BEMANI Community Inside Jokes

You've found the thrilling page where you can finally learn about what the hell all those dumb jokes are. They're too cool!

RISLIM -Remix-

This joke manifests itself as anything relating to playing a song at certain hours, being in love with a song, effective ways of appreciating a song, particular times of the year to purchase IIDX games, or anything relating to RISLIM -Remix-.

During a conversation on the VJ Army Forums about what preview songs might appear on CS 8th style, the following conversation took place:

Azure, Post #191: As for the preview song, I just hope it's not Quasar or Rislim -remix- because I really want those play those for the first time in 9th and not in 8th as preview songs.

grayfox9996, Post #192: Quasar's one of the extra stages (right? if that needs correcting...), so that's doubtful. Rislim -remix- is perfectly likely, and I don't see why you wouldn't want to play it on 8th Style. The sooner the better, eh?

Azure, Post #193: I don't want to play Rislim -Remix- right now because I first heard it in the summer and fell in love with it. Right now, I'm busy with school, so I won't be able to enjoy it as much when it comes out in 8th Style, but when 9th comes out (Hopefully next summer) I'll have the whole summer to play the song (During this summer I would stay up pretty late watching the Rislim -Remix- video and I'd like to do the same when I get the chance to play it). The same is with Quasar, but to a lesser degree. These two songs really kick ass and it wouldn't do them justice if they were placed with 8th Style and not 9th Style, which has the best interface of them all (And best results screen too).

Shapermc, Post #196: You know if it comes out in Nov. that you can just WAIT until you have time... like a weekend or winter break...

Azure, Post #198: I am going to wait. I'm going to get it right when my winter break starts, which is 2 weeks, but I'll most likely still have lots of projects to be doing during that break and I'll also be studying for finals, which is why it wouldn't be a good time for Rislim -Remix- or Quasar.

Remy, Post #201: Azure, please seek medical assistance. I'm serious. You're having this whole hypothetical conversation about if THESE two songs are on 8th Style, then you don't want to get the game right at release. You don't want to get the game right at release because you want to be able to play those songs in the summer. You want to play those songs in the summer because you stayed up for hours on end this past summer watching the videos over and over again. This doesn't seem the least bit strange to you?

Azure, Post #202: These songs are very nice songs and I wouldn't be able to enjoy to their full extent if I would be playing them when the school year isn't over. If 8th Style came out tomorrow I would wait till Decemeber to buy it because then I would have a nice 2 weeks of no school to play it. I do the same with every other game. The game won't get the attention it deserves if I get it during school; the same with the songs.

I guess a lot of just came from that BOX& video. In the video it looks like it's 2:00 a.m and he's been playing IIDX for hours on end enjoying himself. It seems as if he doesn't have a care in the world and doesn't care what time it is, he's just relaxing and playing IIDX (Particularly Rislim -Remix-). I'd like to do the same because, I believe, that would be the most efficient way to appreciate Rislim -Remix-.

At this point, the conversation really started to spiral; notable is Boxthor's post destroying most of the things Azure believed about the video.

External Links

Is 69 Easier With Hard On?

Another (perhaps unintentionally) hilarious line from Azure, posted on the VJ Army forums during a discussion about Innocent Walls' stupidly hard measure #69.

Azure, Post #843: Is 69 easier with hard on?

MazriM TaiM, Post #847: In my experience, yes. ;); BUT I DUNNO MAN IF YOU HAVE HARD ON IT MIGHT JUST BE TOO MUCH AT ONCE AND YOU MIGHT GET OVERWHELMED AND THEN ITS ALL OVER SO QUICKLY :AND THEN SHE (INNOCENT WALLS) IS MAD AT YOU FOR BEING LOUSY

GET IT?!

A mainstay throughout the English-speaking BEMANI community. The basic concept of a GET IT is to find BEMANI song titles in sentences during conversation, whether intentional or not.

Classic example: Person A: "I have a headache."; Person B: "Then take some tablets."

GET IT?!

This has also been extended to objects in everyday life that contain references to BEMANI song titles (or the titles themselves, such as ACT mouthwash), or other aspects of BEMANI games in general.

Truly A Fantastic

written by Dan "Remy" Dickinson

When KONAMI announced that they were doing surveys to gauge interest in reviving the CS release of IIDX (prior to the release of 7th), there was widespread concern that the survey would not get enough responses to qualify for the game. This worry was not only felt in the US, but also in Japan.

As a manifestation of this concern, one Japanese player took it upon himself to write anyone who ran any sort of English web page relating to Beatmania. His email (long since lost) pleaded for US webmasters to inform everyone of the survey and get them to fill it out. I know he sent nearly the same email to everyone after comparing with a friend, but mine had a small PS that read:

P.S. I watch dj RYRY superplay video. It's a fantastic!!

This was in reference to a video of Ryan's I had mirrored, and which I found cute enough to tell Ryan about. I then wrote back in very gentle English, thanking him and asking him some general questions about the Japanese scene. During the back-and-forth that ensued, questions were asked to be passed onto Ryry about "if doubles were carried out" and "if the pinky extends"; the word "truly" was used a lot as well.

To this day, a number of us will still joke about things being "truly a fantastic".

PEVIEW

The beatmania IIDX 10th style CS site launch was notable due to being the first IIDX site with audio-visual previews of the new CS songs.

With one small and hilarious problem: the button to click to view them was labeled as PEVIEW. This has since been corrected but, like all good Engrish typos, will live in infamy.

Fake Location Test Songs

It is traditional for fake songs to float around the community when games go into location test, as crafty players try to pass off the most plausible crap on unsuspecting fanboys desperate for MP3s.

The most notable of all fake location test songs was M, which appeared during the beatmania IIDX 8th style Location Test period. Credited to dj TAKA, based on a Beethoven song (Sonata quasi una fantasia Moonlight Sonata, Mvt. 3 "Presto Agitato"), and sounding similar enough to V, it convinced enough players that it was legit to place it in the hall of fame for IIDX-related pranks.

As a side note, some South American players from the In The Groove community thought that dj TAKA had actually composed M for an In The Groove game, leading them to believe that dj TAKA had actually resigned from KONAMI to work on ITG related projects. That was ultimately proven untrue.

V

V is widely considered an inside joke at this point, as it appeared on nine CS games, and six consecutive ones (5th-10th, BMUS, HAPPY SKY, EMPRESS + PREMIUM BEST). ("You can't spell revival without V.") Many players take this as a sign that KONAMI hates them.

When V was not revived for IIDX RED CS, many players took this as a sign that KONAMI hated them by ruining their joke. V was then absent from CS styles until EMPRESS + PREMIUM BEST) where V was on the PREMIUM BEST disc alongside V₂ which was on the EMPRESS disc.

Last Message

Last Message's video features a three-second long cleavage shot that many players consider distracting. Many a combo has been blown during that section of the song.

BLCOKS

A mistyped response by MazriM TaiM during the second Music Tatsujin Challenge that fell into popular usage. Similarly, but not quite as popular, was the song GOBBLE being typed as "Gooble" in the fourth Music Tatsujin Challenge.

As a possible extension of this, while the listings for IIDX RED CS were being entered into VJ Army, the listing for BLOCKS contained a similarly misspelled genre - "TRNACE". This was not entirely intentional, and the typo has since been fixed.

A few people also took this even further and deliberately misspelled the artist name - "SPRAKER" - in order to complete the joke.

GXPERT

In beatmania IIDX 11 IIDX RED's mode select screen, the word "EXPERT" was accidentally misspelled as "GXPERT." This has since been corrected, but, like "PEVIEW", is still a source of amusement to IIDX players.

Picture of GXPERT MODE on the IIDX RED machine at Golfland in Mesa, AZ. (Taken by Taren)

Truck Me

INJECTION OF LOVE contains a line that was controversial at the time IIDX RED was released, and there was a great deal of debate over what Sana was actually saying. When the keysounded BMS simfile for INJECTION OF LOVE was released, the keysound for this lyric ended up sounding more like "truck me". It was later confirmed that she said "stroke me", but "truck me" remains a somewhat popular inside joke.

Laundry Machines

The sound of the song gigadelic has often been compared in the community to the sound of a large number of washer/dryers all running at once. Taren is responsible for this; it began when a location test video of gigadelic was released, and due to the poor sound quality, he commented that it sounded like "an off-balance washing machine".

Kyle Snyder / Mirror Force / Engulfed Beam / You Can't Escape Me

Kyle Snyder has always been a highly visible character in the Bemani community, primarily due to his unusual DDR freestyles.

Back around the release of beatmania IIDX 8th style, KONAMI announced their first Musicianship Trial, allowing fans to submit music in hopes of getting it included in the series. Shortly thereafter, Kyle would have a dream where he was playing the new IIDX and there was a song on it called "Mirror Force". Some guy said to him "You should be able to pass that song, right? After all, you made it" and then he noticed that he did, in fact, make it. But it was really hard.

It was viewed as a clear attempt by KONAMI to commission him for a new song for the next IIDX via dream-o-vision, and so Mirror Force was made. He promised that it would appear around 11th style, and recorded two other tracks: Engulfed Beam, and You Can't Escape Me.

While musical taste is entirely subjective, the songs were uniformly regarded as being unpleasant on the ears. They remain an inside joke to this day.

You can listen to all three tracks, as well as some others that Kyle completed, at his Soundclick page.

(credit to Xythar for recollection of the dream)

GAMBOL

When GAMBOL first appeared, many players noticed the timing was, to put it mildly, horrible. It was difficult to get Just Greats or Greats; most everyone ended up getting a majority of Goods on the song.

When GAMBOL was revived around beatmania IIDX 9th style, the timing still was not fixed. Since it was featured in Beginner Mode, many new players attempted it and were failed out due to the inability to push themselves into the red.

On HAPPY SKY, the L7 chart received fixed timing, but the 7-key chart mysteriously did not.

On IIDX RED CS, KONAMI's ultimate inside joke was unleashed on the community as an ANOTHER chart was added (accessibly only via the SLAKE course at the current time). All three Single charts are exactly the same; the only difference is the timing. While the LIGHT chart will allow most players to score Greats, and the HYPER chart continues to give most players Goods, the ANOTHER chart has even more ridiculously broken timing and will hand out Bads like they are Halloween candy.

Perhaps to further the joke, CS DJ TROOPERS has a code in which GAMBOL's timing can be used for any song, by pressing select after songs beginning with G, J, and H for HYPER timing, or G, J, and A for the ANOTHER timing.

This was added later to beatmania IIDX 16 EMPRESS.

GOLD RUSH

GOLD RUSH is a remix of the opening and menu music from IIDX GOLD, available from the VIP Room system. The song however, is often ridiculed for its horrible vocals, an interpretation of the lyrics by Xythar made the song even funnier, and variants of the recurring message in the song and video, "Make it make money", are also often referenced. Despite this, Michael a la mode became something of a celebrity in the Japanese BEMANI community from this single song, making an appearance in the BEMANI Topranker 2008 Semifinal for Japan's Kinki region and appearing in IIDX DJ TROOPERS in the Tutorial Mode, with a sound of clip of him saying "Let's do it!!" available as part of one of the customizable select music.

A new version of GOLD RUSH has been made for pop'n music, titled GOLD RUSH (pop'n GOLD MOUNTAIN rush), as well as two versions for DanceDanceRevolution. Each version changes the games that are featured to match the series it appears on, with the two DDR versions corresponding to AC versions and CS versions respectively.

dj BTNS

Buttons (VJA profile: DJ BTNS) is Remy's cat. Buttons has earned international fame and acclaim for his supernatural IIDX abilities and suave good looks. Buttons has earned renown for defeating Remy in a IIDX grudge match, and despite possessing no opposable thumbs he's still able to achieve AAA scores on an arcade-style controller, much to the disbelief of some.

Buttons has become a favorite of the VJ Army community, and has been immortalized by way of a :btns: emoticon on the site's forums.

Buttons has his own website and, for some reason, has appeared on Twitter..

Setsugekka

During the long-awaited release of 7th style CS, the IIDX community as a whole was surprised and excited to see that not only had KONAMI included an 8th style song in the game, which was selected from a player poll, but KONAMI had secretly included a 9th style song as well. In addition, during the early hours of 7th style's release, an anonymous poster claimed that Setsugekka from the then-brand-new 10th style AC was also included. This turned out to be false; however, during 8th style's release, there was much speculation and rumor that Setsugekka was being included in 8th style, which also proved false. During the 9th style release, still more rumors and even a few faked photos purported that Setsugekka was included, and by that point the phenomenon had taken on a life of its own. To this day, people still joke about Setsugekka being included "as a preview song" in current releases.

Alternate grading methods

While beatmania US was in production, it was noticed at E3 2005 that the grading system for the game was toned down considerably, shifting all grades up one level automatically (such that a score that would warrant a AA on a Japanese game would be a AAA for US players).

This lead to "US locale" mode being implemented, which allowed the appending of "&locale=usa" to any query URL on the site to force all grades to appear as AAAs.

Example: [1]

During the ensuing discussion, davidbrit2 made a comment that "they can change the grades to "cat" and "sailboat" for all I care, so long as the timing and EX scoring is the same." This lead to the implementation (on April Fools 2006) of catsailboat mode, which replaces all AAAs with a picture of dj BTNS, and all other grades with a picture of a sailboat. This is done by appending "&catsailboat=on" to any query URL on the site.

Example: [2]

Neither of these work on 4.0 - yet.

Himiko? FUCK THAT SHIT! PABST BLUE RIBBON

In an IRC chat, DjKc iidx's reaction to this boss song from AC EMPRESS was a funny line from the movie Blue Velvet. Because of this, VgameT had a brilliant idea into having everyone post the words "Himiko? FUCK THAT SHIT! PABST BLUE RIBBON" in every video of the song in existence from YouTube to even niconico douga. Almost all comments in a Himiko video contained "Himiko? FUCK THAT SHIT! PABST BLUE RIBBON", then even non-VJA members started imitating as well. The more serious comments about the song were marked as spam.

The joke was funny until certain people abused the meme, thus it is one of the few inside jokes to become completely unfunny.

External Links

Rche

The character for one of the beatmania IIDX 19 Lincle Deadly Sins songs is Rche, an angel of ambiguous gender. Despite Rche's feminine looks, Rche is strongly speculated to be male, due to the male symbol tattoo on the chest, pushing Rche into potential "otoko no ko" (Japanese slang for a crossdressing boy) status. Furthermore, supplemental material regarding the Lincle Kingdom characters tend to censor out Rche's gender, as a way of teasing fans.

FLOWER

FLOWER is infamous for appearing on every active BEMANI series, with some accusing KONAMI of milking the song for all its worth, similar to how V is infamous for appearing on nearly every beatmania IIDX CS release. It first appeared in REFLEC BEAT and jubeat knit APPEND, then moved into pop'n music 20 fantasia, beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro, DanceDanceRevolution X3 VS 2ndMIX, DanceEvolution ARCADE, and ミライダガッキ FutureTomTom.

The song is not fit for GuitarFreaks & DrumMania as it is not a rock song, nor is it fit for SOUND VOLTEX as it is a preexisting KONAMI original but not a remix. Nevertheless it appeared on those games anyway, in the form of a TLION69 remix on GuitarFreaksXG3 & DrumManiaXG3 and a REDALiCE remix on SOUND VOLTEX BOOTH.

Finally, FLOWER appears in the 2013 BEMANI commercial, almost as if it is the theme song of the BEMANI franchise.

While songs appearing in many BEMANI games are becoming less surprising due to major BEMANI crossover events such as Shiritsu BEMANI gakuen and Nettou! BEMANI Stadium, FLOWER is still particularly infamous as it was crossed over independently of and before the appearance of such overarching events.

As of July 2014, FLOWER is no longer in every active BEMANI series, as BeatStream was released and does not have FLOWER yet.

However, FLOWER's wide presence continued to expand even further. On October 29th, 2014, FLOWER became the first KONAMI original song to be transplanted to non-BEMANI music game titles. It was transplanted to GROOVE COASTER EX, maimai ORANGE, and 太鼓の達人キミドリVer. as part of the Tenkaichi otogesai Zenkoku issei nintei taikai (天下一音ゲ祭全国一斉認定大会) event.

Xepher Tatsh

On the official DanceDanceRevolution Facebook page, the administrator of the page shared a photo of DDR player Kon achieving his 800th AAA on Xepher's Single Expert chart. However, the administrator erroneously assumed that Tatsh's name in the song banner was part of the song title, and referred to the song as "Xepher Tatsh".

Considering that this is the official English-language DDR page, this is seen by many fans as an embarrassing mistake, although it is far from the only one by the page (another notable example being the mistaking of a Pump It Up cabinet in a photo for a DDR cabinet).

VENUS

DJ YOSHITAKA and Sota Fujimori occasionally collaborate together for songs; together, they are known as VENUS.

What makes them particularly infamous is the romantic and sexual overtones present in their songs, whether it be in the songs themselves or the visual media associated with them: Survival Games' album jacket features Sota and Yoshitaka topless, Far Away features the two of them lying together with rose petals scattered across them, and in pop'n music Sunny Park, VENUS gets a character pair based off of the two of them, with both characters performing with arms linked together and one of the characters holding the other in their arms in VENUS's LOSE animation.

Amongst fans, their de facto catch phrase is "Without you tonight" (ウィザウチュナイ, or "wizauchunai"), a phrase present in almost every original VENUS song, and serves as the song genre for Brand New World in pop'n music, and later, the genre of the VENUS series in pop'n music as a whole. It is also one of several tags used regularly for VENUS-related works on Nico Nico Douga and pixiv.

VENUS gained another memetic boost at JAEPO 2013, where Sota and Yoshitaka came on stage during a BEMANI event to debut their then-new song, Wow Wow VENUS. Amongst English-speaking fans, the line "Wow Wow VENUS" is infamous for sounding like "Wow Wow PENIS" instead. Needless to say the song skyrocketed in popularity before the entire song even debuted in REFLEC BEAT colette -Spring- about a month later. After a Twitter retweet campaign for early teaser material, the album jacket for Wow Wow VENUS was revealed; it shows Yoshitaka and Sota, together once again, with Yoshitaka suspiciously looking downwards.

Lincle Link

Lincle Link was a BEMANI crossover event. It started out as one for beatmania IIDX 18 Resort Anthem and REFLEC BEAT. As time passed, four more phases of Lincle Link were added, culminating in Lincle Link 5 in June 2012 between beatmania IIDX 19 Lincle and REFLEC BEAT limelight.

Lincle Link would continue to last even over a year after Lincle Link 5. To add insult to injury, KONAMI finally started adding Lincle Link Devil Cards that could be purchased with dellars to unlock them in beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro... but these Devil Cards were only for Lincle Link 1. As of beatmania IIDX 21 SPADA and REFLEC BEAT colette -All Seasons-, Lincle Link was still in effect, forcing beatmania IIDX players and REFLEC BEAT players new to eAMUSEMENT to grind for unlocks from two years ago; three versions ago for beatmania IIDX and two versions ago for REFLEC BEAT.

As a result, there were many jokes about how long until Lincle Link ends (usually guessed to be on the order of years), or if it will even end. The same applied to the Devil Cards for the Lincle Link 5 songs.

Lincle Link 5 finally ended on May 14, 2014, 686 days after its beginning. All its songs (as well as Lincle Link 1's) are unlocked automatically if one has an eAMUSEMENT PASS.

(As a side note, Lincle Link 3 songs were automatically unlocked on beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro and could be unlocked via bistro saucer in jubeat saucer. Lincle Link 2 & 4 were special promotion events that included Dellar and copious travel point bonuses in jubeat copious, and concert ticket giveaways.)

External Links

Lincle Link website
polyphonic room passing on the news to the English-speaking BEMANI community
@IsLL5OverYet -- A fan-operated Twitter account announcing daily if it was over yet, up to the end of the event

SA.YO.NA.RA. SUPER STAR

dj TAKA's shocked face from SA.YO.NA.RA. SUPER STAR's video.

SA.YO.NA.RA. SUPER STAR, which first appeared in beatmania IIDX 19 Lincle, is one of the few SUPER STAR 満-MITSURU- songs to have a unique background video. Most notable for this particular song's background video is dj TAKA's shocked face, which is shown for more than 3 seconds at the end of the song. This image has been widely used in many BEMANI-related forums, and it became popular among NicoNicoDouga users as well.

In the Visual Emotions 9 DVD however, the shocked face scene is replaced by a currently unknown person. However beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro, being the first style to use 4:3 aspect ratio videos, does not use the Visual Emotions 9 version and retains the shocked dj TAKA face ending.

dj TAKA's shocked face is referenced in the BEMANI series twice, one in dj TAKA's 熱闘! BEMANIスタジアム baseball card, and again in the background video for I will be back -オレは帰ってきた-.

THE SAFARI

THE SAFARI's Single HYPER chart has been the final stage of every single beatmania IIDX Single 7th Dan course ever since the introduction of Dani'nintei mode in beatmania IIDX 7th style and still has this status today. Many players question its inclusion in 7th Dan, as it is substantially more difficult than the preceding three stages. In fact, many players struggle so much on completing the song and finally achieving 7th Dan status that there are players who simply skip 7th Dan and go complete 8th Dan instead, citing gigadelic on Single HYPER to be an easier "boss" song instead. Players who do this are known by Japanese players as "Safari Refugees" (サファリ難民, safari nanmin). While there are many Single 6th Dan and 8th Dan players, there are comparatively few 7th Dan players.

REFLEC BEAT groovin'!!'s REFLEC Dojo mode also references this, by having THE SAFARI -DJ TOTTO mix- as the FINAL ROUND of its 7th Dan course.

†LEGGENDARIA

beatmania IIDX 21 SPADA introduces the Spada†leggendaria series of EXTRA STAGE songs. An update in 2014 introduced †LEGGENDARIA charts to these songs, similar to the CS-exclusive Black ANOTHER charts; each song's set of †LEGGENDARIA charts has its own entry on the songlist, bearing the title format "<song name>†LEGGENDARIA". †LEGGENDARIA charts are considerably harder than their non-†LEGGENDARIA ANOTHER counterparts; Verflucht†LEGGENDARIA's Single ANOTHER chart is particularly infamous in that it currently has the most notes of any beatmania IIDX arcade chart ever, at 2401 notes.

Bored players took to applying the †LEGGENDARIA label to other songs, everything from 5.1.1.†LEGGENDARIA to 冥†LEGGENDARIA. Additionally, Vine user MixstN took to making a Vine clip, NANDEMO†LEGGENDARIA, featuring the †LEGGENDARIA logo being printed out and appended to various objects, as well as a few more related videos, such as GAMBOL†LEGGENDARIA, a spoof video of a fake †LEGGENDARIA chart for GAMBOL in which the player immediately fails at the very beginning of the song.

This carried on beyond the IIDX series with the crossover of TOXIC VIBRATION onto pop'n music ラピストリア, where a bug initially made the EASY chart for the song really difficult. While it was fixed within a matter of hours, people started referring to the chart as "TOXIC VIBRATION†LAPISTORIA", a mix of the †LEGGENDARIA label and the name of the game.

Additionally, many beatmania IIDX players have taken to appending "†LEGGENDARIA" at the end of their Twitter names.

As a side note, "leggendaria" means "legendary" in Italian.