Bad Apple Explained: History and Analysis

The history and an analysis of a viral music video: Bad Apple. Originating from the Touhou Project franchise, Bad Apple is arguably the most famous thing to come from it... but where exactly did it come from? And why is the video so mesmerizing? That's what I hope to answer today.

Footage and Songs:

#Touhou #TouhouProject #BadApple #BadApple!! #bad_apple #BadAppleExplained

[ぼっこう-tf]

Although I am Japanese, it is unknown what kind of 3D software and model was used for the shadow play PV. (Because there is no comment from the author "Anira" so far.) However, it is known that the model is completely self-made and the motion is a basic hand and some physics.

[zhanglaoshi]

"Its cool to see whats your favourite character is doing"
Nitori: *Proceed to run and dive into water
Me: *Interesting*

[mateuszkus]

"Bad Apple solidified itself as an imperishable hit" i see what you did there

[NoriMori]

I can't believe this started as some rando's MS Paint storyboard. They had the vision, but not the skills to bring it fully to life. I'm glad someone did that for them. A lot of people aren't that lucky. And this was an idea that deserved to see the light of day.

[elweon]

The song: Talks about society, disconnection and depression
Everyone: *Funky Vibing*

[justanotherhotguy]

That animation was made 11 years ago and it still nails better than much of the animation we get today.

[iamjesrael]

i love that MV because the motion is so realistic.. how their clothes and hair sways, thats splendid for an animation... its very realistic..

[UnfamusOfficial]

I just want to take a moment to throw some love in Haruka's direction. The video didn't mention her, but she was just a teenager when she wrote these lyrics. She's a great writer, and went on to do some other things in the shadows, such as the opening to Blue Dragon. Without her creative writing, this could have been a much different song.

I know she'll never read this, but regardless, thank you Haruka.

[wjsnactivist]

"Bad Apple isn't just a love letter to older fans, but also acts as a welcome letter to new ones." This quote really struck me. Filled my heart with warmth. Bad Apple welcomed me as a fan in 2010, and Touhou remains my favorite franchise of all time.

[birdontheinternet]

Internet culture fascinates me. It's like a huge experiment to see what happens when you present something to possibly millions of people. Sometimes not even twenty people acknowledge it exists and sometimes it's shown to a third of the human population (not accurate because I don't know how much of humanity has computers or internet but you get the point). There's also so much opportunity to work with others or gain inspiration. You can make friends who you'd never have met otherwise because you're on opposite side of the world. It's just such a huge step towards achieving communication and understanding other cultures and people. And don't get me started on the development of humor through the internet.

[avfxz]

I dont know whats happening but im interested on what youre talking about.

[StarlightAkari]

As a middle school weeb, I remember having to do a song essay for a language arts/visual arts course. I chose this one, and the teacher played it for the class. Looking back, I am both highly embarrassed, yet still glad I was able to show it to people. It deserves the recognition to be appreciated for its quality regardless of the viewer being an anime/game fan or not.

[noahfischer]

I have been listening to this song for years and never knew. I think im going to join the touhou cult

[SakanaOtoko]

Makes you wonder how many great ideas died in the minds of people who didn't have access to the tools to bring them to life

[BinaryCounter]

I can't believe you didn't mention the massive community of homebrew developers using the video for demos. It's great for that because it can be replicated with very low color count (just black and white if you discard the shades of grey in the flames), is still recognisable at low framerate and resolution, and due to being low-complexity compresses very nicely.
This video has been played back on countless retro systems. NES, game boy, mega drive, SNES, PCengine, C64, calculators, electronic toys. As laser art, on flip dot displays, on massive airport departure displays.
For retro devs there's two questions: Can it run doom, and can it run bad apple.

[HaotoAnimeOnPiano]

I wish the English side of this fandom was a little bigger.
English ≠ West | English = Global Communication

[alexnava]

"bad apple has been played to death"

Night of nights: Hold my beer

[hawaiidkw]

One more thing. An _extremely_ important thing to remember when comparing this to the original song (especially regarding exactly which version got the video that catapulted it into the stratosphere) is that Zun isn't concerned with making his scores _singable._ He's just making what he think fits the game and character, and he's going to use a lot of pitch changes and tempos that a human voice can't reasonably accommodate. Some BGMs _are_ easy to set lyrics to (Lullaby of a Deserted Hell, The Gensokyo That The Gods Loved, Let's Live in a Lovely Cemetery, Beloved Tomboyish Daughter, and Futasuiwa From Sado come to mind) and some aren't. Seriously, listen to Love-Colored Master Spark again; any faithful adaptation of that would require at least three singers. So songwriters have to make compromises...cut here, adjust there. Not much different from, say, American Idol.

[liviobarreirio]

"it didn't just come from one person: it came from decades of them" .That's what on a personal level(and for many others I'm sure) made this video special: there was a lot behind it, hidden, my 10 year old self didn't know what the shadows and lyrics meant but everything about it was deliberate and beatiful and purposefully cryptic. I understood it wasn't an official thing so it made me realize that communities could do great stuff out of love. Ty for that video on a subject that interested me a lot <3

[AexisRai]

Somewhere, there exist, or existed, あにら's full set of 3d models of all the characters.
Having this cultural artifact without those models is like having the Lycurgus Cup without knowing the required metallurgy.