Welcome to the twentieth post of Music Highlights, where I talk about music I discovered and liked.

After a delay, thanks to my assignments, now I'm able to present this post. Half of the list is virtual, and half aren't. Divided between electronic music and more acoustic ones, I present to you a list that has some of my favorite artists and some of my favorite composers.

Now, let's talk about the songs themselves!

#1: Lioness' Pride

First of all, we start with Shishiro Botan's original song. Hololive has been choosing some very interesting composers as of lately, and this song is no exception, bringing in the rhythm game music master Camellia to write the song. While he has been brought in to make background music based on the hololive EN 1st generation members, this is probably his first time making a proper original song with vocals.

As a result, Lioness' Pride comes out with a genre I did not usually expect from a group that is usually more idol-oriented: Melodic Dubstep. As a fan of Camellia, this is a production that is right within Camellia's reach, yet very colorful. Especially near the end, it feels like an explosion of colors, very interesting.

#2: 自分勝手Dazzling

Still in the hololive section, we now have one of my favorite virtual talents Hoshimachi Suisei! This is a good bit more stylish, since its being made by the composer who previously wrote NEXT COLOR PLANET, Takuya Sakai. This song also appeared in the rhythm arcade game CHUNITHM, and it fits rhythm games well!

Unlike NEXT COLOR PLANET however, for the arrangement, Takuya Sakai is joined by one of my favorite electronic artists, Taishi, and the differences are quite notable, especially in the bridge, where the bass are massively dialed up there.

#3: Unknown under the city

The final virtual talent entry in this post, I discovered Ririsya through a SOUND VOLTEX song (I am a rhythm game player, okay), and I've been following her works since then. Yes, I am pretty late to the party since shortly after that, I realized that she entered Mori Calliope's first remix contest. Anyway, I've been going on a tangent there, so let's talk about the song that I posted in here.

Unknown under the city, her latest song, is a band song, which I think fits the vibe well. She wrote, composed, and sang the song herself, while arrangement is handled by anisong composer Takayuki Ishikura. I especially like the chorus of the song, but there's a detail that I hope that I'm not crazy about: I think I heard something similar to morse code on the song? That sound is pretty intriguing.

#4: 初音天地開闢神話

Well, if you count Hatsune Miku as a virtual talent too, then this post is 80% virtual talents I guess. The theme for Magical Mirai 2021 is written by an artist specializing in high-speed Vocaloid songs: cosMo@Bousou-P. They did it again with high-speed Vocaloid vocals, and it's also a quite intense song speed-wise. A pretty fun song, if not hand-crushing if it comes to rhythm games.

#5: 宇宙の季節

I am also pretty late to realizing that the full version of this particular song was released way before I discovered the song being used as the theme song for Alchemy Stars' Ocean Sovereign event (by the way, I got the Vice skin as of the time of writing). Lanndo / nulut, Eve, and Yorushika's suis is a great combination when it comes to songs. I already pretty like Eve and suis' collaboration earlier, but the music from Lanndo makes it even more groovier. An overall solid song.

That's all for today's Music Highlights post, see you in the twenty-first post!