Make room for the New Denpa Kid On The Block: Studio SATUKI

I say new, but in reality, Studio SATUKI (studio皐) have been around since 2004. The Yokohama duo began by entering many YAMAHA competitions, then moved on to contribute multiple Touhou remixes of the J-Core variety and a number of one-off denpa songs that helped them gain popularity on Niconico. The video above showcases their second most recent composition (as of November 2009), but by far their most popular. The Hammer meme (originally from Super Smash Bros.) exploded sometime in early 2009, spawning thousands of hilarious MADs. So SATUKI took the concept, made a song around it and now they're the talk of the internets.

Just prior to their Hammer song, they also drew the attention of many denpa fans with a remix of the Family-Mart theme song (at least the ones in Akihabara, from what I understand). What I love from studio皐 is that they don't shy away from using the 電波ソング tag, which is a symbol of quality as far as I'm concerned. I also appreciate the fact that they actually reply to my emails, in English no less! So head on over to the Studio SATUKI website and check out some of their older MP3s. You'll notice that their second composition 「 竹取ふらいとッ☆ to: Luna /from: our Tokyo」 was a chiptune-style Touhou remix, that right there says a lot about the budding studio. I also recommend their song 「嫁 404 Not Found」, which is part of their original denpa series featuring KOKO.

Their most recent composition is their first time with Hatsune Miku, this is sure to turn quite a few heads their way. It was gracefully translated by Japanese Youtube user ikuy398, who has quite a few other translations on his channel. I love when Japanese folks are aware that there are denpa fans outside of Japan and make an effort to connect with us. Kudos to ikuy398 and Studio SATUKI for this very reason!

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Nao still doing eroge theme songs for Visual Art's

In related news, the Earth still revolves around Sun.

Some "graduation", eh. On to greener pastures, you say? Nuh-uh. Once an eroge singer, always an eroger singer. But I'm not complaining! 「咆哮！ド田舎ちゃんねる５」 is a decent theme song tinged with just enough craziness to remind me of fripSideNAOproject!'s greatest strengths (considering they were a total SHORT CIRCUIT ripoff). Of course, being the new and improved person that she is (now that she left sat to rot), she probably wants to avoid any and all comparisons to her former work. Maybe a good start would be NOT including old fripSide songs at the beginning of a completely unrelated eroge.

It does seem like this is her first new song since 「my graduation」 which appeared on the monstrous 10-disc compilation of the same (sorta) name. At the very least, it is her first collaboration with composer 新井健一 and experienced lyricist 下地和彦. She is also doing the ending theme with 新井健史, who actually composed the very last fripSideNAOProject! track. 「プール・バケーション」 was an OK song, but my money's on sappy for this one. Since I can't find Nao's blog right now, that's all the details I have! But I wouldn't mind more of the same in the future. Also, the game in question features voice work by 民安ともえ! Is she intense or what?

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Adorable MOSAIC.WAV artwork, live pictures

(click for full resolution image) Does this art remind you of something? It was drawn by SHIGATAKE, the same artist who came up with last year's Kuma-tan, titular character of a Nintendo DS game by Vanillaware (he also worked on Odin Sphere and GrimGrimoire). There is something wrong with this piece of artwork though: Mi~ko is much taller than kayapi!! A Gentle Giant, if you will.

Famitsu recently put up a bunch of high quality pictures from the recent free concert. Of course you can always check out the Youtube medley I cooked up for you guys. It was pulled from Nicovideo in less than 2 hours, but so far the Youtube one is OK! I'm not exactly sure on what grounds they can have it removed anyway, it was a free & public broadcasting.

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Best Believe! Brutally Brain Blowing BUBBLE-B Blurb

Allow me to take a break from the usual hypermoedestructodenpa material this blog normally covers and introduce a pretty awesome dude (BUBBLE-B) and his pretty awesome labels (Speedking Productions/TOY LABEL). I'm only, oh... about two months late on this, but hey: Brandish 2 and all that. So a couple of awesome Speedking albums came out at M3-24, including BUBBLE-B's very own sophomore effort 「バブルＢのビッグ・バン」 (big bang). This whopper of a release is actually a CD+DVD and is intended to be a follow up to his 2004 DVD 「バブルＢのグッド・イヴニング」 (good evening). You can find the complete tracklisting and more info at BUBBLE-B's blog.

The intense car nerd in the above video is not BUBBLE-B himself, but his buddy Enjo-G. Together they've got half a dozen collaborations on Nicovideo, including MC'ing on this MEGASHIT commercial. While there are proper "songs" per se, a majority of BUBBLE-B's tracks consist of him remixing / freaking out to old Japanese commercials or variety shows. As you can see, there is a strong video component to all of his creations, hence the DVD. He even went as far as creating an original Hatsune Miku song, which is sure to earn him new fans as MOSAIC.WAV have recently found out. Then again, with a song title like 「ダサイタマ」, he might as well make just as many enemies. Zanshiro!

Not content with writing and releasing his own music, BUBBLE-B has also been the driving force behind Speedking Productions and TOY LABEL for quite a while (2000). He and his buddies also publish a number of compilations. The second M3-24 release, perhaps slightly more relevant to this blog's content than the first, was 「SPEEDKING PRESENTS 8bit RAVE」. As its title indicates, it offers a seriously dope assortment of chiptune and J-Core from an interesting variety of artists. The tracklisting reveals contributions from some currently "unknown" artists (including the delightfully named Eagles Become Vultures From Pile Of Dogshit) but also from veteran KPLECRAFT and Momoi-collaborators Missile Chewbacca.

The idea with this album is quite simple: combine the best of the chiptune and J-Core worlds (or J-Death as they like to call it). This results in a largely different kind of 8bit sound than what we've been getting lately; abrasive and gloomy come to mind. I sincerely hope this is the first of many in what could be a lucrative series for Speedking. If you're hungry for more of their unique J-Death techno, check out samples from their first and second compilation albums. Solid soundtracks for a solid gym session, I'll tell you that much.

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Brandish 2 English translation out, still not for bitches (updated w/ trailer!)

Oh yeah, I'm done with this thing. Until the first bug report shows up, that is. Right now, you can download the Brandish 2 English Translation Patch from the Synchronicity forums, but the file is also in the romhacking.net submission queue as we speak. Judging from the trailer's reaction, I'm thinking this could get at least 2000 downloads -- which is probably more than the amount of Brandish 1 copies KOEI sold back in '95. All bragging aside, I'm pretty confident hardcore gamers will enjoy my translation. I may be some low level JLPT4 schmuck, but I've been playing video games since the mid eighties, especially the RPG variety. Time will tell, but so far the reaction has been overwhelming!

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Under the Scope: Everyone, let's DATE COURSE get!

It's a small interwebz, and an even smaller erogeworld after all. Earlier this year I was talking with I've Sound blog owner 愛撫 about a new fishtone (former I've member) OP tune. We both concluded that the song sucked balls and that this would be the end of that. Enter デートコース (Date Course) who actually had a decent song on the game's CD (抱きしめて欲しいよ, featured below), which I didn't bother checking out because of the totally lame fishtone OP. Shame on me, but no time like the present to catch up on past mistakes.

Although Date Course only officially started sometime in January 2009, the girls have at least a decade of experience combined. It's worth taking a look at the unique lineup behind this new band, namely: 民安ともえ the veteran, みるく the hypersexual strumpet and finally 加瀬愛奈, the regular girl who wants you to fly her "to the over the rainbow". No shit, hop in my Nissan and I'll take you there. OR WILL I?!?! They don't have a particularly explosive discography to this day, in fact this page will do a much better job at summarizing everything than I ever could. Some of their songs are pretty sappy, but the good ones are upbeat and borderline denpa. They seem to be closely related to (sponsored by?) game studio MoonStone and promotional agency Dwango (home to Akihabalove Records).

Together they make for a good balanced trio capable of producing fantastic (see above), average (see below) and mediocre stuff (see キラキラッ☆-twinkle star light- on the Princess Party album). The fact that 民安ともえ/Tami/Tammy/Tomoe/whatever you wanna call her is at the helm bodes well for Date Course's future. Here's a girl who's been working in the eroge industry for the past 5 years and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Certainly one of her most well-know album is 「TECHNORIDER TAMMY」 but right now I'm "looking" for 「アイドルKiss! 無敵ッス☆」, her latest split single with 織姫よぞら, whose deep booming voice always impressed me, considering how tiny she seems! (eyes excluded)

Here's a rather unique objective Date Course have set for themselves this year: they want to shake 10,000 hands. It's a bit ill-advised with the A(H1N1) scare we're going through recently, but it's still an clever promotional ploy. As it stands, they have accomplished a little over 80% of their goal. But with only two months to go before 2009 runs out, methinks they'll have to offer a little more than a handshake. Might I suggest みるく upping the ante with a more enticing incentive? Or... chances are they'll have something new for C77 and that will seal the deal. So let's keep an eye out for our new favourite maid trio!

Mandi noticed an interesting fact: the lyrics to both songs featured on this entry were penned by none other than Countess YOUNO, who usually writes for IOSYS and Albatrosicks. It's a nice coincidence, but I wouldn't come to the conclusion that IOSYS and Date Course are in cahoots just yet, as the dog-loving author actually does this for a living.

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MOSAIC.WAV 「LIVE @ 秋葉原UDX」 youtube medley

So I did get up in time to watch the show, but my live stream recording plan wasn't quite up to snuff. I managed to snag decent footage from the last four songs and pretty much all of the encore. The sound quality is pretty good but the video itself, well... it's not like we're in any position to complain. Thanks to Famitsu and Enterbrain for making this possible... although I fully expect one of these two entities to request this video to go down! Save it while you can, but I could always upload the 100MB AVI file somewhere if you ask nicely. Here's what the actual setlist looked like.

1.みんなみくみくにしてあげる♪
2.電気の恋人
3.***にできたかな
4.server error
5.HATSUNEtive
6.天真爛漫にゅばばばばーん
7.妄想網 Ж Superluminal
8.We Love Akiba-Pop !!

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MOSAIC.WAV 「Heartsnative」 live web broadcast

October 21st 2009 has come and gone and brought 「Heartsnative」 with it, the wonderful new MOSAIC.WAV×鶴田加茂×初音ミク crossover album. It actually ranked in seventh on the daily oricon charts, which is no small feat! Impressions should follow shortly but until then, you can check out samples from each song on the rather awesome official website. You should also look at this informative blog entry from mi~ko herself, which accurately details the limited edition's "dress-up" feature.

But here comes the big news, especially for international fans! On Saturday October 24th 2009, Famitsu will stream the MOSAIC.WAV live concert at "entamatsu" (Enterbrain Festival), straight from Akihabara. The show starts at 7PM Japan time (with a test feed going live at 6:40PM), which means 3AM West coast, 6AM East coast and 12PM for our lucky French friends. Use this time converter for your own region.

This is sort of problematic for me; not so much the time, just that I'll be on the road that morning. So here's my request, dear readers: can someone please rip/grab the stream and upload it to youtube? I'm counting on you guys, although I'm not even sure how I would go about it, myself. It seems something like Orbit Downloader could do the job. There's a slight chance that (parts of) the video will go up on the EnterbrainTV youtube channel, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Preload the UG Live java applet prior to the show (Java and Flash/WMP are required) to be on the safe side.

Update 10/25/09: Everything's under control.

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When chiptune meets old-school hardcore punk

Pulsewave - October 2009 from NO CARRIER on Vimeo.

Chiptune and Hardcore Punk both originated in the late 70s, early 80s, so how the hell have we gone on for so long without putting 2 and 2 together? Sure, you could argue that they clashed a few times in the past. Regardless, a bunch of really cool doods are going to do just that this weekend as both The Misfits and Minor Threat (presumably others) will see their classic songs remixed with 8-bit elements. It would seem that Bit Shifter also covered The Misfits a few times in the past, gotta love this guy (feel terrible for missing him playing my backyard sometime ago). Anyway, if you're in NYC this weekend, attending this gig should be a no-brainer. Gonna have to look into ensuring my presence at Blipfest 2009, myself. Here's the superb flyer for this weekend's event.

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Brandish 2: The Planet Buster (English Trailer)

Yes, I know, no new posts in 2 weeks now. Real-life deadlines aside, I've mostly invested my free time into concocting the following trailer:

Nevermind the trailer, I've actually spent the last 15 months translating this game (not on a full-time basis, of course). This project will soon come to term as indicated by the vague November 2009 release window. Not that there are any kinks to iron out, just gotta work out some logistics. Much as I enjoyed spending all this time translating Brandish 2 and coordinating the whole project, I can't wait to set this beast free and focus on other things.

Regardless, there isn't actually a whole lot happening in the world of denpa these days. Folks like me are still reeling from the devastating hurricane of quality C76 releases. M3 came and went without any significant drops, although a few records came out which I now heavily regret not having someone buy for me. We'll return to our regular denpa coverage shortly.

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