Overdrive

About

Stops at the affected area and immediately dissolves ~ Lunatic Udongein (Japanese : 患部で止まってすぐ溶ける ～ 狂気の優曇華院), usually called Overdrive by English-speakers, is a popular remix from Touhou series by the doujin group IOSYS.^[1]

The song and its well-made promotion flash animation provided a spark for MADs to break new ground on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND), with Marisa Stole the Precious Thing.

Origin

The song's music is based on Reisn Udongein Inaba's theme from the 8th Touhou game Imperishable Night, titled "Lunatic Eyes ~ Invisible Full Moon", which was relesed at the 66th Comiket in August 15th, 2004.^[2]

"Stops at the affected area and immediately dissolves ~ Lunatic Udongein" was first released on the Touhou remix album Touhou Tsukitourou (Touhou Moon Lantern), released by IOSYS on December 31st, 2006 at the popular comic book convention Comiket.

Its lyrics is written incoherently to suit Reisen's power causing insanity with her red eyes. And because her bullets in the original game have the look of a suppository, the later part of this song draws a parody of typical advert of suppository in Japan. Its title "Stops at the affected area and immediately dissolves" is also a common advertising copy for that.

Because of the first word that appears in the animation, English-speaking Touhou fans usually call this "Overdrive".

IOSYS launched the special page for this album on December 23rd, 2006 and released this promotion flash.^[3] And the creator of this animation is Kagi who also created the promotion flash animation for "Marisa stole the Precious Thing".

The feature of this animation is including parodies of other internet fads and subcultures: Kimoi Girls, Leekspin and some SHIFT-JIS Arts.

This video reuploaded to NND in April, 2007 has got over 2 million views.^[4]

Spread

After NND was launched in early 2007, this flash animation and many of Touhou remixes released in Doujin market were uploaded to there by many anonymous people, and some of them became to audio/visual resources of MAD video that was been opening its new era by NND at that time. Among them, "Overdrive" became the 2nd biggest hit tune behind "Marisa stole the Precious Thing", by many early works reusing this song.^[5]

As of September 2011, the amount of the video related to this song on NND is over 800.^[6]

Appeal Outside of Japan

This flash animation also played a part to introduce Kimoi Girls to Westerners' web. So many of image derivatives of Kimoi Girls made by Westerners are based not on the original manga but on "EASY MODE?" in this animation.

A single-serving site "www.easymodo.net" was even created in June, 2008.^[7]

For more information about that particular phenomenon, please check the KYM entry for Kimoi Girls.

Notable Examples

For more videos, check out the videos section in this entry.

Remixes

「手書き」　患部で止まってすぐゆっくり^[8]/ 1 million+ views on NND (See also : Yukkuri Shiteitte ne!)

【手書き】患部でポヨって一頭身～狂気のピンクボール^[9]

MADs

患部で止まってすぐ入力 ～ 狂気の海馬瀬人^[10] (See also : Enemy Controller)

ドイツで止まってすぐ壊す ～ 狂気のキーボードクラッシャー^[11] (See also : Angry German Kid)

患部で止まってすぐらんらんるー～狂気のドナルド^[12] (See also : Donald McDonald – Ran Ran Ru)

Westerners' Draw

Overdrive

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.