Late on a Sunday night during the Nintendo Spaceworld conference we, and several of our fellow journalists, managed to find an underground dance club in Japan. It wasn't too hard, really -- we just had to look for a yellow sign that indicated the location of Space Lab Yellow. In any case, when we walked onto the dance floor, we saw one of the most bizarre scenes we'd ever witnessed. The DJ was spinning madly, and the bass beats were reverberating all around us. But the crowd of dancers moved in ways completely foreign to our eyes. Everyone faced forward in one direction, staring at the DJ. And they all danced from side to side, from one foot to the other, in a sort of swaying procession of rhythmic rocking. Arms were held at their sides, and the most emotion we witnessed was the slight closing of eyes and a rolling of a head.
Now, we don't know how many of you might have gone to a US dance club, but we Americans tend to dance in a much more chaotic fashion. Our arms swing wildly, we spin around in circles and we attempt to dance as close to the nearest hot body as possible. Everyone dances differently, and while some dance like they're seizing after a bad lemon-drop shot, everyone is at least unique.
The regulated dance style of this Tokyo dance club left us shaken.
But that's where the Dance Dance Revolution craze seems utterly bizarre. We also had the opportunity to watch a couple of Tokyo natives work a Dance Dance Revolution machine in an arcade, and the level of performance was simply, utterly astounding.
For those who are unfamiliar with the game, it plays music while the screen shows an arrow moving up the screen. At the top of the screen are four arrows pointing in the four directions. When the arrow moving up the screen hits the hollow arrows at the top, players must step on the corresponding direction on a dance pad.
Apparently the Japanese culture loves the dancing game, and now Disney is getting into the act with a game that will appeal to the even younger market. Disney's Rave comes out in Japan on November 30, and will contain 20 songs, many of which will be classic Disney stuff. Characters that will make an appearance in the game include Mickey, Pluto and Donald (and his nephews). There will, of course, be a DDR controller that will work with the N64.
There's no word on whether or not the game will come to the US. It wouldn't take too long to localize it for the US market, since the only Japanese is in the menus. But the dancing craze hasn't hit the US as hard, so it's unlikely we'll see this rather bizarre game come to our shores. If it does, however, Nintendo will almost assuredly change the name -- "rave" has some fairly negative connotations here, especially for a game that is aimed at the younger market. We'll keep an eye out for any indications of a US release. In the meantime, beware Japanese raving automatons.
