ぽっぴっぽー / ラマーズP feat. 初音ミク
PoPiPo / Lamaze-P feat. Miku Hatsune

from: Miku Hatsune -Project DIVA 2nd- and/or THE INTERNET

steps: Xythar
graphics: Xythar (sourced from screencaps of the video)

Video is the original animation for this song that is all over Youtube and Nicovideo. I used a higher quality version that was originally a fansub by Whispers and WAHa_06x36 (though I blacked the original lyrics out), downloaded from Shii's website. Thanks, guys!

For: DDREvolved.com Cheesemix 6 (Entry)


After the somewhat unexpected Best-Mix 4 success of my first Miku Hatsune file, "Far Away", it looks like there's some interest in these songs after all! Which is great, because I enjoy stepping them :) For Cheesemix there was really only one choice, and it was this song. I originally heard it in Project Diva 2nd, but it's been around a lot longer than that (and unlike Far Away I opted to use the original video instead of a rip from the game since it's basically cheesier and PD2's PV would have been rendered in rather low-res PSP quality). Amongst the many versions floating around, there's the original Japanese version and also a version sung in glorious Engrish - I opted to use the latter (which makes up the second verse of the PD2 version) because it's a lot funnier when you can actually understand what she's going on about. Which is vegetable juice.


Anyway, onto the steps. The Heavy chart is the one I wrote first, it's very loosely DDRMAX2 inspired but mostly just whatever felt fun. I think it actually came together really nicely, it's a little boring on keyboard but great fun on pad. It doesn't follow the music very closely through much of the chart, but that's what DDR is all about. ;) A few specific notes since I have played this chart on pad way more than is healthy:

Measures 15-16: The intention here is for you to land on the first UD jump facing left, hit the arrows with your right foot, then when doing the jump at the start of 16 you should flip around so you're facing right (e.g. so your right foot is now holding the down freeze instead of your left). Then you can just hit the other arrows with your left foot without having do some kind of weird crossover thing.

Measure 23: This was inspired by playing the DDRMAX3 fanmix by Ken and friends that's available on nDDRo's site :)

Measures 29-36: The same two-measure rhythm repeats four times in this section, but each time it focuses on a different corner of the pad (so I guess it's a combination of being flipped and mirrored each time?). And yet it all works without double stepping. I'm probably the only person who thinks this is awesome, but I can't help it. I just love patterns THAT MUCH.

Chorus: There would be a very obvious way to step this, so naturally I did something else entirely. For those of you disappointed that I didn't follow the "po-pi-po-pi-po-po-pi-po" rhythm (like the PD2 chart does), you may be relieved to hear that I did exactly that during the challenge steps. But more on those later. Also, I put more than three steps in a row on the same arrow. I'm such a rebel.

Measure 51: You can thank sanchny's Robokiss file for reminding me that this jump sequence is awesome.

Measures 54-55: Okay, this bears some explanation. Many people on a sightread will probably be inclined to hit the LU freeze jump in measure 55 with their right foot on up in the usual fashion, but this leads to a semi-awkward crossover to hit the 4ths that go DRD during the freeze. The way you're actually meant to do it, as hinted by the LRU 8ths at the end of measure 54, is to crossover, turn right and jump so that your right foot is on L and your left on U. Then while facing right like that you can easily hit them all with your right foot while holding the freeze with your left, and easily hit the following L freeze in measure 56 with your left foot without having to double step. I don't know why I enjoy writing steps that need a walkthrough to explain, but they're fun.

Measure 59: This sequence of jumps is designed so you can spin around as you jump, if you're so inclined. Particularly dedicated freestylers can strike the Y A S A I poses on each jump, like Miku: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4eQKENHTv0#t=2m51s
I wouldn't recommend doing this anywhere that other people can see you. Or probably at all.


Okay, onto challenge!

With these steps I wanted to create an alternate heavy chart, basically. They're a bit harder, but not that much really. I also played a lot of DDRMAX between writing heavy and challenge, can you tell? :)

Measures 13-17: I hope you're in the mood for dancing!

Measures 21 and subsequent areas during the verse: Hooray, gallops to nothing in particular! Before you complain about this, it's a DDR staple. And it's fun besides, at least once you get over being totally thrown off the first time. I like them, anyway - they do a good job of making challenge unique, not to mention making the verse fun. 

I'm not really sure what I think of measure 34, it's a little awkward and usually breaks my combo. But it wouldn't feel like authentic DDR without a little awkwardness, right?

You might notice I've been trying to use freeze arrows a lot more these days. I used to barely use them at all, but I think I'm getting better at it.

Chorus: The steps you've all been waiting for! Or not. This part is pretty obvious.

Measure 54: sup evan
Measure 57: sup sanchny


Finally, standard and light (or TRICK and BASIC, even). Standard is about as old school DDR as I could make it, there's lots of that 8th half-crossover pattern that Konami absolutely loved to put in standard charts back then. And lots of freezes. I apologise for completely overusing that (freeze L) D (freeze R) D L pattern (and variations) in basically all of my standard charts in CM6 but I can't help myself! It's just so fun! >_> Light was carefully designed to introduce new players to the concept of up and down arrows, since those are quite tough to read. It starts off quite simply but then builds on that. No jumps this time, we'll save those for another lesson. :)


That's enough about the steps, now for graphics and presentation. The background is an unedited screencap from the video (it worked quite well enough as it was) and the banner is a carefully chosen 3 second loop with text designed to look like the song title from the background (though I couldn't font match it exactly). I was originally going to have "English Version" on the banner but it was just way too crowded with it there so I took it out, then out of the songwheel as well since it's basically just a subtitle that I made up. :P Video was encoded to 320x240 because, as I mentioned somewhere else, standard definition stuff still seems to look fine at 320x240. I think it's just the stuff from a HD source (e.g. Far Away's video) that looks ugly when scaled down that far. I left the CD title blank this time since the song was around before Project Diva 2nd.

The lyrics are taken verbatim from the Project Diva 2nd lyrics for the song (see the video I linked earlier if you want proof). They're questionably accurate in parts but hey, I'm not gonna argue with Sega. :P If anything, the grammatical errors add to the cheesiness.

I can't believe I just wrote nearly 1,300 words about a bunch of arrows I put down to a Miku Hatsune song about vegetable juice. What is wrong with me?

--Xythar (gmmazz@hotmail.com)