beatmania soundtracks: THE SOUND OF TOKYO!

Beatmania is a series of rhythm-based video games developed by Konami, largely responsible for the genre’s explosion in popularity. Konami’s developers — BEMANI later became the company’s umbrella brand for its rhythm games — conceptualized Beatmania as a game that would be simple to learn but difficult to master, with a control scheme of five keys and a turntable for simulating record scratches. What set Beatmania (and other Konami properties like Dance Dance Revolution) apart from the pack is the BEMANI team’s pool of in-house talent;  many of their composers were career musicians with an awareness of current music trends. For home console entry THE SOUND OF TOKYO!, Konami worked with Pizzicato Five’s Yasuharu Konishi as the game’s producer, creating an interactive experience that went all-in on the sound and fashion of Shibuya-kei.