This article may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view .(September 2024) |
Splatoon is a Japanese video game franchise with the premise of fictional bands and idol groups, whose members are voiced and performed by real-life musicians. As of 2024, the franchise is composed of three major idol groups: the Squid Sisters (who debuted in Splatoon in 2015), Off the Hook ( Splatoon 2 in 2017), and Deep Cut ( Splatoon 3 in 2022).
The Splatoon franchise has produced live performances based on the idol groups in video games as a part of events like Niconico festivals and Nintendo Live. Since 2019, the concerts have introduced the real-life band segment that plays the Splatoon soundtrack not associated with specific idol group, serving as an opening act to the main event.
The Splatoon concerts in Japan have a unique title, typically a portmanteau of "live" and the name of the idol group or its home in the Japanese localization of video games. For example, during the first Splatoon tour, the concerts were named "Shiokalive", a portmanteau of "shiokarazu" (Squid Sisters) and "live" in Japanese.
Date | Event | Title | Country | Venue | Performer(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
January 30, 2016 | Niconico Tokaigi 2016 | Shiokalive | Japan | Makuhari Messe | Squid Sisters |
April 29, 2016 | Niconico Chokaigi 2016 | Shiokalive | Japan | Makuhari Messe | Squid Sisters |
July 8, 2016 | Japan Expo 2016 | Squid Sisters Concert | France | Parc des Expositions de Villepinte | Squid Sisters |
November 3, 2016 | Niconico Choparty 2016 | Shiokalive | Japan | Saitama Super Arena | Squid Sisters |
February 10, 2018 | Niconico Tokaigi 2018 | Haikalive | Japan | Makuhari Messe | Off the Hook Squid Sisters |
March 31, 2018 | Polymanga 2018 | Off the Hook Concert | Switzerland | Montreux Music & Convention Centre | Off the Hook Squid Sisters |
April 28, 2018 | Niconico Chokaigi 2018 | Haikalive | Japan | Makuhari Messe | Off the Hook Squid Sisters |
January 26, 2019 | Niconico Tokaigi 2019 | Tentalive | Japan | Makuhari Messe | Off the Hook |
October 13–14, 2019 | Nintendo Live 2019 | Haikalive Kyoto Mix | Japan | Kyoto International Conference Center | Off the Hook Squid Sisters |
October 8–9, 2022 | Nintendo Live 2022 | Bankalive | Japan | Tokyo Big Sight | Deep Cut Squid Sisters |
February 10, 2024 | Nintendo Live 2024 | Bankalive Gou | Japan | Ota City General Gymnasium | Deep Cut Off the Hook |
On December 16, 2015, Nintendo announced it would hold a virtual concert featuring the Squid Sisters in Niconico Tokaigi, an esports convention hosted by Niconico. [1] [2] It was performed on January 30, 2016, after the Splatoon tournament. [3] A recording of the concert was uploaded on Nintendo's Japanese YouTube channel on Faburary 8, 2016. [4]
On March 24, 2016, Nintendo announced the Squid Sisters concert will return in Niconico Chokaigi, an annual festival and parent event to the earlier Niconico Tokaigi. [5] [6] It was performed on April 29, 2016. [7] A recording of the concert was uploaded on YouTube on the following day. [8]
In addition to the concert program, Nintendo ran two live events in its booth in Tokaigi: Gachi Bon Match, where lottery winners play a turf war game in Splatoon , and Gachi Bon Odori, where participants perform an Obon dance to a remix of "Calamari Inkantation". [7] [9] [10]
On June 2, 2016, Nintendo announced the Squid Sisters will perform in concert at Japan Expo in Paris, France on July 8, 2016. [11] Nintendo of Europe shared a rehearsal video of the band on the day the concert was held. [12] It later uploaded a recording of the live concert with translations on July 12. [13]
On October 22, 2016, it was announced the Squid Sisters will appear in an musical festival Niconico Choparty, which took place in Saitama Super Arena. It was performed on November 3, 2016. [14] It was a short gig consisting of three songs. Its video footage was uploaded on Niconico by the website's owner.
On December 13, 2017, Niconico announced the upcoming Tokaigi event will feature a new Splatoon virtual concert starring Off the Hook, a fictional idol group featured in Splatoon 2 . [15] It was performed on February 10, 2018. It had a guest appearance from the Squid Sisters. [16] Its archive video was later uploaded on YouTube. [17]
On February 19, 2018, Nintendo of Europe announced Off the Hook's virtual concert will be held at the Montreux Music & Convention Centre during Polymanga, an annual convention celebrating Japanese media in Montreux, Switzerland. It was performed on March 31, 2018, as a part of the Splatoon 2 European Championship events. [18] [19]
The second collaborative concert of 2018 with Niconico was held in Chokaigi on April 28, 2018. [20] The concert included a song not featured in the previous Tokaigi 2018 performance, "Nasty Majesty", which was first heard in a trailer for the upcoming downloadable content, Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion . [21]
On December 13, 2018, Niconico announced a new Off the Hook concert will be held at Tokaigi 2019. It was advertised as the group's first solo concert. [22] [23] It was performed on January 26, 2019, coinciding with the Splatoon 2 tournament. [24] Nintendo later internationally published the show on YouTube with translations on April 25, 2019. [25] A recording of the concert was remastered on Blu-ray and released on July 24, 2019. [26]
On August 1, 2019, it was announced the Nintendo Live 2019 event in Kyoto will include a Splatoon virtual concert. [27] [28] It was performed on both October 13 and 14. [29] The event was preceded by an opening act from K.K. Slider, who played a rendition of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons theme. [30] The concert clocked in at nearly an hour. [31]
On July 21, 2022, prior to the release of Splatoon 3 , the official schedule of Nintendo Live was announced, which included a Splatoon concert. [32] On September 2, 2022, Nintendo revealed the new virtual concert will be headlined by Deep Cut, new musical hosts in Splatoon 3. [33] It took place at Tokyo Big Sight from October 8 to 9. [34] [35] A VOD of the live concert, together with the Animal Crossing performance in the same event, was posted on Nintendo's YouTube channel later in 2022. [36]
In August 2023, Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo was unveiled, whose schecule included a live performance from the three members of Deep Cut. [37] Nintendo Live was to be held from January 20 to 21, 2024 with the Splatoon championship, but Nintendo canceled the event following the threats targeting Nintendo staff and spectators. [38] [39] [40] The suspect was later arrested by Japanese police on April 3, 2024. [41]
Nintendo announced on January 24, 2024, that the planned concert will be livestreamed through its YouTube channel as a pre-recorded motion picture. [42] The show was premiered on February 10, 2024, as a double-bill with The Legend of Zelda orchestral performance. [43] [44]
Haruka Yamazaki is a Japanese voice actress and singer affiliated with Arts Vision. Yamazaki has had main roles in several anime shows including as Tomoyo Kanzaki in When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace, Lilith Bristol in Absolute Duo, and Mero in Monster Musume.
Vocaloid Keyboard is a physical MIDI keyboard with a built-in Vocaloid synthesizer. The commercial product as a keytar was released in December 2017.
Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker is a strategy role-playing video game developed and published by Bbmf. It is a spin-off from Atlus's Majin Tensei series, which itself is part of the larger Megami Tensei series. It was originally released on July 11, 2007, for Japanese feature phones, and was re-released by G-Mode on November 16, 2023, for Nintendo Switch and Windows, as part of their G-Mode Archives+ line. It was followed by the sequel Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker II in 2008.
Splatoon 2 is a 2017 third-person shooter game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It was released on July 21, 2017, as a direct sequel to Splatoon. As with the previous installment, Splatoon 2 consists of online multiplayer alongside a single-player campaign, all featuring combat based around ink. An expansion pack for the single-player mode titled Octo Expansion was subsequently released as downloadable content (DLC) on June 16, 2018.
Splatoon is a third-person shooter video game franchise created by Hisashi Nogami and Shintaro Sato, and developed and owned by Nintendo. Set in the far future on a post-apocalyptic Earth inhabited by anthropomorphic marine animals, the series centers around terrestrial cephalopods known as Inklings and Octolings – based on squids and octopuses respectively – which can transform between humanoid and cephalopod forms at will. They frequently engage in turf war battles with each other and use a variety of weapons that produce and shoot colored ink while in humanoid form, or swim through and hide in solid surfaces covered in their own colored ink while in their cephalopodic forms.
Bokuhime Project is a mystery adventure video game developed by Wizard Soft. It was published by Nippon Ichi Software in Japan for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in 2020, and for Microsoft Windows in 2021. The player takes the role of a young man who infiltrates a school for refined young ladies by enrolling as a female student to investigate an incident involving his sister. As part of their investigation, the player aims to get a seat in an influential organization at the school, and thereby needs to improve their character statistics to raise their character's cuteness, overcoming the other candidates.
Roselia is a Japanese all-female alternative rock band that is part of Bushiroad's media franchise BanG Dream!. Formed in 2016, the group's members portray fictional characters in the project's anime series and mobile game BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! in addition to performing their characters' respective instruments in live concerts.
Morfonica is a Japanese all-female rock band that is part of Bushiroad's media franchise BanG Dream!. Formed in 2020, the group's members portray fictional characters in the project's anime series and mobile game BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! in addition to performing their characters' respective instruments in live concerts.
Minato Aqua (湊あくあ) is a retired Japanese VTuber affiliated with Hololive Production from 8 August 2018 to 28 August 2024. She was part of Hololive's 2nd Generation. On 6 August 2024, she announced her 'graduation' from Hololive, using terminology from the Japanese idol industry to refer to retirement. Her graduation concert marking the end of her 6-year career, streamed on YouTube on 28 August, attracted 749,854 concurrent viewers, making it the most watched VTuber stream in history.
Steins;??? is an upcoming video game developed by Chiyomaru Studio and Mages. It is a thematic sequel to Steins;Gate (2009), and is part of the Science Adventure series. The game is written by Mages' representative director Chiyomaru Shikura, and previously went under the working title Steins;God.
Natsuiro Matsuri is a Japanese virtual YouTuber (VTuber) affiliated with Hololive Production. She is part of Hololive (Japan) 1st Generation alongside Akai Haato, Shirakami Fubuki and Aki Rosenthal. Matsuri debuted as a VTuber on June 1, 2018, and has since amassed over 1 million subscribers on YouTube.
"Snow Halation" is a pop song by the Japanese idol group μ's as part of the Love Live! multimedia franchise. Composed by Takahiro Yamada with lyrics by Aki Hata, it was released by Lantis as the group's second single on December 22, 2010. The release was accompanied by a six-minute anime music video produced by studio Sunrise. A re-animated sequence was broadcast in June 2014 as an insert song in the ninth episode of the second season of the Love Live! School Idol Project anime television series.
Haruka Nishio, better known by her stage name Yūka Nishio is a Japanese musician, singer, voice actress and DJ from Kanagawa Prefecture who is affiliated with Hibiki. She was formerly active as a solo musician under the name Haruca, releasing the single "Eien no Kotae" in 2017. She is known for her roles as Nanami Hiromachi in BanG Dream!, where she also serves as the bassist of the band Morfonica, and as Rinku Aimoto, the protagonist of the multimedia franchise D4DJ.
Naon no Yaon is an annual all-female music festival held at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall in Tokyo, Japan's Hibiya Park. Created and "produced" by heavy metal band Show-Ya, performing artists and staff members are restricted to females, but attendance is open to everyone.
Kaoru Hasegawa is a Japanese game artist and part of Spike Chunsoft's affiliation. Since 1994, he contributes to the company, with the Mystery Dungeon franchise as the main character designer for the Shiren the Wanderer series since its first title in 1995, and as an artist for other video game titles.
Callie and Marie are a duo of characters in the Splatoon series. They first appeared in the original Splatoon (2015) as a pop music duo known as the Squid Sisters and have appeared in every subsequent entry in the series. They have been considered the mascots and face of the Splatoon series, appearing in other franchises such as Super Smash Bros. They have starred in real-world concerts in the form of holograms and have established themselves as fan-favorite characters.
Megami Ibunroku Persona: Ikū no Tō-hen is a role-playing video game developed and published by Bbmf. It is a spin-off from Atlus's 1996 game Revelations: Persona, and part of the Persona series, itself a part of the larger Megami Tensei series. It was originally released for Japanese feature phones on December 1, 2006, and was re-released by G-Mode for Nintendo Switch and Windows in September 2023 as part of their G-Mode Archives+ line, after being unavailable for years.
Aegis: The First Mission is a 3D action role-playing video game developed and published by Bbmf. It is a prequel to Atlus's 2006 game Persona 3, and part of the Persona series, itself a part of the larger Megami Tensei series. It was originally released for Japanese feature phones on October 29, 2007, after which it became unavailable for years and was considered lost, until G-Mode's re-release for Nintendo Switch and Windows as part of their G-Mode Archives+ line as Persona 3 Aegis: The First Mission on June 6, 2024.