pop'n music

i played hello pop'n music at my local arcade once, blacked out,
and now i run a wiki-ish site for this game.
ok that's not exactly what happened but it feels like that sometimes.

pop'n music is a bemani arcade game that debuted in 1998 and is still going to this day! although i haven't been intrested in pop'n music for that long, i've known about it for many years since it combines two things i really love: rhythm games and really niche and obscure video games.

i first played pop'n music at my local arcade's hello pop'n music cab (that they sold in early 2023 :[ ) after many years of walking by it and barely acknowledging it's existance and one day i just decided to give it a try. even though hello pop'ns gameplay is pretty simple (compared to regular pop'n), the music and the game's art style really drew me in since it's exactly the kind of stuff i like and were very reminiscent of games i played when i was a kid. i was also kinda familiar with a couple bemani original songs (rin to shite saku hana no gotoku and pink rose) from hearing them back in the late 2000s/early 2010s in various flipnotes on flipnote hatena.

later that day i did what i normally do whenever something really catches my interest — research and absorb as much information on the topic as possible lol.

even though i've been playing pop'n since then, i'm still pretty bad at it.... it's kinda funny that even though i love playing rhythm games, i've been cursed to have horrible hand-eye coordination. i hope to get better in the future but seeing how my poor hand-eye coordination (and general clumsiness) also kinda effects other aspects of my life, i don't see that happening any time soon lol. i'm not too concerned with being the best or playing the hardest songs though, so i guess it all works out in the end.

pop'n is also the reason i've picked up coding again! in december 2022 i started working on my other site pop'n msuic database. it originally started as a place to host character images/gifs and translated character comments but since then it has become way more than that and i hope to continue to add more!! sometimes i forget that the site has 300,000+ views and that people use it as an actual resource and it's not just viewed by me and my friends lol.

not to get sappy but pop'n has let me meet so many people and make many friends and great memories!! i'm very greatful for this silly little rhythm game and everything it's brought my way! i'm glad i decided to give it a try that day :)

now for the fun stuff!

favourite characters:
i have too much to say about all of them so each of them get their own page!

favourite songs:
some long-time favourites and some new favourites!

favourite games:
pop'n 8, 13, 16, and hello pop'n music
none of these choices have much of a reason to them other than i think they have good songs and i like their theming. hello pop'n was also the game that got me interested in pop'n in the first place so i guess there's that