickets that can be spent on Donder Hiroba to get one of the five available Petit Chara on display between characters from the game's main lineup (from left to right, Amiya, Kal'tsit and the Doctor) and the two Operator variants standing as representatives for the two songs, Nearl the Radiant Knight and Gavial the Invincible.
The campaign will run on all Nijiiro arcades worldwide, from January 21st to March 22nd next year, with Japan and Mainland China also implementing a lottery for an acrylic keychain giveaway of the 5 Taiko-puchified characters in question. Details for the merchandise giveaway campaign will be given at a later date, in the usual channels (and the official Taiko WeChat account for the Mainland China one).
The Taiko collaboration elements on the Arknights side were also fully profiled on stream, seeing as the tower-defense game's Japanese server is catching up with the original Chinese one. The ingame elements are basically the same ones we've already seen months ago (click here!), but here below we have now the pricing for the Japanese version of the game and the time window in which these can be acquired- December 18th, 2025 to January 8th, 2026.
For the Global server players out there, however, put your worries to rest: the TnT collab elements are confirmed to run under the same time window. With a tweet posted during this very livestream, no less!
Dear Doctor,
— Arknights_EN (@ArknightsEN) December 14, 2025
[Arknights × Taiko no Tatsujin] Collaboration Event will soon be live on December 18, 2025, 08:00 (UTC-7), and some of the contents are available for a limited time. Please refer to the following notification for the event details.#Arknights #Yostar… pic.twitter.com/p4NohjbXG0
For a limited time, a few exclusive physical goods about the collaboration are also available for sale at publisher Yostar's official online shop (Japan only, at least for now) with coasters, a badge, a tapestry and a few acrylic-based goods around the Taiko-themed skin for the operator Myrtle.
After a rather-uneventful "What's in...BOX?" corner with user-suggested questions (at least, on the visuals side), we come to the much-anticipated World Score @ Online 2025 Final Results reveal, with Etou and Kimizu unveiling the 16 top-rankers worldwide, alongside the best players of each of the participating regional areas (Japan, Mainland China, South-East Asia, Oceania and North America).
Before that, however, a few extra perks for the top-rankers were revealed: alongside the score-based Petit Chara which will be sent to every participant in accordance to the cumulative final score reached (see more here), special titles will be also handed out to the Top 100 players, with visual flair changing in accordance to the rank reached. The aforementioned Top 16 overall/Best Player in each of the regional areas will also be sent a physical cetificate as a testament to their respective prowess.
According to the final standing, even a few of the lower-ranked players had a chance to come out of this event with some fancy titleplate visuals as a lucky souvenir! Among those, this time we got:
- 765 Award, for the 765th-ranked player;
- 876 Award, for the 876th-ranked player;
- 2025 Award, for -you guessed it- the no.2025th-ranked player;
- Perfect Match Award, for every player whose rank ends with a double-0 digit (the 100th-ranked player and registered players with an event score of 0 can't apply).
The last of the five is the familiar Lucky Draw Award, for which Etou and Kimizu draw out ten random numbers out of all remaining ranks and award such player with this prize. If you joined the tournament and you're placed in one of those 10 ranks, congrats!
All special titles listed up here -top-ranking ones included- will be implemented simultaneously on Christmas Day, with the ones for Mainland China players coming at a later date.
In an epilogue kinda-sorta way, this arcade tournament talk was ended with the reveal of a sequel song to YOU're your HERO, releasing on December 27th across all Nijiiro arcades! The full cut of this peculiar "steμ-dley" was also played on stream (around the 1:47:00 mark).
With the tournament talk well and done, it's time for the implementation of a brand-new livestream segment: Challenge! KimizuP. Given some of the past... not-so-rosey live performances while playing brand-new songs on stream, the arcade branch director and part-time No.11 blog-entry-writer is challenging himself to clear songs on Oni mode choosen in secret by the rest of the staff and revealed live via box draw.
To kick things off, the first of such challenges involved the freshly-released SORA-VIII Nebula Trail. The results? Weeeeeell, ...
"Mission failed, we'll get 'em next time..."
What's funny out of this, however, is what has happened after the play. After an off-screen evalutation and perhaps in the spirit of the season, Etou realized how it's been more than 18 years since the last Classic Medley's release, and Kimizu managed to end up with more than 18 ticks at the Soul gauge. So the challenge is a success anyway!
As a result of such a ruling, every Banapassport player will be able to se up the title Increasing Earth Strength (地力アップ中) from Christmas Eve.
The very last thing shown on screen, a first-time instance for new-year-related content, is the partial reveal of the upcoming Zodiac Namco Original song for the Year of the Horse, releasing on January 1st!
Not that much has been unveiled in advance, other than its tentative title of UMA no Force Training and the fact that it's a really short Namco Original (about 40 seconds) with a gimmick chart based on the arm skills a jockey has to wield while mounting a horse, reins at hand. You'll just have to wait another half of the month to see this in person!
Today's livestream recap on the Taiko Team's side also ends with an inviation to all Donders to share online their favorite Namco Original release on arcades of the year, with the #NamOriOfTheYear2025 (#ナムオリオブザイヤー2025) hashtag online. Whethere you join the SNS fun of this or not, chances are we might be cooking something similar, like in past years...
...but for now, have a grand-ole year conclusion and (at least for future livestream shenanigans) we'll see you in 2026!
