7 replies to this topic

[arwald]

J-core is a term used worldwide for Japanese-Core, referring to Dance and Happy Hardcore. Ususally songs sample some form of anime/film and have a high bass factor. J-core is often an underground scene and it is very hard to get hold of.

 

Following the trend of prefixing a genre name with J- to signify Japanese origin (eg J-pop, J-rock etc.), J-core is an abbreviated term for Japanese hardcore dance music.

 

Though many only associate this term with artists such as DJ Sharpnel who are well known for their very Japanese-flavoured anime/film sampling hardcore, the umbrella term can be used to describe many kinds of Japanese-flavoured hardcore, such as happy hardcore, freeform, speedcore and terrorcore.

 

This term can sometimes be used to describe hardcore punk music from Japan as well as just hardcore electronic/dance music.

 

Notable J-core artists include DJ Shimamura, Buzzmasta, M-Project, DJ Chucky, DJ Technorch, DJ Sharpnel and REDALiCE.

 

 

 

 

Personally I became interested in Japanese speedcore in particular after listening to "Betwixt & Between - 12 little fragments of silence"

 

[ulises]

I'm a big j-hardcore fan too!! My favorite (and one of my favorite japanese musicians) is t+pazolite, but i like people like Dj Shimamura, Kors K, M-Project, Dj Sharpnel, m1dy, Dj Technorch, Ozigiri or Le Dos-on a lot.  

[minaeshi]

I had no idea that this was a genre, but i love this type of music!! It's like the tracks that i played on DDR lmao~ 

[bloop7676]

Nice to see some more J-core fans here!  I never would have even looked at idols or Japanese music in general if it hadn't been for J-core, so it's pretty special to me.  I also like the usual suspects like DJ Sharpnel, Technorch, and REDALiCE, and Betwixt and Between is an especially good one.  I'm glad that I can be among my own people now 

 

That's also hilarious that you posted 12 Little Fragments of Silence, arwald.  I'd been thinking about putting that up in the "Rate the Song" thread lately, it's such a good track.  I guess I'll put something up while I'm here too.  Here's a Bemani one - I have to say that IIDX in particular cranks out some pretty darn good J-core.

 

 

Also, as a little addition to what arwald said, the type of J-core that people usually think of, with the melodic anisong remixes, is essentially based on a style called UK or freeform hardcore.  Kors k and LED from Bemani especially seem to have an affinity for this style.  If you're ever looking for more similar music but not necessarily Japanese, search up those terms and you'll find another whole world of material.

 

Edit: Also thought I should respond to this since I know a fair bit about the subject:

I had no idea that this was a genre, but i love this type of music!! It's like the tracks that i played on DDR lmao~ 

Actually J-core, especially DJ Sharpnel, is really popular with the custom song community for dance games.  It's usually pretty enjoyable to listen to and it's well suited to making really difficult stepcharts, which are always in demand because most players of custom songs are very hardcore.  Here's a clip of a very good player taking on a pretty classic J-core chart (if you haven't seen high level dance gaming before, you will probably be shocked and amazed lol): 

Spoiler

[arwald]

 Here's a clip of a very good player taking on a pretty classic J-core chart (if you haven't seen high level dance gaming before, you will probably be shocked and amazed lol): 

 

How? I mean.. HOW?!!

I never played this kind of dance game because my sense of rhythm is pretty bad, so I'd rather not embarass myself, lol.

The way he steps on buttons looks pretty random to me, yet I hear the distinct rhythm from his steps.

It's like when you play a fighting game and randomly press all buttons and your fighter starts some freaking combo, lol.

Of course, this is not the case in this video.. I just wonder how much dedication was involved into getting up to that level..

 

Nice track, by the way.

 

I don't know much about J-core actually, I just like to listen to random J-core mix clips in Youtube and "12 little fragments of silence" in particular (that was one of the track in "Speed Ball Z" mix album ) and I wanted to put them somewhere on H!O ..

 

Thank you for the names, I'll try to get more info about them and listen to their compositions.

 

To think of it, I became interested in Japanese electronic music with "Para para anime max" albums. I guess Para para has nothing in common with J-core, just a dance to eurobeat style electronic music.. maybe there is also CorePara like TechPara or TranPara

 

Wiki says "Para Para experienced a huge boom in Japan in 1998–1999 when pop idol Takuya Kimura of SMAP performed it on television". I guess this is the performance.

 

ps: sorry for para para off-topic, lol.. Found this Mixcloud link along the way.. Also this Soundcloud link

 

Are there J-core remix of idol group songs?

[bloop7676]

^ How to do it?  Years and years of practice basically    Details following in spoiler tags:

Spoiler

I played for around 5 years practicing about twice a week, and I got pretty good, but not at that level yet.  I could handle that kind of speed for short times, but I didn't have the stamina to keep it up for songs like that (it gets really tiring - even though it looks like he's moving very minimally, it feels like you're taking pretty big steps when you're doing it).  A few more years of playing would've probably gotten me there at least, but due to weird corporate mergers my local arcade closed and I stopped being able to play lol.   

 

Most of the best players have been at it for over a decade now, and they also practice more in a week than I did (many have even bought an arcade cabinet).  Once you've done it for a while, you just kind of read the arrows as blocks of movements that you naturally respond to if you're fast enough.  The arrow patterns look random at first glance but interpreting them actually comes pretty quickly when you start playing.  You also learn the timings pretty fast; the visual factor of watching the arrows helps a lot early on.  I always used to think I had no feel for rhythm or music before too, so I'm sure you'd pick it up soon enough if you wanted

 

I haven't really heard any Para Para that sounds like hardcore exactly, but they do have a common theme of high tempo and a lot of fast note patterns.  Para Para/Eurobeat also provides some damn hard rhythm game charts lol.

 

Hmm, I actually can't really find any J-core idol songs that aren't also anime songs.  There's of course ones of the Madoka Magica OP by Claris, and there's one of some song from Negima that's by a seiyuu singing group, but there doesn't seem to be anything like a H!P remix.  There are, however, some idol remixes by Europeans that sound pretty much exactly like J-core (some people call it "gaijincore", which is pretty funny because J-core is like a "translation" of European styles to Japan, and gaijincore is like a "back-translation" to Europe again).  They're pretty weird... 

 

Here is one of Perfume:

 

And here's START:DASH!! from Love Live:

https://soundcloud.c...ers-release-327

 

Enjoy, maybe? 

[ulises]

t+pazolite's, the "big one" for me.

 

[Zabieru]

Wasn't familiar with this genre and not sure if this applies but here's what I got.