Tran

VJ GYO^[2][3]

Nice to meet you, poppers! My name is VJ GYO (aka, the long-winded guy).
Like dj TAKA, beatmaniaIIDX is my home ground... please get to know me!

Well, I was overjoyed when I received the offer for TRAN to appear, but for her to actually appear, tera, shio, and everyone on the pop'n team forced themselves to work very hard to make this happen.

Problem 1) TRAN is a 3DCG character.
Problem 2) She doesn't have a mouth and black eyes. Her nose only looks a bit sharp~, and she has no facial expressions.
Problem 3) She has a strange shape, with a odd large head, and strangely thin limbs.
(She's a brilliantly retro-futuristic and stereotypical alien...)

To summarize, this was a difficult problem to solve, where I asked "how can we include her as a resident of the pop'n world without feeling out of place?".

Solution 1) With the reasoning that it's TRAN from another world, I was fascinated by tera's friendly, cheerful, and cute way, like an anime character for children of these days!
Solution 2) Retaining her unnatural image, I was fascinated by shio's atmospheric and contemporary interpretation by reshaping her to be simple & modern, like an anime character from the '60s!
They're both wonderfully good!! And VJ GYO, who's just a carefree and useless human, was absolutely impressed...
After that, the entire team had a heated debate...
(Although it was just before the production was up... I'm very grateful, no, I'm sorry for this story)

Then, after the character was decided, shio did the image illustrations, and tera drew each of the animations based on the 3DCG animations that I created.
Even though we were on a very tight schedule, I admired their efforts!
This song is difficult that I can't clear it at all, but these days, I'm smiling while playing and watching at various arcades.

Although she caused a bit of an uproar, TRAN was treated as a super V.I.P "stranger".
However, her true intention is to be treated as a casual and normal friend, filled with feelings that she wants to enter the portal to the pop'n world.
...As drawn on the pop'n music6 poster...
(When I first saw this poster at a certain arcade, I was deeply moved.... I want it!).

To all poppers and the pop'n team, thank you very much.

tera

We thought it was natural that this character had to appear here. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank VJ GYO, as the creator, & all the 2DX team, who readily consented!
About the animation production, I tried a bit of an interesting process, where all the actions were created by GYO as a 3D movie, and I traced the flat drawings on a frame, which was naturally a first for pop'n. Contrary to my expectations that it would be easy, it was quite hard work, so I intended to create her by fixing her proportions and interruptions, while being directed to remove much of her unnaturalness, but..., I was showered with "boo-hoo" and ridiculed by the team saying "it looks a bit different" until the end, and as a casual animator, this was the best I could do....

shio

I heard that dj TAKA was going to provide us with a trance song this time, so I nervously approached the IIDX team and asked "if, if that's the case, can we have TRAN?" tera also requested this, so I'm really grateful for their consent! In particular, I'm repeatedly thankful to VJ GYO for his huge cooperation! I'm sorry for ending your valuable holiday after completing it. And thanks for your contribution!

Well, TRAN is already a popular character in IIDX, so I didn't want to ruin her image for IIDX fans, but it wouldn't make sense to not do a pop'n remix of her! So I thought with tera about various directions to take this. So from IIDX to pop'n, from 3D to 2D, how do you feel about TRAN crossing over to a different dimension? tera and I are happy that TRAN's charm remains while feeling that she's from another world. I retouched her illustration with a pop'n-styled touch, and I was surprised that TRAN's body proportions were taller than I thought. I thought she was much shorter.

And to those who knew about TRAN for the first time in pop'n, please check her out here too!