Name: Yuki Takenaka
Age: 26
Birthday: May 7th
Hair:
- Deep dark blue. Not entirely black, but somewhere between Navy Blue and
Aqua.
- Long hair with bangs
Eyes:
- Dark blue
Skin tone:
- White
Clothing:
- White shirt
- Navy tie
- Navy blazer (open)
Accessories:
- Earpiece with microphone (left side)
- Nails painted black
- Black cross necklace
- Chipper/Enthusiastic/Energetic
- A hint of professionalism
- Commentator, announcer, host
- Slightly loud
- Quirky
- Neutral with a slight smile
- Excitement
- Peace sign over the eye
Aaaaalright, we’re online! Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the debut online Wave-Rush! An annual event where a specially chosen contestant battles through a series of stages to win the big prize, in real-time! I’m your host, Yuki Takenaka, and I will be your announcer. Will they have what it takes to beat our game? We may never know… But, everyone give our first contestant a warm welcome!! Please allow him some time to prepare himself, but until then, please wait, and we will be ready to show you all the action soon!
Okay! Our first contestant is ready. Let’s get this show on the road, everyone!
Sorry, but you have to pay additional fragments to unlock extra content… Just kidding!! giggles
Release date: December
27th 2024
Written between April - September 2024
('deadly.Virus!' and 'GrindSquare²' were written in 2023)
Description:
It's the first annual Wave-Rush™ event, where a
contestant battles through a series of stages in real time to win a *big*
prize. The host, Yuki Takenaka (age 26), broadcasts the event to an audience
of thousands online.
Will the contestant have what it takes to beat the game and secure the
prize? Will he win over the hearts of the audience? Who knows...?
Insight:
I have fond memories writing this EP, mainly because summer was starting up again, and I had finally found myself in a better headspace mentally. I knew that the end of secondary school was near, so I was more than motivated to write a few songs and finally release a fun EP after almost a whole year of pure bleakness. And so, 'MAGICAL_GIRL<3' was produced, and the rest came after. I initially wanted to start working on this kind of EP since 2023, when 'GrindSquare' was written, but things went south and I ended up heading in a completely different direction. So, that track was added in. I didn't want it to just stay a single.
Around this time, I was heavily inspired by Machine Girl's 'SUPER FREQ' EP that had just came out, Acetantina/Kaizo Slumber's 'Temple of Null', and the video game 'Mullet Mad Jack' for the 'futuristic livestream' aspect (I placed Top 30 on the leaderboard in May for a short period)
'YukiDIRECT' was the first proper track I've written when I was daily driving Linux for a short period that summer. It was a bit of a challenge setting it up with all the handicaps and workarounds involved, but the result was more or less the same!
I had plenty of wild ideas for this EP, but didn't fall through due to my lack of knowledge on things. For example: I wanted to make an interactive web page using this very website to promote the EP, but learning would've only prolonged the release.
I also had wanted to make my own little universe that may or may not make another appearance if I ever delve into fictional writing. The description says it all as some sort of setting/foundation for it.
Yuki (the commentator) has a fleshed out character sheet including her appearance, biography, and personality (conveniently shown to your right ->), intended for artists, but also went unused. The girl in the top right corner of the cover was actually a placeholder until I found an artist to commission, but I was already taking too long to release the EP.
Speaking of the cover, it's the most amount of Photoshop work I've done! I made sure to add small details and elements to give more life to the EP, to really drive in the "live game show" look. Fun fact: four of the chatters in the chat window are my friends and former collaborators, a small easter egg/shoutout I wanted to add. One thing I was heavily disappointed with is that, for some reason, my distributor just didn't allow the cover no matter what, so I had to strip it down severely to match their guidelines. I still think it's incredibly stupid. 'Smiley.vbs' also underwent a minor change for streaming services because it hit a weird copyright detection section within the first 10 seconds of the song, so it's been cut out.
Only one run of CDs were made in the beginning of 2025, putting in the most amount of effort as I did with the cover art. I have plans to restock, but I'm unsure when or what the demand is for them.
