Header Menu

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Song of the Week! 18 May 2013


It's been quite a long time since we saw a Namco Original song in this corner or something from the 2012 CreoFUGA contests, so let's see something today which meets both these requirements...or something.

 Hanaoto Ura Hyoushi (花オト裏拍子) Harunaba feat. Hatsune Miku
Version
Allx3 (165)x5 (257)x6 (373)x9 (700)
 Taiko 0.5, Taiko PSP DX, Taiko 3DS 2, CD CC-3
 115-145
 Namco Original -> Vocaloid
 87oto


After almost 2 years of inactivity, the Lyrics section of the official Taiko Blog finally updated a few weeks ago with one of the winning creations from the first Taiko song composing contest. Since our own Lyrics section already offers a translation (just click the song's title!), today's focus is on the song itself and its freelance creator.

Though 'Ura' is in the title of the song it doean't have a Ura mode of its own. Hanaoto Ura Hyoushi (lit. 'Backbeat of Flowery Tune') is composed by Harunaba (はるなば) and sung by Vocaloid sensation Hatsune Miku. As mentioned in previous interviews, the creator composed this song in order to evoke the beauty of old Japan with a Taiko-esque vibe; the lyrics also reflect the idea of the song itself. A typical tragic love tale is told through simple lyrics and generally gloomy music, the opposite of songs like Yuugao no Kimi which uses complex Kanji to represent its ideas.

The first CreoFUGA contest is the first of Harunaba's several victories in song-composing contests, as more of his works have been selected as winners. On Taiko, Harunaba also won the GUMI contest with the song Koohii no Aji to (珈琲の味と) (lit. the Taste of Coffee), which will hit the Sorairo soon in a future software update. The guy also applied for two more song-making competitions for Taiko with two other songs: Ga-en (雅焔) for the DOKODON FIGHTERS one and Karamari no Hana (カラ鞠の花) for the Spring 2013 one. On June 6th, the latter of the couple resulted to be one of the eleven winners of the Spring 2013 competition, while the other song tied up with other 5 creations for the winner-less April Fools one.

In 2012, Harunaba also joined the Boku mo Watashi mo pop'n Artist! (ボクもワタシも★ポップンアーティスト!) competition with another Hatsune Miku song called Katate Dokusho (カタテ読書). Like the Taiko contests, this one awarded the best original songs by actually publishing them in the 20th main arcade installment of Konami's rhythm game series pop'n music. Though Katate Dokusho didn't make it, the song was later used together with four other songs in pop'n music Sunny Park, the following arcade version. Rather than using Miku as the singer, the final version of the song features the voice of a very young female singer nicknamed NUKO, the winner of a vocalist competition for pop'n music as well.

Together with DIMENSIONS, 3piece Jazz-Party! and the already-featured Dokidoki Munekyun Omatsuri Time, Hanaoto Ura Hyoushi has a 9* Oni chart. However, rather than having a high BPM and complicated patterns, here the chart is slow and full of clusters, switching from 1/16 to 1/24 with no ease. Among the CreoFUGA winner songs, this has the highest total notecount on Oni difficulty.