For an extra bit of flair in this year's Tatsujin Ranking Dojo, each of the concealed tunes is preceeded by a unique fullscreen animation, denoting their fierce natural force before the title reveal.
The free-associative-thinker in me is then brought to ask myself: can I find three (surely easier) tunes to match the ones/themes of these unique segways? Here are my two cents on the matter.
Into the Unknown Frozen 2
「アナと雪の女王2」より
| Game | Genre |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NS1 (DLC) NS2 |  | ★1 47 | ★2 66 | ★5 143 | ★7 230 | - |
117
anaint (Ana to Yuki no Joo 2 - Into the Unknown)Picture this: you've drummed your way through each and every Ranking Dojo trial from 10-Dan up to Meijin and you're about to start your first Tatsujin try, with all songs hidden behind question marks. As soon as the familiar Tatsujin rank select clip stops playing, you see nothing but a dark sky and furious spits of snow, pushing right to left as you're approaching the beginning. A scenery of sheer cold whose surprise factor might be leaving you... frozen, perchance?
Indeed, time to some Disney magic, for a movie sequel commercially released six years after the first one (can't forget about its headlining song, too!). Bringing back most of the creative talents from the first flick (including the songwriting married duo of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez), Frozen 2's plot gravitates around the origins of snow queen Elsa's magical powers, as a mysterious voice keeps luring her into the Enchanted Forest, a place once lulled by the power of the elements in the neighbouring tribe of Northuldra which saw in the past dire consequences for Elsa and her sister Anna's relatives, with their grandfather Runeard finding his death and their father Agnarr barely escaping the same fate. Development for Frozen 2 would only start after March 2015, once the Frozen Broadway musical had gone gold and a consensus would be reached on what would be suitable as an ending for Elsa and Anna in it. Fears of the sequel were perceived as inferior as their first movie were constant among most of the staff, and while the critics of the time did nothing but confirm that perception across the public and the press alike, it ultimately managed to gross even more that the high-acclaimed first movie, with over 1.450 million dollars worldwide. The second highest-grossing outing of 2019, Frozen 2 still ranks high as the 5th-ranked earner across animation movies, topped only by three other Disney movies -Zootopia 2, Inside Out 2 and The Lion King's
Rather than adopting the movie's rendition of the image song Into the Unknown, sung by Elsa's voice actress Idina Menzel, Taiko gaming opted for the original (cover) English version of the song created by Panic! at the Disco, an early-2000s band from Las Vegas who disbanded in late 2023. Both vocal versions, of course, are based on the original track Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez duo, which was created as a result of the impementation of a voice guiding Elsa into the Enchanted Forest as a lot device in the film, shelving an initial creation of theirs for that moment called "I Seek the Truth".
The truth of the matter for those seeking this song in Taiko-playable fashion? A march-like 1/16 charting job that is very keen on cramming drumrolling markers for Go-Go Time portions, as much as possible! This is also one of the few cases of "safe DLC termination" in Taiko history, considering how its debut came to be as a now-removed piece of DLC for the first Nintendo Switch videogame, while becoming a base songlist track for its sequel, in all of its ports to boot.
Houkan no Kugetsu Rising Act "Princess of Lament"
崩冠の紅月／破章「嘆きの姫」
| Game | Genre | | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wii 5 |  | ★5 185 | ★5 222 | ★6 343/336 | ★8 463 | - |
| PS4 (Event Unlock) NS2 (MP) PTB RC | | ★5 185 | ★5 222 | ★6 344 | ★8 463 | - |
128.2-130.71 tkym2 (Tokoyami no Mori 2nd song)So, you made it out of the sheer cold ambiance and the next thing you see on your Tatsujin journey is an ominous moon top of a sea of dark clouds, eventually blinding the player with its light into the second track reveal. Taiko no Tatsujin sure has been no stranger to music based around or titled after Earth's lone natural satellite, but for some reason we've got this one song always escaping the Song of the Week radars! It's also quite ominous-sounding on its own, if you look past its charting job...
This 'Crimson Moon of the Crumbling Crown', originally an unlockable tune in the final Nintendo Wii game, totes its way as a sequel to the arcade-introduced Namco Original Tokoyami no Mori, both in overall tone as well as SongID and opera-like subtitle ties. For this sequel song, however, we got more talent than the lone composer from Tokoyami no Mori, the ex-MONACA freelancer Keigo Hoashi (帆足圭吾); vocals from DON'T CUT vocalist Nami Nakagawa (中川奈美) come to the rescue, as revealed online to be nothing but Germainc-sounding words invented by the same singer for the means of an eerie atmosphere. Joining her for the chorus are the same Keigo Hoashi and the MONACA-affiliated Keiichi Okabe (岡部啓一), more known nowadays for his Angel Dream that gets new playable ports every couple-or-so years, these days!
Don't be so hasty on toggling those speed-enhancers modifiers, as this track's Oni chart bears an extra bite in the first Go-Go Time area! Other than that, it's still a viable introduction to mono-color 1/24 cluster hybridations that has been ported to modern console titles, including the PS4 game as an online-event-only unlockable reward. It also bears mentioning how Houkan no Kugetsu as a Wii original meant for it to adopt the accuracy-branching giant note gimmick on Muzukashii mode, hence the two amounts of possible Max Combo values reported for it.
Venom (feat. flower) Kairiki Bear
ベノム(feat. flower)／かいりきベア
| Game | Genre | | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC Nijiiro (Y2) NS1 (DLC) NS2 (MP) RC |  | ★2 137 | ★4 242 | ★6 401 | ★8 575 | - |
152 vfveno (v flower - Venom)By some luck or happestance, you managed to survive the blinding night, but what you've got to show for it? A plain white field with quickly-emerging dark sparks and a patch of black roses, the latter of which eventually engulfing the entire screen in black before the final nightmare steps in your way. Surely, as seasoned Taiko fans this is not the first time for us to be surprised by black roses (or roses in general), but you know what blooms at a semi-regular way these past years? Why of course, v flower songs! I realize this is not the first time I've jebaited our reading audience around Tatsujin ranks time this way, but considering this one's poisonous title, you could argue we even got an extra reference link to another of t+pazolite's past Namco Originals!
The song has traveled far and wide, long before its its Taiko no Tatsujin footprint! As expected, it's up and accounted for in Sega's arcade music game triumvirate (maimai; CHUNITHM; Ongeki), it graced a couple of discontinued-since game center sensations (Marvelous's WACCA and Taito's Tetote x Connect), it eventually joined Groove Coaster on arcades (and consoles with the Nintendo Switch's Wai Wai Party) and even the original BanG Dream!, as a cover version from the game's Afterglow unit. Craft Egg's Project Sekai, however, is definitely in a league of its own, when it comes to Venom representation! On top of the original, in fact, there are several playable versions for the 25-ji, Nightcord de performing unit (both with all performing and solo singer versions for each), Vocaloid solo covers (for Hatsune Miku and KAITO) and even a jokey April Fools version in 2022 for the event-only Kyujitsu, Shumijin Doushi de. ensemble (playable, too!), later made as a full-version permanent song the year after. Clearly, the joke cover gathering almost 10 million YT views on its own had its role to play into this, as well!
This full-accuracy Oni contender is the nastiest of the trio, for a handful of off-starting small cluster coming right after simple Don/Kat single-note hadswitching, so that it's easy to rack up the misses if played in a careless way. Get used to reverse your drum-hitting order between dominant and non-dominant hand to keep the edge on these pesky formations!
