I've Always Wondered...What Do Those "Robots" That Appear in Some of Konami's Orginal Songs, Mean?

Okay. I've noticed that in some of Konami's Original Songs (let's call them K.O.S. for short) there are these robots/machines in the background movies. For example, in B4U, there is a robot built like a man in the background image. Also in Brilliant 2U, there is another one of these robots that sort of resembles a 4-legged creature.

B4U


Brilliant 2U

In DDR Extreme 2, you can change the appearance of the arrows to look like what are called "Gradius Ships." I've seen this "ship" appear in other KOS backgrounds as well. I can't remember exactly which ones though.

(couldn't find a picture of the arrows, but this is a gradius ship)


What are the orgins of these robots and things, and what do they symbolize?

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I don't think they are supposed to symbolize anything. Japan likes robots so I guess it makes sense that they would include robots in the backgrounds of some of the songs. Like the B4U robot looks like a mecha/gundam which might be a homage to a series but I honestly think they were made just as art. Same goes with all the Paranoia robots.

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The Vic Viper ("Gradius ship") arrows are just an easter egg. Konami loves to crossover songs/characters from their other non-BEMANI games.

About the other robots, they're mostly present on the backgrounds from some NAOKI songs (BRILLIANT 2U, B4U, D2R). These robots have become a sort of icon for these songs, as you can see on Kimochi's album art (UNIVERSE3).

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Well the Gradius Ship is the ship from Gradius.
(in case you didn't know, Gradius is a scrolling shooter game made by Konami)

I don't know if the robots have some other significance, but I'm assuming they just made them specifically for the background videos because giant robots are cool.

Edit: ninja'd

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Thanks for all the replies!
Lol, here I am thinking there's some deeper, subliminal, creepy meaning to it all.

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The "Pink Rose" robot (originally from Keyboardmania) always looked like an intentional amalgam of a Gundam and a Zaku to me. And the song itself is very much like the type of music found in Gundam Wing, but maybe that's just me.

Everytime I look at those robots I think of Transformers.

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The robot dog thing was used in the background of the Brilliant 2U songs, but when they ported it to IIDX, they ditched it, and gave the song a fairly generic video of cars driving along the motorway, and a distinctively-rendered CG girl walking through a tunnel.

When they wrote B4U as the apparant "theme song" of the DDR series, they used Brilliant 2U as a basis, and used a humanoid robot in the background, probably to show that as the new song had evolved from 'B2U' into 'B4U', the robot had also evolved into a humanoid thing. When the hit was ported to IIDX, they made a very ellaborate "car driving" video, in the same style as the B2U one.

B4U Glorious Style uses the same robot in a different post, but it againonly flashes up on the screen inbetween visualisations.

After DDRMAX, they went back to the B4U series, and made D2R. The robot evolved again, into a humanoid mech that actually moves (for a few frames of animation), there's a little graphic in the background video that says "Project B4U", which I guess aknowledges the obvious link between the songs. When it was ported to IIDX, it got a completely generic video - no cars or robots.

1998 came in DDR Extreme. The game was all about ending in the DDR series by going back to their roots, so they brought back the dog from Brilliant 2U, and made a LOT of animations of it running around and roaring at the screen. When it hit IIDX, the song was re-arranged, given a pun title that reads as "B6U", and had a ridiculous live-action video where Naoki jams along to the B4U video with a guitar, while girls drive around in cars.

So essentialy, they're just a thematic visual to link all the "Project B4U" (or whatever you want to call them) songs. In IIDX, the robot never appears, but the songs are linked by a visual of CG girls driving around in cars. The same girls were used in Naoki's other IIDX songs, and later in lots of other non-Naoki songs, though.

@Tyma thanks dude!

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