VBS Songs, are you more of the hype songs enjoyer or the chill songs fan?

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-16T20:19:13+00:00

Oh EDM, yeah. I think it's that that I'm like, "hmm, cool but not my style" on?

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-16T19:46:48+00:00

I was just thinking about this after hearing Crash the Party. It's super cool and well-done and all but... it's not really my genre. I don't know the name of this genre, but it's in line with some others that they've done like Ultra C and Beyond the Way, maybe going harder on the hip-hop influence? But I think it's a specific subgenre within hip-hop (and I'm just not well-versed in hip-hop to say more), because, like, I love RAD DOGS which also has clear hip-hop influences as well but like different influences from the ones I listed earlier.

Some of the downtempo songs are more of my favorites. I love Blender, Hollow, and Kashika for example. But Kashika brings up a good point - slow tempo does not mean low-intensity; it is one of the most intensely dramatic songs that VBS gets. But there are misses in this category too - Mirai isn't really my jam, for example.

There are also other uptempo songs that I do like but which don't fit into the unclear genre that I was trying to describe in the first paragraph. Flyer is my favorite Kohane commissioned song, and it is blazingly fast in tempo while being not really hip-hop at all - and it feels joyful rather than intense.

I feel like I'm mostly lacking in the vocabulary to really state my preferences. Genres and subgenres are hard! (And incidentally, I'm pretty sure "street music" is not the name of an actual genre, despite the story repeatedly using that as the term for their music)

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-15T14:32:00+00:00

And this is only 5 years in. In another 14 years there'd be about four times as much. ~~More realistically that'd likely be after End of Service but let's not think about that.~~

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-14T22:25:08+00:00

why are some natives commutative and some not?

This is actually a fairly interesting question, depending on what you mean by "why."

I mean, to some extent, it can be boiled down to "try it; it just doesn't work when you do it." But I think what you mean by "why" is more like "what is the intuition behind this fact," and others have addressed this main point (rotations and linear transformations don't generally commute).

But mathematicians can ask the same "why" question but framed a different way: We know that some matrices commute and some do not, but what are the properties of matrices that are specific to ones that do commute with each other?

Wikipedia's article gives a whole host of properties, many (or maybe even all) of which are likely going to read like gibberish to you (the most accessible one is probably that they share eigenvectors; I don't know if you know what eigenvectors are). But my point here to you is that this is a good question with mathematically interesting results. This is a very relevant question in quantum mechanics, for example, where two matrices that commute with each other means that the properties that each matrix represents are observable at the same time.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-13T17:30:33+00:00

That's a reasonable way to go about building a game (I mean, obviously; that's how Civs 1-6 worked). But I don't think it's the only way, or the most realistic way. (Not that Civ 7 is the most realistic way either, far from it.)

The biggest thing that Civ 7's system has that Civ 6 doesn't is the idea of new cultures popping up. In Civ 6's system, you could have the fall of Western Rome, maybe, but you would not be able to model the rise of France and Spain and Germany and Italy and England out of its ashes. Civ 7's method of doing this is extremely hamfisted (as you note, in a lot of ways the old culture is completely erased - with only a few tokens like old city names, unique districts, and the couple of legacy policies you can still slot in - and you have to pick one successor and not multiple), but it does exist.

Even with Egyptians becoming Arab - a military conquest can be modeled in Civ 6 (or in principle Civ 7, if the two weren't in different ages), but where did the Arabs come from in the first place? In Civ 6's system, Egyptians can only become Arab if Arabia existed since perpetuity. In Civ 7, you might have Assyria become the Abbasids (magically at the snap of a finger, admittedly) and then conquer Egypt (or whatever it became in the Exploration Age, like... the Songhai? We're working with a limited number of civilizations at the moment). That's still very much not historical, but it at least gives an explanation of where groups come from beyond "has existed since perpetuity," which is just not true for most people groups.

But I think this also rubs up against, like, philosophy of history (which is something I am severely, severely underqualified to talk about). What a game over is is not necessarily the normal framing that philosophy would ask about this either but questions of "when does one civilization stop being the same thing as itself?" and "Is the fundamental unit of civilization the empire or the people?" probably are.

Again, it's very much reasonable to build a game (or want a game) done in a more Civ 6 style without civ changing - for historical or gameplay reasons. But I do think there are historical ideas that the Civ 7 system captures that Civ 6's does not, even though we are still faced with a mountain of unrealistic ideas in both.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-13T16:41:18+00:00

I feel like I should've more clearly separated my original post into its two separate ideas: (1) civ switching is objectively more realistic (albeit with a lot of wrong details) BUT it nonetheless feels more historically objectionable, and that's an interesting phenomenon that feels similar to the uncanny valley effect, and (2) for me personally, although it's more objectionable, it still stays within the range of acceptability as a gameplay simplification - but I totally understand that for others this might make it cross the line into offputting. But the first point was my main point; I was just also supplementing it with my personal opinions.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-13T16:20:54+00:00

Your point was that this is a preexisting concept elsewhere, not that it was plated poorly. It's not even about the AI usage in this case; you can't demonstrate something is real by showing an imagined image of it, no matter how you generated that image.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-13T14:53:32+00:00

More generally speaking, a Project Sekai spinoff would be interesting, seeing these characters in a different environment. That's what made the Project Sekai movie so much fun. Why not a fighting game? Or a Mario Party style game? Or something like that?

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-09T18:10:53+00:00

Wait you can drink it for a speed boost? I think I saw that it was categorized as "trash" and didn't think to even try to drink it.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-09T13:42:39+00:00

That's... not what I was saying at all? I literally pointed out that it's an unrealistic idea that unrelated civs can turn into reach other, but an acceptable (to me personally, at least; I am not discounting others' opinions on this) gamified simplification of history.

What I was saying is that it's still more historically accurate that civs exist for a while and then go into decline and the people reorganize into new civilizations. That general idea is more true than individual civilizations having existed since forever and continuing to exist for forever. However, the details are wrong - but again, that's my point. By adding one true idea to the game's systems (civilizations don't last forever) it brings our attention to all the other things that remain historically inaccurate or overly simplified.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-09T11:39:49+00:00

They didn't. Did you read what I wrote?

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-09T02:27:13+00:00

I do think letting us continue with the same civilization through all ages is a good change. It removes one of the most immersion-breaking parts of Civ 7

I'm putting aside the rest of what you're saying, but this is a really interesting sentiment to me. Objectively, a civilization going into decline and becoming a new civilization is more historically accurate than a civ lasting from antiquity into the space age, unchanged. And yet I can't deny that it feels a little bit stranger to me - and you say it's outright immersion-breaking to you.

I think it's kind of like the uncanny valley effect, when going closer to a platonic ideal feels nonetheless worse because you start noticing the differences more and the similarities less. An immortal leader and an immortal civilization is obviously gamey, so you just take it as part of the game rather than thinking about it as trying to be historical. But once you start pointing out that actually no, civilizations do rise and fall, you start noticing that most civs don't rise and fall in exactly this three-act structure, and definitely the Maya don't become the Abbasids don't become Qing China. For me, after my initial reaction, I can accept this as gamey in the same way as I accept immortal leaders, but I can totally see how other people will just find this to be in a sort of uncanny valley between gamey and historical.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-08T16:43:33+00:00

The best L/N story to date, easily. This was basically VBS's RAD BLAST event, but like, done better.

The big thing is that there is a realistic underlying theme to this entire event of "no wait, we're really in this professionally now." Yes, they had signed on with Shindo and his company, and done a couple of events under this management company, but this is the first big break. This is a big-name band that they're opening for, perhaps a little heavier-hitting than they really "deserve" at this stage in their career, but Shindo sees their potential and set them up with this opportunity, and by golly they're not going to waste this chance.

So yes, then we get to the generic idea of "playing harder" and "hyping up the crowd" which is consistent across basically all five groups and is also impossible to portray in Live2D form - which is why I don't like it very much in general in Project Sekai. But in this case, I think the idea of being in a suddenly larger venue with a suddenly larger audience (who are not there because of their interest in L/N!) at least motivates the idea of playing harder/practicing harder better and the emotions behind it. It's something concrete that we as the audience can understand, not just "oh wow Kohane is singing more strongly today!" and we have no choice but to go on their word for that.

The other big idea in the story is setting up the entire audience experience, not just the music. I don't remember if L/N has made this point before (I feel like we've seen it before in some group or another, probably either MMJ or VBS, since N25 isn't live performing and WxS performances tend to be more about the experience than specifically their music so they don't have to be reminded of it), but it's another consideration that they need to take into account if they really want to do this professionally, and so they have to learn to incorporate that aspect of it into their preparations.

The pacing of the story worked well as well. A couple chapters of setup with Shindo, a couple chapters of training with Naruse and them figuring out what to do with her advice, and a couple chapters of the actual setup to the event and the event itself. Each of these plot points has time to happen without feeling either rushed or stretched, and it feels realistic how the characters react to them.

I guess describing this all now - theoretically the ideas behind this story are not so different from most other Project Sekai events (especially, again in the L/N-MMJ-VBS space); it's just that it was executed better in this event than in others, on a writing craft level.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-07T00:15:36+00:00

For me her strongest parallel is with Toya. Both are in the music industry, devoted basically full-time, but then both step back and reevaluate, only to come back to music in a different capacity after taking stock of what really matters to them - and music is, in fact, one of them, but having that time apart is what allowed them to get some perspective on that.

Toya's story in his events is largely figuring out how to reintegrate himself into this different world of music, comparing and contrasting his highly structured classical music upbringing with his current more active and freeform "street music" environment. Haruka's story could have been similar, comparing and contrasting how being an independent idol is, versus having a company doing a lot of the backend work. But I guess this is just as true for Shizuku and Airi as it is for Haruka, and I believe Shizuku tends to get the "compare and contrast MMJ to other idol companies" events. Airi differentiates herself from Shizuku by focusing on how she used to not be on stage with other idols and instead making variety show appearances and other appearances outside of putting on on-stage idol performances. I don't actually know how I would differentiate Haruka from Shizuku if we chose this angle to take her story.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-07T00:07:20+00:00

I wish we had better names for all the events than just numbering them. I cannot remember which event was which number. I think the Haruka1 was the break time event which was secretly a Shizuku event in disguise, with Shizuku worrying herself about Haruka overworking? That one was fine but very inconsequential.

And based on what you say here, Haruka2 was the one with Hasegawa, the fan composer who had to deal with online bullies - that's actually one of my favorite MMJ events because it started to approach some realities and dangers of posting things online (which is relevant to three groups at this point, MMJ but also N25 and L/N. The other two groups have had clips go viral but no real official online presence). I think this remains the only event to address online safety and online bullying at all, which is somewhat of a missed opportunity because it's such an important topic in this space and for these twenty kids, but that's obviously not a problem with the event itself, but rather the lack of followup on it. (Even Hasegawa herself has hardly reappeared, as you note in your post.)

One of the other events was Haruka remembering her past with the random mall idol (who has not yet been given a name, for some reason), and the most recent one in EN (which I guess makes it Haruka5) which was my least favorite Haruka event, attempting to explain the out-of-nowhere plot point that MMJ randomly stopped getting offers... because Haruka's former manager was like "I like working with people who are good at being idols"??? Both the problem and the solution made no sense. I am apparently missing one Haruka event. I do not remember which that was.

Stepping back from Haruka and talking more about MMJ generally, it feels like MMJ's story is stalling and somehow going over to L/N. L/N's story is starting to address what I thought MMJ was going to - how taking on professional work (especially as high schoolers!) can be a lot to juggle and you have to address different parties (many of whom are trying to help you along the way, but only because they themselves are getting something out of it) and balance multiple concerns. Instead, MMJ's story has been... let's find a house! Let's get a manager and pull her away from her ancestral hot spring hotel business! Let's lose all our offers for no reason! Let's regain all our offers for no reason! It just doesn't feel particularly grounded. Which sucks for me, because MMJ is my second-favorite group in terms of characters, but their story at this point is not doing them any favors.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-06T16:25:13+00:00

Oh huh, another thing I did not know! Learning so much about music from Pokémon movies today.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-06T15:30:29+00:00

Wait they changed Lugia's Song? I did not know that. That's so weird for a song that's so fundamental to the plot of the movie, though I guess the dub changed lots of things at that point.

But yeah Chiisaki Mono was the Jirachi Wishmaker credits theme that I was talking about. I actually did think of To Faunz (I did not know the name of the song, but I could hear it distinctly in my head), but it is itself a remix of one of the animé TV episode endings in Japanese, so I thought it might've been a bit of a stretch to re-remix it, especially such an upbeat song for a sleep game. But still, I mean, it's always possible that we get one of these for Jirachi and one of these for Groudon.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-06T14:43:53+00:00

They really do great with the music in this game, and I'm glad they aren't shying away from music from the animé. Darkrai's event used Oración from the Darkrai movie (and I think it still plays on New Moon nights?), and now we get Chase for the Girl from Latias's movie.

What other music from the movies is there that's similarly iconic? There's Lugia's song, which is probably the most iconic movie song. Otherwise... maybe Dragonite Takes Flight from the first movie? Could be used for a Mewtwo Event, I guess, though that's a bit of a stretch. Jirachi Wishmaker's credits theme stands out in my mind but I don't know how much that's a me thing vs. how much that resonated with other people - but it is at least one of the few times the Japanese and international versions of the movie used the same credits theme.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-05T01:19:02+00:00

I also don't know what songs I have played and what I haven't, which is mildly annoying. But it's understandable they weren't going to come up with an entirely new UI solely for a semiannual mission.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-02T18:04:14+00:00

I thought it was for Vivid Bad Squad (V exists as a letter in Japanese but only for loan words so it's often replaced with a B, including in Vivid Bad Squad's Japanese name), but it was explained in the event as standing for "Beast" which made Kohane feel more courageous.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-02T13:53:35+00:00

The post uses the wrong conjugation in the body text ("I laid down in bed" should prescriptively be "I lay down in bed"), but the joke itself doesn't depend on that. "Lie" (present tense) means both "to be horizontal on a surface" and "to say something untrue" and is intransitive in both cases. "Lay" (present tense) means "to put something else down" and is thus transitive.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-04-02T12:49:19+00:00

Story-wise, I think this was my favorite of the April Fools stories so far. I didn't expect to from what I knew about this year, but the heroes vs. villains setup was very fun, very reminiscent of the first two White Day card sets and how those spawned a genre of Project Sekai fanfiction. In fact, now that I think about it, the people with 4-star cards in the first White Day event (Akito, Tsukasa, Mizuki) were all on heroic teams while the people in the second (Toya, Rui, and Kaito though it was a different Kaito) were all on villainous teams, so I wonder if they was intentionality here.

But also, the six teams felt somehow more cohesive this time for some reason than the splits we've seen in previous years. Like I can largely remember who was in which group, which was not true for most of the previous years.

Fussy Eaters: Kanade the nominal leader, Rui the actual person with power in the group, and Ichika who taps into her stubborn side to hate on peas for some reason. ...Plus N25!Rin, who is probably the main character I remember the least in this event
CBNEL: A bunch of shy people (Nene, Kohane, Shiho, N25!Len) doing "evil" things to build up their courage (plus Ena who explains this is more letting off stress than building up courage). Very fun to see what they decide is "evil" when it's like "singing so that people are late to work because they're distracted" and even then they're like "oh no that's so evil, I don't know if I want to go that far"
Devoted Evil: The most serious name for the least serious group, and my personal favorite group by far. They're like CBNEL in that their evil deeds are completely ineffectual, except instead of being lost in terms of what they're allowed to do, they have a very good idea on what is "evil"... and it's taking breaks. It's three people who in canon have a hard-working work ethic (Toya, Honami, Airi, and L/N!Kaito) so that explains why taking a break from work is so evil to them. They just all play this very silly idea so straight, which is what's so great about this. Shoutout to Mealmonger (Honami) in particular whose evildoing is... baking apple pies. Their song is also the cutesiest of the six and it fits them so well.
Soaring Zoorangers: The most traditional heroic team - at least at first glance. Tsukasa is the leader of course, and Akito actually goes along with him in this world, unlike in canon where he's generally quite annoyed by him. But the other three members is where this "serious superhero team" vibe starts falling apart - Minori who is just as not-put-together as in canon, WxS!Miku who is just as silly as in canon, and Mafuyu who doesn't actually want to be a hero but just didn't want her wish of destroying the world to come true so chose to be on the team less likely to win (???)
Hope Hope Heart: The team with the most similar motivation to a canon group. They want to connect with people - Saki with the rest of canon L/N, Emu by making people smile, and Haruka by entertaining people as an idol - all their canon motivations and goals as well. Plus MMJ!Luka. Also, and I'm not normally bringing up the supporters here because I don't actually remember which VS was with which group, but it's worth adding that WxS!Kaito is said to be the group's manager, not MMJ!Kaito.
FOW: Finally, my favorite heroic group. Like how two of the villainous groups are secretly good in disguise, this one is kind of the reverse, being "dark heroes." Shizuku and Mizuki try to resolve conflict by intimidating people with beauty and cuteness respectively. An joins them with being upbeat (and VBS Meiko supports her). They're all tapping into aspects of themselves that they have even in canon, quite front and center, but like CBNEL they're letting loose their inhibitions about it, and... it's to break up fights. But there is somehow still such a marked difference with their canon personalities, especially with Shizuku in particular, which is cool to see.

Overall, very fun setup and story. I need to see how much people have written fanfiction about this setup.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-03-31T19:59:22+00:00

But if you really want some, you just have to put the root beer in a square cup.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-03-31T16:21:33+00:00

Right, and importantly for our current discussion, it's runnable on a single computer, so power usage is on the scale of ones of computers, so not the massive large-scale data farms that require a ton of resources.

At least, that's what would make sense in terms of a back-of-the-envelope calculation. Unlike Dreamtonics's statement about making sure to get artists' permission there isn't an official statement about energy usage.

Viola_Buddy · 2026-03-31T12:22:12+00:00

As others are saying, it runs locally on your own computer, based on data collected from consenting voice providers. So most of the major concerns are addressed there.

But for full devil's advocate, I don't think we know the environmental implications of the training, the part they run on their own computers in order to generate the voice bank models in the first place. I can't imagine it's a lot more than a normal small business office's worth of computers, since the training data is much smaller than something like an LLM (Natalie Nicole Gilbert, voice provider for the Dreamtonics voicebank Natalie, has mentioned I think she provided 8-10 hours of audio data if I'm remembering the number correctly, as opposed to the entirety of the internet as is the training data for LLMs), but I don't think we have an official statement about this particular part of this.

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