Summer might be a few weeks away still, but the heat was already on with the long arcade happenings from this April! Today's livestream session with Etou and Kimizu is here to keep up the momentum with other arcade-related happenings, both current and from the near future. Buckle up!
The first hour of this broadcast, in fact, was all about the April Fools-sprung events that will be active until September's start: The Don Challenge 2026 and the Dark Don Challenge.
In fact, each of the tasks has been profiled in full detail to let latecomers unlock everything, including all the steps to clear the Dark Don Challenge's chapters! While we're currently integrating those for a public release to be attached on the Nijiiro Version song list page, down there we're leaving a tidier display of the DonChare 2026 trials from April Fools that lead to the unlock of Saitama 2001 (and all the titles before it).
That isn't to say we only got the solutions to each riddle! The Dark DonChare portion also left us with the nicknames of the fastest anomaly solvers for each task, each the winner of their own exclusive title to boot!
As you can see, no clears yet are accounted for the EX anomaly's Kiwami and Miyabi difficulty. When the stipulation is to perform a DFC play on two top-tier songs in a row and then a really-fresh release under the Detarame and Kimagure modifiers, it's easy to see why...
Another tidy thing that was done to bookend the section was a voiced version of the event's ending that was distributed on SNS after the Group Challenge's completion (link). Skip to 1:06:30 in the livestream to hear it for yourselves- the Machinas might have something more after its end!
Right after that, it's time for some Taiko postcards! Among the latest events are a Taiko-themed live DJ performance, the Kabuchicho Game Festival which revealed a new arcade license in advance and 2026's Taiko no Tatsujin arcade championship in Korea! Click on each image to get a better look.
We also got a brief reminder on ongoing/soon-to-end arcade campaigns, including the 3-acrylic set final draw (entry registration ends in 2 days!) and the ongoing TenSura collaboration event. At around the 1:23:00 mark, vocalist Eir Aoi for the recently-released song Esoragoto has also left a brief promo message about its inclusion across statewide Nijiiro arcades!
The recurring Q&A section was next, with all sorts of inquiries drawn from the Taiko Team hosts via box. This time around, among those are requests to keep a few choice Dark DonChare tracks as permanent additions! Surely, a sentiment shared by many Donders out there.
About half an hour later and we're met with an update about the upcoming Music Recruitment 2026 contest: it's starting in half a month from now!
Music submission will begin on June 15th, with the full ruleset on toe expected to come a bit earlier from that. As of today, the contest's website is just the landing page alone, so we'll have to get into this a bit later.
Right after that, it's Ranking Dojo (current year) time! Following the trend of the past years, the first batch of main courses will cover up to 10-Dan, with a partial reveal of the trials in question via the slide below these lines. Mark the date- they'll become available from June 6th!
Just as customary, the 10-Dan final track is a brand-new song: Don Hibiki Raikurifudo (鈍響ライクリフド) from past Ranking Dojo famed artists Kaneko Chiharu and cosMo@BouSouP.
A half-minute snippet of the song was also played in the livestream, at around the 1:58:00 mark (alternatively, click here!).
Preceeding the audio preview are also a couple of slides from the song's authors, profiling its creation process in a few lines.
Despite the kind of antagonistic connotations a 'Versus' monicker would infer in general, Don Hibiki Raikurifudo's creation involved cosMo@BouSouP creating a draft version with the tagline of "serious development" in mind (also look at all those flowery positive comments about the app he used to make the song!), while Kaneko Chiharu freely arranged cosMo's draft on his own, strong on his will of expressing the charms of both artists' music into the final track.
Don Hibiki Raikurifudo will be one of the four items available in the upcoming Summer rotation of the Rewards Shop, with the update day set as the same one of the start of the Ranking Dojo '26.
At the same time, the following songs/Ura from the Autumn '24 Rewards Shop outlet will become publicly available. No Kat Medal purchase required to challenge the Fool of Owari's most fiendish stunt in the arcades!
After this was the first Taiko-Team-lead announcement of a new Taiko-themed attraction headed at Namco's underground game center NAMJATOWN, aging 30 this year. The news was already up for a few days at that, too (link)!
The last leg of this livestream was all for the ongoing happenings for the Taiko no Tatsujin franchise's 25th anniversary.
The Twitter campaign suggesting a suitable title for the anniversary is over, with five different titles emenrging from that! Banapassport players can nab all of those by playing once on Nijiiro Version cabinets from today until the end of the year.
That's all on the news side, but for those lenient on the Taiko merch side, Etou and Kimizu have showcased the 25th Anniversary promotional items that are based on the art of three guest artists that have been featured in the @taiko_all handle across this season: Terada Tera, Karameru and Amelicart.
Until the next time, take care!
Until the next time, take care!
