Aya Matsuura with Atsuko Inaba - Uchuu de La Ta Ta

From: Kiseki no Kaori Dance (single)
Length: 2:07
BPM: 122
Created For: DDREvolved.com's FunkyMix (Division A)

This step file includes BEGINNER (1 foot), BASIC (3 feet), TRICK (5 feet) and MANIAC (7 feet) difficulties as well as lyrics and a background video (provided by sanchny - thanks!). As this song has no PV of its own due to being a B-side, the video used is of a live concert. This leads to a few interesting effects (like how Ayaya and Atsuko sing each others' parts in the live concert itself but the audio is from the album, which ends up feeling a little awkward) but overall I think it's better than no video at all, right? :) The song is a cover of the original song by Taiyo to Ciscomoon (later known as T&C Bomber), a somewhat short-lived Hello! Project group that Atsuko Inaba previously belonged to.

I've actually been planning to step this for FunkyMix or whatever since around 2007. It's been a long time coming, in other words. The graphics I made recently by putting a bunch of stock photos together, putting in some colours and text then deciding it sucked and redoing the colours and text completely. It's tolerable now I guess, if not my best. I left the banner as a still banner so the late-starting video would be more of a surprise (I don't care about spoiling it here since nobody but me actually looks at readmes these days :P), that and it's a lot easier. :) Song cut is also by me (it runs a little long, but to shorten it further would involve taking the Uchuu de La Ta Ta out of the Uchuu de La Ta Ta), the original MP3 was supplied by sanchny about four years ago, and the lyrics are from projecthello.com. They're colour coded with Ayaya's lines in pink, Atsuko's lines in yellow and lines for which they both sing in white. Again, this is based on the album audio and not the video which has most of them the other way around.

The heavy steps are more or less what I've had in mind since the start, though I only just worked out the finer details of the positioning. It's a little tricky to get all the way through heavy without doublestepping, but certainly possible. As for the chorus on heavy - you might think the 16ths are too late, but that's because they follow the background drums and not the foreground vocals. I know it sounds a bit dumb to do that, but I tried both approaches and I feel like the one I used is more fun to play since it lets me put the leading jumps in. If I followed the vocals exactly I'd either have to go straight from a jump into a 16th (yeah, no) or if I moved the jump to the after the gallop and not before then each one would be an 8th stepjump. So, I feel that once you get used to this semi-invented rhythm I think it's a good deal more fun to play. Hopefully you will too!

I also think my standard steps for this were pretty good, I actually had a hard time deciding which approach for the chorus I liked better (Heavy's or Standard's). But in the end, Heavy's is more difficult, so it makes sense to be used for the higher difficulty. It's just a shame that few if any people will play the Standard chart, since I think it's pretty fun.

This is actually the last Ayaya song I had in the pipeline. I haven't decided yet if I'll try to come up with another one for next Cheesemix, or if I'll retire this particular series. I guess we'll see.

Either way, hope to see you next time!

--Xythar (gmmazz@hotmail.com)