ALBOTAS - A Little Bit On The Awesome Side

After a brief stint on ALBOTAS v. 1.0, Wiki Wednesday is back with a vengeance!

This week’s installment was inspired by the K.K. Slider In Real Life post. There’s a whole lot more to everyone’s favorite guitar slinging canine than roaming from town to town and playing tunes. He’s actually part of something bigger. Something that’s been hidden in various Nintendo games for over a decade. All of this can be traced back to a voice actor and composer by the name of Kazumi Totaka.

Kazumi Totaka: The man…

Kazumi Totaka (戸高 一生, Totaka Kazumi^?, born August 23, 1967) is a Japanese music composer and voice actor from Tokyo who composed many major Nintendo games, including Mario Paint and Animal Crossing. He occasionally also does voice acting for Nintendo games, including Yoshi from the Mario and Yoshi series. He is also one of the various composers that are working on the upcoming title Super Smash Bros. Brawl. ^[1]

K.K. Slider: The myth…

The character K.K. Slider in Animal Crossing is named Totakeke (とたけけ) in the Japanese version. This name could be derived from how Totaka’s name is said in Japanese (the last name coming first), Totaka K. Totakeke is said to be an animal version caricature of Totaka.

At the Mario & Zelda Big Band Live concert, some fans shouted “Totakeke” while the host grabbed a guitar and gave it to Totaka. Totaka then sat down on a chair like K.K. Slider while Shigeru Miyamoto held a picture of K.K. Slider next to Totaka.

The upcoming title Super Smash Bros. Brawl will feature K.K. Slider singing at the Smashville stage on Saturdays at 8:00 PM.

Totaka’s Song: The legend…

The infamous “Kazumi Totaka’s Song” is a short, 19 note, looping tune, hidden in almost every game he has worked on as a composer. It was first discovered in Mario Paint, which led many people to refer to it as the “Mario Paint song”, and was thought to be the first instance of the song. It has since been discovered in the Japan-only Game Boy game X,^[2] which predates Mario Paint by months. It was later found in many other games including Animal Crossing, Link’s Awakening, Yoshi Touch & Go, Virtual Boy Wario Land, Luigi’s Mansion, and several others. As of February 2007, people are still actively seeking the song in the few games Totaka has worked on where it has yet to be discovered; the three most strongly suspected locations are Wave Race 64, Wii Sports, and the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl. As for Brawl, Totaka has been the Composition Supervisor of X’s “Tunnel Scene” and Yoshi’s Story’s “Ending”, as well as the Arrangement Supervisor for Animal Crossing‘s “The Roost”, and various K.K. Slider songs, which play on the Animal Crossing stage, dubbed “Smashville”. A Luigi’s Mansion stage is also present, which features a remixed version of the Luigi’s Mansion theme. There is a “Pictochat” stage, which has optional Wii Sports music as well, even further increasing the chance that the song is in Brawl.

Hit the jump for 3 in-depth videos all about Totaka’s Song.

Totaka’s Song Part 1

Totaka’s Song Part 2

Totaka’s Song Part 3