It is notable for leading to a much later cover by Alstroemeria Records and a subsequent accompanying black-and-white shadow puppet-video – commonly called Shadow-art. The video became a Japanese internet meme in the late 2000s, correlating with the peak of Touhou's popularity, and experienced a resurgence in the mid-2010s when the black-and-white video was ported to esoteric media such as obsolete hardware, displays created within sandbox video games (e.g. Minecraft), and other unusual media (such as a mechanical television)[3] as a graphical test. As of January 2025, it has achieved more than 100 million views on YouTube.[4]
Pop song
"Bad Apple!! feat.nomico"
Album cover for Lovelight, which contains "Bad Apple!!", depicting Reisen Udongein Inaba.
On 20 May 2007, the day of the 4th Reitaisai convention, a longer cover version featuring the Japanese singer nomico was released on the album Lovelight by the doujin circle Alstroemeria Records, led by Masayoshi Minoshima.[5][6] According to YouTuber Megapig9001, it shared little similarity with the original soundtrack, borrowing few melody samples, and was notable as being the only vocal song in the album, and for its lyrics dealing with depression and apathy.[7]
From May 2017 to August 2018, Alstroemeria Records released a series of 10th Anniversary Bad Apple!! albums consisting entirely of remixes and covers of their version of "Bad Apple!!".[8][9][10]
Music video
On June 8, 2008, a user from Nico Nico Douga uploaded a video of a crude storyboard based on Alstroemeria Records' version, asking for anyone to animate it.[11] Several animation videos started appearing, with relatively few successes.[12][13][7]
Between October 2008 and October 2009, a collaborative group led by Anira (Japanese: あにら) created a shadow-art (black and white) animation video based on the storyboard, which was released on Nico Nico on 26 October 2009.[14][15] It quickly grew in popularity as an internet meme – as of September 2018, the original Nico Nico upload had been viewed more than 26 million times[16][11] and a YouTube reupload that recently (as of January 2025) hit 100 million views. [17] Per YouTuber Megapig9001, the video itself shows many of the Windows-era Touhou Project characters up to Scarlet Weather Rhapsody as they transition between one another.[7]
On May 21, 2020, the animation by the group Anira became the official music video and was released by Alstroemeria Records.[18]
In June 2014, the "8088 Domination" demo included a section rendering the "Bad Apple!!" shadow video on a 1981-era IBM 5150 at 640×200 resolution and 30 frames per second.[20][21]
In June 2014, about two minutes of "Bad Apple!!" have been ported to the Commodore 64 as 2000 frames at 12 frames per second on a single side diskette.[22]
In 2019, Stéphane Hockenhull programmed an Arduino Mega to render the video (without sound) at 128×176 resolution and 60 fps.[25]
In 2023, several Reddit users re-animated "Bad Apple!!" during that year's r/placeevent. While primarily a collaboration between the Touhou, Osu!, and Hatsune Miku subreddits, several other subreddits also assisted with the animation, which took almost 72 hours to complete.[26][27]
References
^"東方幻想郷" [Bad Apple!!]. Toho Music database (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 21 September 2019. Retrieved 21 September 2019. BPM: 160.73 (TimerB：202); 拍子: 4/4拍子; 再生時間: 1:22; 調性: 【0:04～】変ホ短調(E♭m), 【0:58～】ト短調(Gm); 使用楽器: 矩形波、@54、@74、@99、@101、@181、ドラム音
^Dell, Peter (2018). "Bad Apple HD". WUDSN. Archived from the original on 29 November 2022. Retrieved 21 December 2019. Bad Apple advanced to the modern "Hello World" for the retro computing demoscene. It has been converted to even the most obscure platforms including Atari VCS and Vectrex.
^Benchoff, Brian (21 June 2014). "(Better) Full Motion Video on the First PC". Hackaday. Archived from the original on 22 December 2019. Retrieved 22 December 2019. display video at 640×200 resolution at 30 frames per second on a 30-year-old computer. … playing the 'Bad Apple' animation on an 8088.
^"Bad Apple 64 – A mighty impressive C64 demo!". 30 June 2014. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 4 December 2020. over 2000 frames packed to a single disk, with each frame packed to around 70 bytes and running at 12fps streaming fully from disk
^Fabio, Theodora (24 April 2015). "Extreme Vectrex Multicart Plays Bad Apple". Hackaday. Retrieved 19 September 2019. audio was possible by having the Vectrex's 8-bit DA-converter perform double duty both for the video circuit and the audio. … volume must be turned to the max … DAC can only output audio in this scenario when vectors are not being drawn,
