Number 11 on my Gems of Touhou -playlist, a collection of my personal favourite arranges.
I can't really tell why I like this arrange so much. It's very repetitive and quite long too, but there's something about the rhythm that makes me listen to it all over again.
In number 9 I talked about the confusion caused by different versions of a theme's name. This time I'm going to talk about the issue of different versions of the themes themselves.
ZUN has a habit of not making completely new themes for old characters when they appear in the games more than once. The fighter games have remixes of the already existing themes and ZUN's Music CD's have also some remixed PC-98 themes.
In most cases only the instrumentation of the theme is different but sometimes the melody is too and I think that both arrangers and uploaders don't know their stuff when they claim that an arrange is based on a particular theme
For example:
♦ Ancient Temple (PCB stage5) is a theme I like very much. When the theme was remixed in IaMP, they changed the chorus to be simpler and made me dislike the song because of that. Just listen to it and see the difference for yourselves. I could state that more than half of Ancient Temple arranges are based on IaMP's version of the theme, but are always claimed to be based on the original PCB version.
♦ Reincarnation is from Touhou 3, but ZUN made a remix of it to Dolls in Pseudo Paradise. The latter is longer and has a long intro that doesn't appear in the original. Cytokine's version is based on the original while O-Life Japan's version is based on the CD remix. Got it?
♦ Capriccio (touhou 4) vs. Dream Battle (touhou 8). Capriccio has the two main melodies of Dream Battle and one long part that didn't make it to the new version of the song. Dream Battle however has that complicated piano we all love.
♦ Love-colored Magic (touhou 2) vs. Love-colored Master Spark (touhou 8). The latter has more complicated melody in some parts of the song and it's a lot longer, providing some tiny parts that aren't in the older theme. In a way most Master Spark -arranges are actually based on the old Love-colored Magic, but the difference is quite minimal, so It's wouldn't make sense to judge them like that.
♦ Voyage 1969 and Voyage 1970. I'm very serious with these two. Voyage 1970 is a complicated piano theme and Voyage 1969 has the exact same melody but with the complicated piano on the background and a simpler one on the surface. So basically an arrange that claims to be based on 70 but has even a bit of 69 is actually based on 69 only. (Nhato's arrange is one example)
♦ Necro-Fantasy (PCB extra boss) vs. Necrofantasia (PCB phantasm boss). These two themes have only one thing in common besides their names and it's the chorus. Otherwise they are completely different. Most arranges are based on Necrofantasia, but I always wish to see more Necro-Fantasy remixes because I like it more. (it's also a minute longer than the other one)
♦ Bad Apple!! and "so-called Bad Apple!!" which in this case means the famous Alstroemeria Records' version. Many remixes are actually based on another remix and with Bad Apple!! it makes me sad that most people have never even heard the theme's real chorus.
♦ Bloom Nobly Cherry Blossoms of Sumizome ~ Border of Life (PCB, Yuyuko's theme) vs. Border of Life (PCB, Yuyuko's second theme). Did you know those are two different themes? Well it's about time.
End of rant.
And case anyone's been wondering: Yes, I do edit some of the pictures in my videos, so you may not find the exact same version of them anywhere.
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Circle: Cytokine
Original theme: Reincarnation
Original game: Touhou 3 - Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dream
Mima, Touhou © ZUN
Picture from Danbooru
