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Saturday, November 12, 2016

Song of the Week! 12 November 2016


For today that is the 12th day of this month, here's a little something that comes from another kind of media that is related to the number!

 Endless Seeker Touhou Project Arrange - A-One
Version
Allx3 (165)x5 (265)x6 (383)x8 (644)
 Taiko 0 K
 163
 none
 ???


Undefined Fantastic Object is the 12th mainline title of the Touhou Project series of games, and it just so happens that the ongoing arcade Taiko scene is featuring one popular arrangement based upon songs coming from said title!

Endless Seeker (not to be confused with the 2010 SOUND HOLIC album by the same name) is a custom song arrangement made by the Eurobeat-oriented doujin circle known as A-One. Originally founded in 2008 as A1, this unit is made of four members who all contribute to their songs' lyrics, with the nick-named Koshida Rute Takairo (越田Rute隆人) and Aki (あき) respectively being the male and female vocalists in all songs while the also-nicknamed ELEMENTAS and Yassie are the main composers/arrangers. Their albums often make their debut in either hobbyist-related conventions like Comiket or Reitasai reunions, with the one album premiering Endless Seeker -titled TOHO EUROBEAT VOL.9: UNDEFINED FANTASTIC OBJECT- making its launch on the 11th Reitasai, on November 5th in 2014. Some of their Touhou arrangements also made it into many rhythm game series along the years, together with some original creations like for CROSSxBEATS's HEADPHONE PARTY.

Back to Endless Seeker, the song is actually spawn from the two main background music tracks from UFO's Stage 4: the main stage theme Yuurei Kyakusen no Jikuu wo Koeta Tabi (幽霊客船の時空を越えた旅, lit. 'Interdimensional Voyage of a Ghostly Passenger Ship') and Captain Murasa (キャプテン・ムラサ), the character boss song of the anchor-wielding spirit Minamitsu Murasa (村紗水蜜). Once a human in her past life, she drowned to death during a perilous journey; in her new existence in Gensokyo, Murasa acquired high recognition among other youkai for the methods of attack used to sink other ships -the aforementioned anchors and a seemingly-endless ladle- as well for being the self-proclaimed captain of the Palanquin Ship, a giant vessel formed from Buddhist nun Byakuren Hijiri's Myojin Temple which is capable to fly to the skies and revert to its original form at any time. In the first run of Endless Seeker's debut album, the song's title was erroneously labeled as 'Endless Seaker', but the mistake was fixed for all its subsequent releases.

In quite the bald move, Endless Seeker has been one of the two preview songs on Taiko Kimidori's Reitasai-exclusive builds in 2014 together with Help me, ERINNNNNN!!, which was the very same edition of the Touhou-related convention in which A-One's TOHO EUROBEAT VOL.9 album was also debuting! Later on, the song also managed to cross music boundaries with Taito's Groove Coaster series, for which the song premiered during an Undefined Fantastic Object-themed event this year (link).

Sentai notecharters Marimo Institute (まりも研究所) and Shika@ni~San (しか@に~さん) merged their efforts to create a 4-hand notechart set for Taiko gaming's first arrange by A-One, ultimately resulting into a steady-speed challenge where the mix of small clusters along the play can mess with the minds of unfocused players! Given that there's only a time signature for note placing overall and certain early-notechart portions are repeated twice, it roams into the average ballpark among other 8* Oni tracks.