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Interview:J-Pop Producer Tsunku Perfects Music Games With Rhythm Heaven
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| Rhythm Heaven, one of Japan's hottest videogames, came from an unlikely collaboration between Nintendo and a high-profile Japanese music producer who set out on a quest to create a truly musical game. Mitsuo Terada, a 40-year-old J-pop producer who goes by the Prince-like moniker "Tsunku♂," is involved in most every aspect of the Japanese pop music scene. As a producer, he created the immensely popular girl group Morning Musume. As a songwriter and vocalist, he has released several albums, including a CD of Beatles covers. Recently, he worked with Nintendo to create* Rhythm Heaven*, the Nintendo DS game released this month in the United States after selling more than 1.5 million copies in Japan. The music game is a perfect blend of addictive gameplay and catchy music that breaks the mold set by the incredibly popular Guitar Hero. Ditching realism for wackiness, Rhythm Heaven's songs are set to a series of 50 cartoon mini-games that can be devilishly difficult. Wired.com had the opportunity to e-mail a few questions to Tsunku♂, who talks about videogame music hitting the charts, Japanese-American cultural crossovers and the challenge of creating a musically fulfilling game. | |
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| Wired.com | You started the group Morning Musume, which has been featured in several videogames. So you've had experience with games. Why did you decide to work on an original videogame with Nintendo? |
| Tsunku♂ | My collaboration with Nintendo began with my submission of a game proposal. In Japan, with games that use rhythm and sound, it's long been the case that the placement of accents and the timing of button-presses has had nothing to do with music. For someone like myself, whose work revolves around music, this has never seemed right, and I wrote up my proposal in hopes of doing away with this. I also felt that without Nintendo's expertise, realizing my idea for a rhythm game would be impossible. It wasn't like I really knew anyone with Nintendo, either. It was a bit risky, but my staff just took our proposal and approached them directly. Then, after numerous meetings and dance classes, I was able to convey my idea to the software engineers, and slowly, it became a reality. Rhythm Tengoku for Game Boy Advance was completed as a result, and two years later we expanded the idea with Rhythm Heaven for Nintendo DS. |
| Wired.com | Tell me about the process of localizing Rhythm Heaven for an English-speaking audience. Many of the songs had to be changed. Were you involved in this process? What was the most challenging part of the game to localize? |
| Tsunku♂ | I mainly work in producing and writing J-pop songs, but unfortunately, because the songs are in Japanese, even if an album sells 2 million copies in Japan, it would never make it to America. And that's why the Grammys have never come calling [laughs].... Rhythm games have always transcended nationality, though. Rhythm is something that can be learned without complex theories; it just takes practice and repetition. This is true for children, adults, men and women. This is why I thought a worldwide release of this title wasn't just a pipe dream. As for the changes to song lyrics in the American version, the staff in Japan translated the songs into English, staying as close as they could to the meaning of the Japanese. Then the staff at Nintendo of America localized them for an American audience, and the lyrics as they are now were completed. Our main concern, though, was maintaining the flow and emphasis in the songs that enable all of the game's tapping and button-pressing. There would be no point in the game if we sacrificed the rhythmic gameplay just to make the meaning of the English and Japanese lyrics match, so we had the localizers take extra care with this. |
| Wired.com | There have been live performances of the "Fan Club" song from Rhythm Heaven in Japan. How did this come to be? The fans seem to really know the music and enjoy it -- do you see this sort of crossover, of videogame music becoming popular outside the game, as something that will become more common in the future? |
| Tsunku♂ | I've had one of the up-and-coming groups I'm producing perform the song live. Since the game's release, when these girls perform the song at one of their concerts in Japan, the audience starts cheering and really gets into it, just like in the game. Things like this just happen naturally in Japan. Occasionally, a song or score from a game will become a hit, but there hasn't been a truly nationwide hit from a game yet. Still, this song has been used in TV commercials, and it's really gotten popular in Japan. I think there will be increased potential for game music to cross over into the mainstream in the future, but avid fans usually don't respond to gimmicks they feel are too contrived. The key is to start with as pure a game concept as possible, and give it the type of music that suits it best. If the fans respond well as a result, performing the song live in concert would be a natural next step. That sort of pattern seems ideal to me. |
| Wired.com | Are you surprised by how big a hit Rhythm Tengoku games have become in Japan? |
| Tsunku♂ | It has been surprising, but I don't think it was a coincidence. There's a clear link between music, rhythm and play, and these things conspire together to draw the player into the game world naturally. This is what I think has made this game so enjoyable for people who don't normally play games. That said, I never thought it would sell as well as it had. It's been really overwhelming, in a good way. |
| Wired.com | Japanese pop music has not really breached the American consciousness in a way that Japanese games, comics and now movies have. Do you hope to make Japanese idol pop big in the United States? Does Rhythm Heaven play into that? |
| Tsunku♂ | The barrier created by the Japanese language is a big one, and it's very difficult to have a hit song in Japanese outside of Japan, even in places like China or any English-speaking country. There are melodies in J-pop that I feel are similar to the type of music European people are drawn to, sort of a "continental" type of melody. There are also songs with melodies featuring that bold lyrical style popularized by American Motown music. I think there's a real opportunity for J-pop to create a presence all its own using the recent trend in American R&B and pop music to drop the melody out of a chorus and feature a capella singing. J-pop can create the kind of rhythms and melodies Americans enjoy, so if we can get the word out, I think a hit wouldn't be out of the question. After that, there's just the problem of the lyrics. I'll be happy if Rhythm Heaven can be a step toward making this a reality. |
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