Extras
Characters, Anomalies, and Official Art!
Characters:
ParaParaParadise 2nd Mix has five original characters, and one bonus secret character! They are used as the CG Dancers ingame, who dance the routine to the song behind the chart to help the player follow along.
This image is a sitemap! Click on the characters to be taken to their sections.
From left to right, the characters are:
Hijiri Takamura, age 19; living in Tokyo but originally from Kansai! Currently training as a theatre actor, and works as a figure-skating instructor. They've only just started ParaPara!
Natsuko Ozawa, age 17; she also lives in Tokyo, still attending high school and working part-time at a resturant. She considers ParaPara one of her special skills!
Kodama Tokai, age 18; she has two sisters, and is named after the 'Kodama' train service on the 'Tokaido Shinkansen' high-speed line, which coincindentally also two other train services, 'Hikari' and 'Nozomi' - these must be the names of her sisters! It is also stated that she has 'relatives who love the colour green' in Tohoku, who are presumably the trains on the 'TÅhoku Shinkansen' line.
Yoko Abe, age 18; the unofficial mascot of 2nd Mix! She works as a cheerleader for a GT racing team, and is the best paralist around, having mastered all the best routines!
Shinobu Aihara, age 20; the oldest character, she works as a dental nurse and has a reputation for being very clumsy and bad at her job - to the point that she goes to ParaPara clubs in her white doctor's coat!
Finally, there is Usao-kun, the bunny, who is the unofficial mascot for the defunct Bemani game KEYBOARDMANIA, having also crossed over into other Bemani games like Pop'n Music and Beatmania IIDX.
He can be unlocked by activating the middle to the right and then the middle to the left sensors (like by sweeping your arms) somewhere in the game, possibly the song select menu or loading screen.
Anomalies:
ParaParaDancing (December 2000)
Although ParaParaParadise never came to western shores in any official capacity, there was a specific ParaParaParadise release made for Korea, titled ParaParaDancing. Being built off of a version of ParaParaParadise 1st Mix Plus, this release is notable not only for it's new version of the song 'Hold on me', which was redone to be sung in Korean, but for it's own exclusive cabinet.
Unlike the japanese cabinets which have five sensors, so the player is facing the screen, ParaParaDancing has eight sensors, allowing the player to choose which direction they want to face - most notably being able to reverse the layout, so the player is facing onlookers.
While there is little information to find online today about ParaParaParadise, especially in comparison to the likes of the more popular Bemani games, there is even less known about ParaParaDancing, so while I can make the observation that ParaParaDancing cabs seem to lack the stage and cabinet decals that ParaParaParadise cabs have (which would make sense, as the PPP decals have the PPP branding instead of PPD, and the instructions on the front of the cabinet would be written in Japanese), I can't confirm if this is standard across all PPD cabinets.
ParaParaPS2 (March 2001)
ParaParaPS2 is not the official name for the console release of ParaParaParadise, per se, but to be frank, I'm getting kind of tired of typing ParaParaParadise in every sentence. Anyway, the console release is simply titled, 'ParaParaParadise'. Let's switch it up!
Getting to business, ParaParaPS2 can be compared to similar home releases of Bemani games, such as Beatmania. Despite being released on the same day as 2nd Mix, it only features songs from 1st Mix, though it does include the 'Another' difficulty.
Some releases of the game came bundled with it's proprietary controller, five sensors in the arcade layout (as well as a sheet of paper showing how far the controllers should be placed apart), to get the 'full ParaParaParadise experience'. Today, the official controller is the best way to play PPP at home, and can be found secondhand for reasonable prices online if you're importing from Japan.
Bemani Pocket (2001)
Bemani Pocket was a series of hand-held LCD games that came with a strap to attach them to a bag or belt, in the same vein as Tamagotchi. While the DDR- and Beatmania-Pockets were the most ubiquitous, with several releases each, there were also Pockets made for Pop'n Music, GuitarFreaks, and, of course, ParaParaParadise.
Again, little is known about the Bemani Pockets, especially the rarer ones, like PPP. I'd love to update this one day with firsthand experience with one!
Official Art:
Finally, the official art!
Click on each image to see a full-size version!
Bonus: a diagram of two cabinets back-to-back in communication 2-player play, and a photograph from the PPP booth at a convention IGN visited. TROUT's outfit for the ParaParaParadise page is modeled off of the looks the staff are wearing!
