The Beginner's Guide to Ryu*
Ryu* or 中原龍太郎 [Ryutaro Nakahara] was the other winner of the musicianship trial alongside kors k when he was 20 years old, needless to say the two are the best of friends. While kors k's style was more geared towards trance, Ryu* was composing in straight up Happy Hardcore with his winning song
starmine which people recognize by its distinctive Tran fan dance video which has the potential to cause seizures if one isn't careful. Just as kors k did, Ryu* disappeared for a few years and came back in 9th Style with a trancecore/happy hardcore remix of dj TAKA's Abyss -
Abyss -The Heavens Remix- (which is a damn hard song). From then on, Ryu* has been a mainstay in beatmania IIDX and has been trying his hand out at a variety of styles but still recognizably Ryu* by the production values. Keeping to his trademark happy hardcore style, Ryu* came out with the very happy and very hardcore song
rainbow rainbow, instantly recognizable by the vocal sample and high energy opening. He surprised many fans that same style by also producing the song
雪月花 [Setsugekka], a hard house song with Japanese elements combined with a driving bassline to produce a popular club track. He surprised many fans once again with the artcore track
Narcissus at Oasis which showed off Ryu*'s characteristic piano and indeed, people have drawn parallels between this song and kors k's Love is Eternity.
This dualism would also be present in the following style (IIDX RED) in which he produced the happy hardcore song (that was swirling in macho, according to a friend and close collaborator Dai)
AGEHA a possible hommage to the club of the same name. He also changed his name from Ryu★ to Ryu☆ (though to be honest that isn't
too big of a difference. At the same time, he produced a harder hard dance track called
Be quiet on the same style. Some people have likened it to a tougher Setsugekka without the Japanese elements. He also made his pop'n music debut at approximately the same time on pop'n music 12 Iroha with the song
starmine -pop'n mixxx-, a remix of his debut song starmine that featured more j-core and trancecore elements but still sticking to it's happy hardcore roots.
Happy Sky featured Ryu*'s remixing skills as a cut version of L.E.D.'s
合体せよ!ストロングイェーガー!! (Ryu☆ remix) [The Strong Jaeger (Ryu* remix)] was placed in Happy Sky, Ryu* once again showing his proficiency in hard dance with another addictive dance-y video featuring the iconic Strong Jaeger. (N.B. This is one of Kanna's favourite songs in the Jaeger Series and will often play this song and dance the Jaeger Dance at the same time) He then produced a calmer, but still good song in Happy Sky called
in motion which featured Ryu* dabbling in click house - a style featuring a house beat with clicks and pops with vocal samples to form melodies. He also produced the
trancecore track Aurora which, aside from having a fiendishly hard chard, also featured a rather bizarre video.
DistorteD brought another side of Ryu* to IIDX as he teamed up with long time friend and collaborator Dai to form the unit HHH - a dance and music unit to come out with the horrendously gay buchiage trance song
So Fabulous!! which along with featuring Dai's slick dance moves, featured Ryu*'s trademark high pitched, dubbed vocal sampling skills. This song, due to fans finding it horribly amusing, has been parodied
several times over by both overseas and Japanese fans. (N.B. Kanna knows the dance to this song too. Vaguely.) It has also led to many fans questioning Ryu*'s sexual preferences (N.B. Kanna will not entertain questions on this mattter :
). Under the Ryu* name, Ryu* produced
Harmony and Lovely a mellower progressive house tune containing many similar elements to in motion. He also composed the track
waxing and wanding under the name 青龍 [Seiryuu] under the CARDINAL GATE boss song system that was used in DistorteD. Many people guessed that this was Ryu* from the start due to the irritating and amusing characteristic incomprehensible vocal sample (the exact words of which he forgot) which reminded many of Aurora from the previous style. The long version of this song appeared in the CARDINAL GATE conclusion CD which was the limited edition CD that came with DistorteD CS.
Ryu* then collaborated with wac on pop'n music 14 FEVER to bring a highly different track featuring spanish-inspired flamenco synths and a fast rhythm called
hora de verdad (Cyber Flamenco) under the name Vandalusia改 [Vandalusia-kai] with Ryu* and wac each assuming the left and right hand of Vandalusia, keeping in line with the playful and mischievous nature of both composers. Then IIDX GOLD arrived with the song
Second Heaven, a HANDZ UP track vaguely reminiscent of Cascada's work; which many fans suspected kors k and Ryu* having some sort of joke between them as the same sample of "SOMEBODY SCREAAAAAAAAAAM!" was also featured in kors k's song
FIRE FIRE.
The penchant that Konami has for giving Ryu* songs ridiculously hard charts came to fruition again as Ryu* collaborated with Sota Fujimori for DistorteD CS to give the
trancecore song Go Beyond!! which featured Sota's synths, Ryu*'s rhythms and a backmasked "S-O-T-A, R-Y-U and COLLABORATION," with a chart that has made even the most experienced IIDX players cry and struggling to adjust the lags on their TVs.
DJ Troopers was a busy style for Ryu* as it featured four of his tracks and ported
the happy hardcore song in the sky from HAPPY SKY's consumer version to the arcade system. Having collaborated previously with dj TAKA on his album milestone, the game version of
Blue Rain appeared on this very style, a trance track with uplifting vocals. HHH made a comeback in DJ Troopers with it's current incarnation of Ryu*, Dai and VJ Halka to produce
Dazzlin Darlin a flamingly gay song and video combo which features sparkles. No, I am not kidding. It has sparkles in it (and royalty free Kate Lesing vocals). Aside from the regularly selectable songs, Ryu* also came out with another Seiryuu song, making him the second Cardinal Gate artist to produce a song that was an extra stage on a style other than DistorteD (the first being Yoshitaka, under the Suzaku name).
Time to Air featured more pitch bent samples (at least it was understandable this time) and similar structure to Go Beyond!! and waxing and wanding. Then, arguably Ryu*'s worst song was the sample heavy Military Splash song
Do it!! Do it!!, which, while being amusing didn't quite have as much to it musically as his past songs.
He's also a member of beatnation records and has remixed
Under the Sky in a happy hardcore fashion featuring Ryu*'s characteristic piano on the cyber beatnation 1st conclusion. Aside from his work in bemani, Ryu* is heavily involved in the hardcore scene, having collaborated with teranoid and various other peoples. The only problem is, he's a rather hard to track down artists, having done remixes here and there and releasing a few vinyls here and there but as side projects that feature different styles of Ryu*, musically.
