Second Heaven

Submission 16,306

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About

"Second Heaven" is a popular soundtrack from a Japanese arcade music video game series beatmania IIDX which is produced by KONAMI as a part of BEMANI line. This song had been one of the popular audio resrouces for MAD videos on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) from 2007 to 2012.

Origin

"Second Heaven" is written by the Japanese composer Ryutaro Nakahara, better known as his alias Ryu☆.^[1] It was first included in Beatmania IIDX 14: Gold which was released on the Japanese arcade in Feburary 2007^[2], and finally ranked the top of popular songs ranking in this video game.

In a reflection of the song's popularity, its remix versions has been also included in subsequent BEMANi titles.

Somebody Scream! / Sambai Ice Cream (Triple Ice Cream)

What led further popularity to the song is its funny misheard phrase "Sambai Ice Cream!" (Japanese: 三倍アイスクリーム), which means "Triple Ice Cream". Of course, the correct pronunciation of the voice is "Somebody Scream!". It's said that the voice was originally included in a house track "The party" released by Kraze in 1988.^[3] And it has been occasionally reused in other tunes especially in rave music. Nowadays, everybody can get this voice freely on the web.^[4] Even Ryu☆ knows the reputation of this misheard phrases among BEMANI players. His comment for the song in a web page of pop'n music 17 THE MOVIE mentioned about "Sambai Ice Cream".^[5]

Moreover, "Sambai Ice Cream!" is also featured in "FIREFIRE" (Shown below, left) and "Drive me Crazy" (Shown below, right) written by another famous BEMANI composer Kors K.

[This video has been removed]

Besides, SOUND VOLTEX, a BEMANI title launched in 2012, included a remixed version of "Second Heaven" by a famous Vocaloid/UTAU composer Lamaze-P. It also featured that phrase and the "Triple Ice Cream" icon. However, that song had a terrible reputation among BEMANI fans due to its awfully bad quality.

All of these songs is known as "Somebody Scream!" songs among the game players.

Spread

Along with the funny misheard phrases, the popularity of this song began spreading on the NND, a brandnew video sharing service in Japan at that time, shortly after the game's release. Then, several MAD creators in Japan began introducing this song to their works as same as other popular soundtracks in music video game series.

Though there is no specific trigger video, there are over 400 videos reusing this song on NND.^[6] Moreover, there are several instances reusing this song in YouTube Poop Music Videos by Westerners.^[7]

In addition to this, the other "Somebody Scream!" song, FIREFIRE, has been also occasionally reused in MAD videos.^[8]