| Game | Genre |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC0 Red (AC0 Green removed) NS2 (MP) Plus/STH |  | ★3 116 | ★5 165 | ★6 268 | ★8 443 | - |
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lvsoup (Love Song - Soup)Often times, we're thankful to console entires' digital distribution methods for safeguarding selective licenses that otherwise would have been removed from modern arcade grounds otherwise. More and more frequently, however, we're faced with the harsh truth that, indeed, select digital-distribution channels are just as fickle and would leave songs in the franchise-perma-deletion status once more, not supported by the "conventional" distribution via permanent DLC packs or base song list appearance. This very month, on Donderful/Rhythm Festival grounds, it's the story of a couple of songs leaving the Taiko Music Pass plan: Chuwapane! (which we have already talked about the first time it was franchise-removed) and today's song on the spotlight.
With instrumental backing from Japanese rock band [Alexandros], Soup was the opening theme for the 10-episodes Fuji TV drama Love Story, aired between April and June 2016. Former musician Kohei Kamishiro started his career as a clinical psychologist, after an undisclosed incident making him shift his life projects. On counseling, he meets the young Sakura Sano, a girl with sever stuttering problems that makes hard for her to interact with anyone else in her life. Once Kohei catches Sakura singing one of her favorite songs on her own without stuttering, he realizes how cultivating the girl's musical talent might be the key to tend to her problems, with the thared connection via music being a two-way factor in improving the lives of both.
The singer of Soup is the currently-30-aged Sakura Fujiwara (藤原さくら) from the Fukuoka prefecture, a guitar-playing songwriter with her own YT channel since 2023, eight years after her album debut. She had to retire for almost a year from June 2024 due to the diagnosis of functional dysphonia and although it hasn't been fully cured, she resumed her activities during 2025's first half.
Debuting on Red Version, this cover version of Soup made it to last for two more firmware changes of the 3rd-gen arcade landscape, with a far greater lifespan in that Taiko Plus/STH app's subscription plan and a 1-year-return on the Taiko Music Pass. Players of Lifetime Respect or the Namco Original Off Rock('s revised charts) may already know what to expect: a slow song with enhanced scrolling speed that gives the impression of off tempo signatures for its many cluster couples, but still adedering to the 1/16 signature all the way through.
