Things that come to mind 4 - Beatmania IIDX
“Things that come to mind” is a series of blog entries that I will be writing on stream of consciousness. Each of these entries will be given a duration of 24 hours to write and edit.
I love IIDX.
Although my tactile history with IIDX is fairly short, the fact that I can commute to an arcade/game center/ge-cen just to hit some buttons and spin a disc furiously brings me so much joy. Since I have had access to the internet, I have been in love with the music that has come out of Bemani, Konami’s rhythm game (otoge) subdivision, and I owe a lot of my own taste and sensibilities to it.
I had my proper start with IIDX in late 2019. November or so. I had moved back from Chicago after a year of OPT (optional practical training), which happens to be a ritual for non-US citizens to stay another year in hopes of a stroke of luck to get hired somewhere that will sponsor them for a visa. Not having that luck, with multiple places, over the course of 10 months telling me that they would love to hire me for X position, only to be beaten harshly in the back by the cruel Accounting and Paperwork system telling me that there’s lots of steps required in order to get me in. I can conclude that it’s all a matter of convenience, and I was clearly a burden for this infrastructure.
Obviously this whole dance with failing in wanting to work in what one dreams of doing would shatter someone. This absolutely butchered my self-esteem, as low as it already was, and I was (and still am) going through (perpetual) recoil from feeling not being able to work on any application material for graduate school from the past three years.1
Naturally unemployed as I moved back, I felt absolutely disoriented. Feeling relatively displaced in a country where attempts at connecting with society there has resulted in failures (combined with the fact that I didn’t have any friends locally) turned me into a shut-in. I can’t remember exactly what was going on in my mind back then, but in this very moment of introspection, it felt like a huge concussion. Anyway, what happened next can be considered a stroke of luck in some other direction. I spontaneously remembered that there’s otoge cabinets in a shopping mall near where I live. This is somewhat surprising that this realization came to me so quickly, as having shit memory and object permanence makes me not able to remember details revolving around myself and the people around me. I suppose (and if I can exaggerate) this spark was part of my instinct for survival.2
Kurayami Dance, Chapter 2: Extra Inning - Goichi Suda, Takeya Syuji, https://www.believeinthe.net/kurayami.html
So I went and played. Again, prior to this point in time, my contact with IIDX was fairly minimal. I’ve touched it a bit at anime conventions, but prior to that I was gravitated towards playing the following more often:
Jubeat - Infamous as ‘Jukebeat’ on the iOS App Store, I’ve mostly played this game in that incarnation on my younger sibling’s iPad. The track that I have played the most is Mynarco .
pop’n music - I properly got into Bemani through playing pop’n music 16 party arcade data on my laptop in middle school, thanks to my first crush. She also came over to my house and her mom would bring her pop’n music ASC so we can play pop’n music 11 CS and watch Di-Gi-Charat on at the same time. The track I have played the most in all of the pop’n games is Miracle Moon .
Not gonna lie, both games look way more approachable than IIDX. I feel that a whole generation of people have gotten their start in playing otoge just because of Jubeat. I’ve been told often by my ge-cen friends in Bangkok that IIDX looks really unapproachable and intimidating, hence why people over here don’t usually play it.3 To be honest, my intimidation mainly rose from just seeing regulars just seemingly getting AAA’s with no issue as I watched and waited. I felt totally embarrassed while I was in low-level mode, and I have wasted so many credits on failing the first or second song during my first few months of play.
I started really enjoying playing IIDX in December 2019. This is mainly because of a longtime Tumblr/Instagram/Twitter mutual. I really want to thank Michael for being there at the start of my (proper) IIDX journey and teaching me with patience about different hand styles, how to adjust my green number, being the only person who I could talk about IIDX with at the time, and just plain being there for me to talk about everyday life, including helping each other talk through our respective struggles. Michael has introduced me to so many people and communities within IIDX and I’m so grateful for him! Last but not least, Michael introduced me to consistently playing charts on RANDOM.4
I probably experienced true euphoria during this time. My rate in development was extremely satisfying. After starting playing on RANDOM in just a month, I shot up from playing songs at level 4 to level 8. Obviously this induced a huge ego boost in me, and I felt like I could reach Kaiden, the highest graded class rank in IIDX, within 2 years of playing IIDX (this did not happen, more on this later). Suffice to say, starting to play IIDX would soon vastly improve my self-esteem, and help me realize things about myself that I should have realized earlier.
The moment you hit a certain roadblock, or, plateauing is pretty much embedded in any activity. IIDX plateaus manifest often as not being able to read clusters of notes as they fall down properly, or just being stuck in timing. Maybe the song choice is boring and you want something else. Or maybe the arcade cabinet just sucks.
I feel like I have been stuck in a IIDX plateau because it has been a relatively long time since I started playing 8’s, and I am only getting to clearing some 10’s on HYPER difficulty as of February 2022.5 Then again my contact time with the arcade cabinets have been fairly limited due to COVID-19 (throughout the past 2 years, ge-cens over here were closed for an accumulated 9 or so months). I have been busy, usually occupying a full-time job and a part-time gig at the same time. I didn’t have anyone else to talk about ways to improve my accuracy, or what songs would be good for practice for any skill. I’ve mostly been dejected from everything in my life beyond what was going on for me in IIDX. It was the easiest way to see where I can improve, and evaluate how I can do better in any situation. Troubleshooting soon became second-nature to me. Right before my eyes, IIDX taught me an obvious lesson and quality that I feel like I should have acquired since childhood. I was able to think and process my thoughts from feeling defeat and frustration into something constructive where I can take note of for later. IIDX taught me how to be patient with my efforts, and in learning how to have fun and experiment in ways for self-fulfillment. Can’t read dense charts? Just play something easier and work on timing accuracy for the day. Not doing so good on timing? Adjust the offset. Got angry and realized that your hands hurt? Be silly and start playing DP.6 Got something else you can’t fix? Force yourself to take a break and then plan another ge-cen visit soon.
I keep repeating these thoughts to myself whenever I feel like I am doing absolutely horrible in regards to how I am doing on any day of gameplay. It’s silly that my journey in playing a rhythm game is the clearest example to my recognition that progress is not linear, and that if I work hard and rewire how I do things each day, (and learn how to trust people enough to reach out whenever) I can grow in ways beyond my imagination. IIDX has made me confront myself in ways that I haven’t approached myself quite yet emotionally, and has helped me gain humility in the sense where I can confidently talk about what I have done and can do, mixed in with knowing my own faults. My quarter-life crisis is just full of moments where I am being hit on the head with a huge ass sledgehammer telling me that it doesn’t have to be perfect, and that what really matters to me is the ability to be able to be present enough to reflect on what I have done.7
Postscript:
I wish this site existed while I was starting out. A lot of information is totally obtuse and not in the English language. Give IIDX a go! https://iidx.org/
I still am lost and I want to study so many things but I can’t decide. + I feel like being three years deep into the workforce in a field where I can’t hone anything that would be practical criteria for being hired just makes this whole ordeal more confusing. This is a cry for help↩︎
Highlights of what I have forgotten in the past that dubs me an asshole: celebrating an ex’s birthday while I was still with them; celebrating an anniversary with another ex; and meeting up with a friend before they moved away. Strangely enough I am fairly good at navigation and remembering locations. I have heard of the memory palace technique but this unfortunately does not work for me.↩︎
It’s really endearing to see the same people at Hero City MBK and say hi. It’s not endearing when the electric fan goes missing somewhere and I just end up super sweaty while playing.↩︎
https://the-japari.tumblr.com/post/167002150470/why-you-should-use-random↩︎
TLDR on IIDX difficulties: Songs on IIDX can exist on multiple difficulties from lowest to highest: BEGINNER, NORMAL, HYPER, ANOTHER, and LEGGENDARIA. These difficulty levels typically indicate the complexity of the chart. These difficulty names are used in conjunction with a number indicating a level of a chart, from 1 to 12. In this sense, a NORMAL 7 chart would be easier than a HYPER 5 chart, as the HYPER 5 chart would have qualities that would make the song more challenging. Some songs have both HYPER and ANOTHER charts designated at the same numerical level, where the difference is just in how complex the chart is.↩︎
There are two modes of playing in IIDX. SP, or Single Play, is a game mode where you play on one side of the cabinet. You use 1 turntable and 7 keys in gameplay. You can play SP with another person at the same time, bearing in mind how you would prefer to use the turntable: the side where the turntable is on the left edge of the cab is called 1P, and the side where the turntable is on the right edge of the cab is called 2P. DP, or Double Play, is where a player uses both turntables and a total of 14 keys while playing. By the way, playing DP feels like a totally different game.↩︎
By the way, IIDX is the only activity in my life at this moment where I am able to do this, and consistently do it well. My therapist and I have laughed a lot together about this but I really do hope I can apply whatever this sensation or process is to something that isn’t a video game.↩︎