Bad Apple!!
1998 video game soundtrack From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Bad Apple!!" is the sixth track in the soundtrack of the 1998 shoot 'em up video game Lotus Land Story, the fourth entry in the Touhou Project series created by Team Shanghai Alice. The instrumental theme was originally designed to be played during the third stage of the game, as chiptune on the Japanese NEC PC-9800 computer platform, at 161 beats per minute using a frequency modulation synthesis chip.[1] The Lotus Land Story version that has more than 1.4 million views on YouTube[2] is a remake of the song from an official Touhou album named Akyu's Untouched Score Volume 1 and was released on 21 May 2006.
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It is known for leading to a much later cover by Alstroemeria Records and a subsequent accompanying black-and-white shadow play video – commonly called Shadow-art. The video became a Japanese internet meme in the late 2000s, correlating with the peak of Touhou's popularity, and experienced a resurgence in the mid-2010s when the black-and-white video was ported to esoteric media such as obsolete hardware, displays created within sandbox video games (e.g. Minecraft), and other unusual media (such as a mechanical television)[3] as a graphical test. As of January 2025, it has achieved more than 100 million views on YouTube.[4]
Pop song
Summarize
Perspective
| "Bad Apple!! feat.nomico" | |
|---|---|
 Album cover for Lovelight, which contains "Bad Apple!!", depicting Reisen Udongein Inaba. | |
| Song by Alstroemeria Records featuring nomico | |
| Released | 20 May 2007 (Reitaisai 4) |
| Genre | |
| Length |
|
| Composer(s) | ZUN |
| Lyricist(s) | Haruka |
| Producer(s) | Masayoshi Minoshima |
| Music video | |
| "Bad Apple!! feat.nomico" on YouTube | |
On 20 May 2007, the day of the 4th Reitaisai convention, a longer cover version featuring the Japanese singer nomico was released on the album Lovelight by the doujin circle Alstroemeria Records, led by Masayoshi Minoshima.[5][6] It shared little similarity with the original soundtrack, borrowing few melody samples, and was notable as being the only vocal song in the album, and for its lyrics dealing with depression and apathy.[7]
From May 2017 to August 2018, Alstroemeria Records released a series of 10th Anniversary Bad Apple!! albums consisting entirely of remixes and covers of their version of "Bad Apple!!".[8][9][10]
Music video
On 8 June 2008, a user from Nico Nico Douga uploaded a video of a crude storyboard based on Alstroemeria Records' version, asking for anyone to animate it.[11] Several animation videos started appearing, with relatively few successes.[12][13][7]
Between October 2008 and October 2009, a collaborative group led by Anira (Japanese: あにら) created a shadow-art (black and white) animation video based on the storyboard, which was released on Nico Nico on 26 October 2009.[14][15] It quickly grew in popularity as an internet meme – as of September 2018, the original Nico Nico upload had been viewed more than 26 million times[16][11] and a YouTube reupload that recently (as of January 2025) hit 100 million views. [17] The video itself depicts many of the Windows-era Touhou Project characters up to Scarlet Weather Rhapsody as they transition between one another.[7]
On 21 May 2020, the animation by the group Anira became the official music video and was released by Alstroemeria Records.[18]
As of April 2025, the music video has gained 104 million views.
Use of video as a graphical and audio test
The song saw a rise in popularity in the mid-2010s, when the shadow-art video was ported to several second-generation video game consoles and graphing calculators – presumed to be incapable of playing back full-motion video – for retrocomputing demoscene competitions. Peter Dell, a programmer who contributed to one such port, described the video as having become a graphical equivalent to "Hello, World!" programs.[19]
- In June 2014, the "8088 Domination" demo included a section rendering the "Bad Apple!!" shadow video on a 1981 IBM 5150 at 640×200 resolution and 30 frames per second.[20][21]
- In June 2014, about two minutes of "Bad Apple!!" were ported to the Commodore 64 as 2000 frames at 12 frames per second on a single side diskette.[22]
- By 2015, "Bad Apple!!" had been ported to the Vectrex console,[23][24] Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, and Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus series graphing calculators.[23]
- In 2019, Stéphane Hockenhull programmed an Arduino Mega to render the video (without sound) at 128×176 resolution and 60 fps.[25]
- In 2023, several Reddit users re-animated "Bad Apple!!" during that year's r/place event. While primarily a collaboration between the Touhou, osu!, and Hatsune Miku subreddits, several other subreddits also assisted with the animation, which took almost 72 hours to complete.[26][27]
References
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