Behind the Drums: Tatsuya Shimizu @ Zeami

One of the many enigmatous faces in the Taiko Team, Zeami (世阿弥) does not refer to the 14th century Japanese playwright/actor, but is used as a covert alias for Tatsuya Shimizu (清水達也), a prominent composer from Bemani, whose portfolio includes famous rhythm games such as beatmania IIDX, Pop'n Music and many, many other rhythm games.

Zeami is the brainchild of two Namco Original song series, the no Mai series and subsequently the five songs of the Rose series, both of which garnered huge popularity for its blockbuster impact, great-sounding songs, and very difficult Oni charts (Zeami himself charts many of the songs he composed). For a very long time, Zeami had refused to give away even a small hint about his true identity. Not even his face is shown in public!

Since the beginning when he composed Ryougen no Mai, fans were busy speculating his true identity, and all the small bits of evidence gathered from tweets, music style (Blue Rose Ruin) and charts (such as White Rose Insanity Ura's balloon note scrolling at 5.73x speed) points to a certain other composer from a certain other rhythm games-making group.

The ball is finally dropped on June 2014 during the finals of the Taiko Tournament 2013, five long years after he first started making songs for Taiko, when Zeami finally, officially steps out onto the stage revealing himself to be Tatsuya Shimizu, to introduce everyone to his latest Taiko creation, Yuugen no Ran (幽玄ノ乱), confirming all fan speculation, and mentions that a future composition of his would use his Bemani alias Tatsh.

Tatsh's history in the rhythm giant Bemani is long and full of great songs, and they are out of the scope of this blog. A full bio and his song portfolio on Konami's rhythm games can be found here.

Besides Taiko no Tatsujin, this composer also made some compositions for Taito's Music GunGun! 2 and Groove Coaster using the alias Zeami, with some of which also appearing on Taiko games thanks to arcade collaboration events. Tatsuya Shimizu also made songs for Capcom's CROSSxBEATS series, as well as for Rayark's mobile music games Cytus (as Persona) and Deemo.

Website
Twitter

Namco Original

• Ryougen no Mai (燎原ノ舞) (also charter) (*)
• Senpuu no Mai (旋風ノ舞)
• Tenyou no Mai (天妖ノ舞)
• Black Rose Apostle (also charter for Ura)
• White Rose Insanity
• Red Rose Evangel
• Blue Rose Ruin
• Purple Rose Fusion
• Yuugen no Ran (幽玄ノ乱) (also charter)
• Xa
• Souryuu no Ran (双竜ノ乱)
• Shikou no Ran (紫煌ノ乱)
• Amaterasu (天照)

Game Music

• Music Revolver ( ミュージック・リボルバー)
• Day of the future

Other Music Games Songs

beatmania IIDX

• CARRY ON NIGHT (English version)
• PLATONIC-XXX
• Don't be afraid myself
• Sphere
• RED ZONE
• GENOCIDE
• Love Again...
• Twelfth Style
• Under the Sky
• Gekkou (月光)
• Scripted Connection⇒
• Xepher
• Mei (冥)
• The Dirty of Loudness
• Double♡♡Loving Heart
• Tashikanamono (タシカナモノ)
• D.C.fish
• Zenius -I- vanisher
• DEEP ROAR
• Kachoufusetsu (華蝶風雪)
• Bleeding Luv ～Immorality act～
• reunion
• ANTHEM LANDING
• 24th Century BOY
• Change the World
• SHADE
• The Limbo
• Trust -MATERIAL ver-
• Light and Cyber...
• SYNCH-ANTHEM
• Kasoukuukan no Tabibitotachi (仮想空間の旅人たち)

DanceDanceRevolution

• Lesson by DJ
• Trust -DanceDanceRevolution mix-
• Uranus
• Lesson2 by DJ
• WILD SIDE

Guitarfreaks & Drummania / GITADORA

• Venus
• Ryusei JUMP! (流星☆JUMP!)
• Like&Love

jubeat

• HEAVENLY MOON
• Souten (蒼天)

pop'n music

• Tougen Emaki (桃源絵巻)
• Mahjong Fight Club Tokubetsu Setsuzokukyoku (麻雀格闘倶楽部特別接続曲)
• Tabidachi no Uta (旅立ちの唄)
• BREAK THROUGH THE DREAM
• Sweets Dream (スイーツ・ドリーム)

Reflec Beat

• Toumei na Emotion (透明なエモーション)
• Kirakira Station (キラキラ☆ステーション)
• IMAGE -MATERIAL-
• Wizard

CROSSxBEATS

• Impact
• Cross + Angel
• CrossShooter
• I.D.
• Chase the WAVE
• Devil's Classic
• Chase the WAVE
• THE SUN
• S.T.E
• EVERYTHING
• Impact
• Awake,Speedy

Groove Coaster

• Groove Revolver (グルーヴ・リボルバー)
• Seija no Kodou (聖者の鼓動)
• Seija no Ibuki (聖者の息吹)
• Weave Detonator
• FOUR SEASONS OF LONELINESS verβ feat. Sariya-jin (FOUR SEASONS OF LONELINESS verβ feat.サリヤ人)
• STARLIGHT TWILIGHT -GC edit- 
• CYBER Sparks
• Reishiki   (零式)
• Cruel Moon NuMIX
• Messiah no Kaigo (メシアの邂逅)
• FREE CONNECTION 2 -G.C. Special Edit Ver.- (FREE CONNECTION 2 -G.C.スペシャルエディットVer.-)
• BlazeConductor
• FullMoon
• White World

Pump It Up

• Creed -1st Desire- feat. Yu Oda (信仰 -1st Desire- feat. 小田ユウ)
• Sora no Shirabe (空の調べ)
• Ai, Yurete... (哀、揺れて…)
• PRIME

Cytus

• Green Eyes
• Area184
• Realize
• Red Eyes
• Blue Eyes
• Molto Allegro
• Area184 -Platinum Mix-
• ARMA

Deemo

• Daylight
• From RestedPoint
• Rise Up
• Rebellion
• Raise Your Luv

maimai

• GEMINI -M-

Chunithm

• GEMINI -C-

(*): The long version of this song is known as Shin Ryougen no Mai (真・燎原ノ舞).

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Purple Rose Fusion first video

It's here! The final Rose series song! Purple Rose Fusion is, exactly as its name implies, a fusion of the music of Red Rose and Blue Rose, with an entirely new notechart to go with it. 10* Oni with 876 combo and no Ura mode.

It starts off fairly easy with a rejigged version of the instrumental Blue Rose, then moves on to Red Rose, then the middle chorus sounds a lot like Red Rose's vocals interweaving with Blue Rose's music. This part is also annoying with 2 and 4 note clusters in the middle of regular ones, making it a slower version of Ao no Senritsu Ura.

"....slow? Who's calling me slow? I'll show you!"

The ending is Blue Rose's music as well, but sped up to an incredibly high BPM (which is still being worked out) and this part is probably what gives this chart the 10*.

Red Rose Evangel full version

All is described in the title. The album 'Cry Out' is released, now all you have to do is give this a listen! The first Rose song to get its own full version.

A soundtrack CD for Ayane

Coming out this year on June 20th, the singer Ayane (彩音) will release a CD soundtrack with some of her most recent collaborations, called 'cry out'. But why an annoucement like this in a Taiko website?

Namco Taiko Blog (26 January 2012) - Roses, roses everywhere!

Today's Taiko Blog entry is (finally) the introduction post for the two latest Rose songs, Red Rose Evangel and Blue Rose Ruin, both of which were made to commemorate Taiko no Tatsujin's 10th anniversary.

Namco Original Showcase: Rose Songs

Zeami, the alias used by Bemani composer Tatsuya Shimizu in his Taiko no Tatsujin works, sure gets around in Taiko, having done the no Mai series and made something entirely different immediately after. The Rose songs all have English titles and each rose is colored differently in each song. As revealed in a Taiko Blog interview with Zeami, the colors in the titles of each song refers to a different ethnic community, whose energy and attitude can be compared with the challenging tunes of the song.

The Rose series is currently the fastest growing Namco Original series in Taiko, with Black, White, Red and Blue all being made in the span of just one year over three different platforms, attributed to the immensely popular reception towards the first in the series. It is the same attention-grabbing formula as the no Mai series; make one epic, super difficult song, then follow up with everything else.