Fun Facts regarding "Blaze" (April 2011):

* I know that even though it's the opening for the anime "Shakugan no Shana II,"
  the song is showing age; it's been around.  However, I felt it could use some
  fresh charts.

* This song was purposely chosen for charting for its technicalities.

* Expert was purposely written qualifier-style because of said technicalities,
  in such a way that it's not obvious/overdone; it has just a little bit of
  everything - some mines (with footraise), some rolls, a few hands, a couple
  jumps, and some stream, which makes the song relatively easy to pass (for an
  11-footer), but very difficult to score particularly well on: exactly what
  you NEED for a qualifier so that the need for tiebreakers is reduced.  (It
  was also chosen for qualifier-style writing because of its short length;
  qualifiers should be kept short in order to expedite the qualifying process.)
  Particular attention was also paid to the quality of the banner and the exact
  location and duration of the sample music (to make it easy on the eyes and
  easy to hear the sample over and over during qualifiers).

* Expert must have been modified at least a dozen times (seriously) over a
  period of about a week or so before I was entirely happy with the final
  result.

* That said, Expert is actually still a lot of fun to play.

* With *that* said, the other charts are not without some personality; Hard is
  a really awesome (though easy-end) 8 that uses some jumps and still has a
  few mines that actually matter, and the other difficulties were written
  carefully as well.

* This simfile was submitted as a possible tournament qualifier for the arcade
  I play at (Harrisburg Family Fun Center), but the tournament that was being
  considered never happened, which delayed the formal release of this simfile
  for over a month; I wanted to be sure whether to unveil it as a tourney
  qualifier or as a regular simfile (it is common practice not to release a
  qualifying simfile until a short time before the actual tournament), so
  since the tournament never happened, it was released as per normal.