Arcade Station Episode 3 (English Version)

Episode 03: Dance Until You’re Sick -Daisuke-

Please tell me now, how do you feel me?

Please show me now.

I wanna dance with you more.

Right now, I want you're one for you.

Everytime, everywhere,

I will surely get your honest love.

Daisuke...

Ward heard the chorus of Daisuke once he arrived at the hub of Arcade Station. He saw a white veiled girl dancing in front of Dance Evolution Arcade cabinet which was dominated by white color with speaker in each side, and also a Kinect sensor above the screen. The Kinect sensor on that cabinet was for detecting every dance moves during gameplay.

That girl who also wore a high school uniform finished dancing once the song ended. The screen showed the result of the stage, that girl received rank AA.

The girl turned around after ending the game. “You must be Ward, right?”

“You’re right. Your dance is awesome! Looks like you’re playing this so often, right?”

“Just training for the dance competition.”

The girl’s sentence heard to Ward somewhat reminded him. He remembered that a girl named Amy Kavanagh told the night after last gathering that she entered the dance competition on Wednesday.

Ward later looked at his phone screen, showing that it was Monday, meaning that girl who was standing in front of him had two days remaining for the competition. But, once he saw the girl once again, he got confused.

“Are you Amy Kavanagh?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Am I meeting the wrong Amy Kavanagh?” Ward pointed on the girl’s white veil.

The girl laughed, “Haha, that’s not my real name.”

“Whoa, not your real name? So ….” He actually wanted to ask Amy’s real name. “Never mind.”

“Wanna play?” asked Amy to Ward.

Truth be told, Ward had previously played Danz Base just once long before he joined Movement Rhythm Community. He was embarrassed during his gameplay playing three stages consisting of K-Pop songs, especially in front of his college friends.

“Nah, I don’t play dance game like that. I play Pump It Up and DDR to dance,” Ward replied.

It was true that both Pump It Up and Dance Dance Revolution were also dance rhythm game, with “dance pad” consisting either four (Dance Dance Revolution) or five (Pump it Up) colored panels for one player. These panels were pressed using the player’s feet in response to arrows that appeared on screen in front of the player. But both Danz Base and Dance Evolution Arcade were the dance rhythm game that made the player actually dance following the choreography shown on screen in front.

“It just, I’m too shy to dance in front of the public like this. I played Danz Base once, but I quit immediately,” Ward added. “Maybe I’ll give this game a shot.”

Ward walked to the cabinet and swiped his game card to insert a credit. The game was offline since Arcade Station got confused with its’ online system like Dance Dance Revolution earlier.

He stood up on the dance gray carpet for the game facing the cabinet. He rose his right hand to start the game after his movement got detected by Kinect sensor. Afterward, he got three stages to play.

Luckily, since it was outdated since February 2015, most of the licensed songs on the game were available to play before being removed in the future updates. However, most of the original songs from Konami for the game were unavailable.

For the first stage, first, Ward took a closer look at the licensed songs available, he saw a lot of J-Pop and anime songs available such as PONPONPON, Heavy Rotation, Ikuze! Kaitou Shoujo, and Love & Joy. He chose to dance to AKB48’s Heavy Rotation with EXTREME difficulty (equivalent to HARD difficulty).

For the second stage, he chose Golden Bomber’s Memeshikute, then in the final stage, he chose the most mainstream rhythm game song of all time, DJ Yoshitaka’s Flower. Both with EXTREME difficulty. During the first two stages, he danced followed the choreography on screen although he made some mistakes resulting getting “BOO”. In the final stage, he struggled to follow the complicated choreography to Flower. He got at least rank A for the three stages.

“Whoa, that was tiring enough,” said Ward.

“Hi, Ward,” Toshi, who had finished playing Danz Base, greeted him.

“Toshi, you’re here too?” asked Ward.

“No lecturers for today in campus, so I’m getting here,” Toshi replied. “Whoa, you played Dance Evolution too.”

“Just once. One time only.”

“Hey, Amy, how’s your dance routine for the competition?” asked Toshi.

“It went well. I’m going to dance to Daisuke,” Amy had decided.

“Whoa! Wait? Is that okay to use the song from the game?” Ward got worried.

“Just being anti-mainstream when most of the dancers are using K-Pop or English songs. After all, it’s fun being weird. I just saw a dancer who also compete in a competition earlier also copied the choreography from Danz Base on YouTube,” Amy happily answered. “It’s cool if you’re trying something different from each other, using the song from rhythm games, it’s kinda cool.”

“Okay…. Maybe using a rhythm game song is not bad after all,” Ward replied.

“Speaking about competition, don’t you have to play BlazBlue today?” asked Toshi.

“Oh, you’re right. I better find my own weaknesses before the competition!” Ward immediately walked leaving the hub of Arcade Station.

***

MOVEMENT RHYTHM COMMUNITY (98)

            (8:48 PM) Night all!

(8:49 PM) Honestly, I’m into Flower.

(8:49 PM) I mean Flower from DJ Yoshitaka.

(8:49 PM) The dance moves are truly hard.

Dave Scott

Hi, Ward! (8:49 PM)

Yeah, you’re right. I also struggled copying the dance moves for Flower (8:50 PM)

Don Parrish

Anyone going tomorrow? (8:50 PM)

(8:50 PM) Haha, I was truly embarrassed playing Dance Evolution.

(8:50 PM) Maybe Wednesday.

(8:51 PM) Also playing BlazBlue.

(8:51 PM) Anyway, is Dance Evolution also popular?

Xephyr

Skip. (8:51 PM)

(8:52 PM) It’s still offline, right?

Aishiro Daichi

Maybe going to watch Amy’s performance on Wednesday. (8:52 PM)

Ian Hunter

Groove Coaster’s latest version is truly epic! (8:53 PM)

Touhou again!! (8:53 PM)

Don Parrish

It’s true! Touhou totally worth it! (8:53 PM)

Gonna wait for the latest version installed! (8:54 PM)

Dave Scott

Is this true?! (8:56 PM)

(8:56) What’s wrong?

(8:57 PM) Dave?

Aishiro Daichi

Dave? (8:58 PM)

Amy Kavanagh

Tired after practicing again. (8:58 PM)

Daisuke is awesome! (8:59 PM)

Xephyr

Woohoo! (8:59 PM)

Good luck, Amy! (8:59 PM)

Dave Scott

Dance Masters (aka DanceEvolution in Japan)

A dance game that utilizes the Xbox 360’s Kinect peripheral, although in Japan the game is also available in arcades. After the (date censored) update, the online service has terminated and arcade operators installed an update to enable offline play. (9:00 PM)

Is this real?! (9:01 PM)

Is this true?! (9:01 PM)

I refuse to accept it! (9:01 PM)

Please tell me this is just a lie!!!! (9:02 PM)

Ken Williams

It’s true. (9:03 PM)

(9:03 PM) What the hell?!

(9:03 PM) For real?!

Dave Scott

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH!!!! (9:05 PM)

Ian Hunter

What’s wrong? (9:06 PM)

What happened, Dave? (9:06 PM)

***

On Wednesday afternoon, Ward looked at Dance Evolution Arcade cabinet which was placed right next to Danz Base in Arcade Station. He somehow remembered the group chat on the previous night. And on earlier in the morning….

***

MOVEMENT RHYTHM COMMUNITY (98)

Dave Scott

NOOOOO!!! IT’S NOT A DREAM!!! (1:18 AM)

T_T (1:19 AM)

(5:21 AM) So it’s true?!

***

Dance Evolution Arcade had been indeed discontinued by Konami. Ward thought Konami totally screwed up the game in two ways. One, most of the licensed songs remained expiring until they were removed, and two, lack of players in native Japan because of little to no promotion recently.

Ward said to himself, “Why somehow it reminded me to Silent Hills?”

He checked his LINE app as he walked away from Dance Evolution Arcade cabinet to BlazBlue cabinets. He texted Toshi, Where are you?

He finally played BlazBlue: Central Fiction after waiting for the replies too long. He once again used Ragna the Bloodedge during the gameplay until the final stage.

He concluded once his game ended, “Oh man, looks like I’m still struggling facing Hazama. I hope there’s no player uses Hazama during the competition.”

“Hi, Ward!” Toshi greeted.

“Toshi, hi!” Ward replied.

“Playing BlazBlue again?”

“Yeah,” Ward nodded. “I just heard that most of the players are pros, so I need to play harder since it’s my first time to enter the game competition like this. The preliminary is divided into two batches, each will commence on Friday and Saturday.”

“You’re in …?”

“Friday batch. Then the finals will commence on Sunday. Oh yeah, if I make it into the finals, I’m gonna ask on LINE to watch me competing. Oh yeah, Aishiro is already at the Tea House, right? We better go there to watch Amy’s dance performance!”

***

Most of the audience sitting on the green benches cheered seeing a long-haired girl dancing to IOI’s Crush. They also sang the chorus as the dancing girl showed more power to her dance.

geudongan pyeonghwaropdeon nae ilsangeun annyeong

johahage dwaesseo ppajyeodeulgo isseo

ireol jureun mollaesseo cham, nado naega nollawo

Oh my gosh jigeum nae simjangeun CRUSH, boy

kungkwang woo-oh-woo-oh

kungkwang woo-oh-woo-oh

kungkwang woo-oh-woo-oh

nae simjangeun CRUSH, boy

kungkwang woo-oh-woo-oh

kungkwang woo-oh-woo-oh

Oh my gosh jigeum nae simjangeun CRUSH, boy

Ward sent a text to Aishiro through the LINE app, Where are you?

“Ah!” A girl who walked in front of them slipped dropping the papers in the stairs between the benches.

Toshi immediately walked and kneeled helping the girl picking up the papers she dropped on the floor. Once he looked at her face, he was distracted by her acne-free face and a bit chubby body.

Toshi greeted, “Hi,”

“Hi.” The girl smiled.

Witnessing the first meeting moment between Toshi and the girl, Ward just played Street’s Sakura Fubuki in his mind. The music absolutely fit in the moment, rather than the K-Pop dance song.

“I’m Toshiyuki Ryuzaki. Call me Toshi,” Toshi introduced himself.

“Shin Sung Mi,” The girl said her name. “Sung Mi.”

“Toshi,” Ward called. “Don’t just kneel there.”

“Oh right.” Toshi stood up facing Sung Mi and gave her papers back before asking an awkward question. “You like to dance too?”

“Absolutely,” Sung Mi awkwardly smiled.

“We better get going to find Aishiro,” Ward told after the audience cheered the girl who had finished dancing on stage. “He’s on the back-row seats. C’mon.”

“Well, I hope I’ll see you again soon. Maybe after watching the dance competition.” Toshi smiled to Sung Mi.

“So do I. I would love to see you again,” Sung Mi replied.

“Hey, Ward! Toshi!” Aishiro stood up in the back-row seats raising his hand.

“Hey, Aishiro? How’s Amy?” Ward asked once he and Toshi sat next to Aishiro.

“Not yet. But she says on LINE right after this one.” Aishiro pointed to the guy who started dancing to The Chainsmokers’ Don’t Let Me Down.

“I haven’t seen Dave lately. Is he shocked after finding out Dance Evolution Arcade was discontinued in Japan?” asked Ward.

“Poor Onii-chan,” Toshi added.

“He just … busy with his college.” Aishiro looked again at the stage.

The audience screamed the chorus once the guy gave more power to his dance.

I need you, I need you, I need you right now

Yeah, I need you right now

So don't let me, don't let me, don't let me down

I think I'm losing my mind now

It's in my head, darling I hope

That you'll be here, when I need you the most

So don't let me, don't let me, don't let me down

D-Don't let me down

Don't let me down

Don't let me down, down, down

Don't let me down

Don't let me down, down, down

“Geez, I hope Amy doesn’t let herself under pressure just because she chose an anti-mainstream song,” Ward commented. “Looks like the dancers on stage got better as the song progresses.”

“And most of the audience members here cheered after the song ends,” Aishiro added once the guy on stage finished dancing.

“Do you think Amy will give her best shot dancing to Daisuke?” asked Toshi.

“I don’t know,” Ward replied.

“Oh, she comes!” pointed Aishiro.

Amy walked to the stage wearing white shirt, blue skirt, as well as white socks and pale blue dancing shoes. Most of the audience members clapped their hands to greet her.

Ward, Toshi, and Aishiro got impressed once they had seen Amy’s dancing costume. “So…. So cute….”

Once Daisuke started playing on the stage, Amy finally began her dance routine, mimicking the choreography from the game. Her song choice obviously confused the audience who questioned if they totally know the song. Ward later sang the chorus of the Eurobeat song as they were watching Amy’s performance on stage.

I'm a country girl,

but you’re a super city boy.

I'm a natural girl,

but you're prince for me.

Everyday wondering how I become your girl.

Every night, I'm feeling your body in my dreams.

I can't sleep at all, hello, Morning sun.

My love, my crush, (I) wanna tell you my feeling.

Please tell me now, how do you feel me?

Please show me now.

I wanna dance with you more.

Right now, I want you're one for you.

Everytime, everywhere,

I will surely get your honest love.

Daisuke...

Most of the audience members screamed as Amy showed her dance power amazingly to them. “KYAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”

“The audience screams!” shouted Toshi.

“AMY!!!” Toshi and Aishiro also screamed.

Please tell me now, how do you feel me?

Please show me now.

I wanna dance with you more.

Right now, I want you're one for you.

Everytime, everywhere,

I will surely get your honest love.

Daisuke...

Once both the song and Amy’s dance routine were done, most of the audience members screamed, “KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

Amy smiled seeing her hard work had just paid off, the audience loved her dance moves and her surprising song choice. She greeted the audience before leaving the stage.

“AMY! AMY! AMY!” shouted Aishiro and Toshi.

“Seriously, dude?” Ward got confused. “You’re not embarrassing yourself, are you?”

“Who cares!” Toshi shouted.

“Yosh! Friday is my turn in the BlazBlue competition!” Ward had determined himself.