Sound Holic
(stylized as SOUND HOLIC in all-caps) is one of the longest-running Doujinshi music circles in Japan, dating all the way back to 2006. They specialize in creating music arrangements of video games like beatmania and Mega Man, but they're best known for their arrangements of Touhou Project music.
SOUND HOLIC is known for having a very diverse coverage of music genres which includes Pop, Jazz, Heavy Metal, Rock, and Eurobeat. This diversity makes them stand out among other circles that usually focus on one or two genres, and helps keep their album releases fresh each year. While they have done albums solely dedicated to a single genre on occasion (such as the rock albums done by guitarist 709sec.), most of their album releases have music diversity as their main selling point with several guest musicians and vocalists from other circles offering their contributions.
On the Touhou side of things, while not as influential as circles like Alstroemeria Records and IOSYS (the latter two having brought Touhou doujin music into the mainstream with "Bad Apple!!" and "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing" respectively), SOUND HOLIC is still a major player in the Touhou doujin music industry for their diverse arrangements of Touhou themes, being very active in their album releases every year. They were also responsible for creating one of the first fan-made Touhou anime called "Touhou Project Side Story: Memories of Stars" in 2007, and co-developed the soundtrack for the 2015 Touhou fan game Gensou Skydrift alongside circle StarDrops and composer U2 Akiyama from Twilight Frontier.
They have a sub-branch called SWING HOLIC (founded in 2008), which primarily focuses on arrangements of the Swing genre.
Their discography is far too numerous to list individually on this page. While a complete discography of their Touhou albums can be found here, their discography for their non-Touhou albums like beatmania and Mega Man are too scant and incomplete to find reliable sources of info on, likely due to licensing issues.
- 3L — Vocalist and a member of NJK Record.
- 709sec. — Guitarist and vocalist. Primarily makes rock arrangements. Had his own long-running album series with the "Feat. 709sec." albums.
- 8STYLE — Arranger.
- aki — Vocalist. Also contributed to ZYTOKINE.
- A ~ YA — Vocalist. Contributes vocals to jazz arrangements by Swing Holic Band.
- CALEN — Vocalist.
- GUCCI — Arranger.
- 花たん (Hanatan/YURiCa) — Vocalist and a member of her own circle THE OTHER FLOWER. Got one compilation album to herself with -HANATABA-.
- Linjin — Arranger. Best known for being the founder of ZYTOKINE.
- MasKaleido — Arranger.
- Nana Takahashi (cold kiss) — Vocalist. Like aki above, also contributed to ZYTOKINE. NANA HOLIC is a series of compilation albums that contain her songs.
- panoman — Arranger.
- SHU — Arranger.
- Swing Holic Band — The main band behind SWING HOLIC that contributes some jazz arrangements to the primary SOUND HOLIC circle.
- SYO — Vocalist.
- zikee — Arranger. Got one compilation album to himself with zikeez.
- SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO (2006-2007): Their first series of Touhou albums. Unlike most of their subsequent works, these albums had a focus on instrumental music in addition to vocal songs. While the series was abandoned early, it did see a re-release with 2019's SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO ～JAZZ ARRANGE SELECTION～ compilation.
- Kanji Series (2007-): The majority of these albums focus on a single game (or occasionally a group of more minor releases) and solely arrange tracks from it, though in 2017 we started seeing other album concepts like "final bosses". The series skipped Highly Responsive to Prayers, but did the other PC-98 games. The naming scheme has also been used for a few non-Touhou releases.
- Feat. 709sec. (2009-2018): A series of rock albums where most of the songs star 709sec. Like the early Kanji Series albums, these revolve around a single game or small group of related works. The exception is Unreal Invader, which was the last non-compilation release and featured themes from a wide variety of sources. The series skipped Highly Responsive to Prayers and Story of Eastern Wonderland, but did the other PC-98 games. Several compilations were released towards the end of the series's life.
- TOHO PIANISM (2009-): The circle occasionally releases these piano albums. They include themes from a variety of sources (except for the Subterranean Animism-only first album).
- Metallic (2009-2014): A series of metal albums. While the first one had themes from various games and music CDs, the rest of them focused on a single work. The series received a remastered compilation in 2019.
- Fantasy★A la mode (2012-2015): A series of albums with a cheery pop tone and themes taken from a variety of sources.
- NANA HOLIC (2016-): Compilations of songs starring Nana Takahashi. Sometimes feature SOUND HOLIC songs from games.
- New Kanji Series (2016-): A series of albums named after a major character. They feature a track related to said character, but otherwise don't have a unifying idea and just feature a variety of themes.
- EUROBEAT HOLIC (2017-): Collaborations with Eurobeat Union that tend to feature both new tracks and eurobeat remixes of old tracks.
- SWING HOLIC VOL.__ (2009-2015): A series of swing albums by sub-branch SWING HOLIC. These albums had more instrumentals than the works of the main branch, especially at the start of the series. All of their albums focus on a single game or a group of related releases.
- COOL JAZZ TOHO (2014-2016): A short-lived jazz series by SWING HOLIC. These albums are purely instrumental and feature themes from a variety of sources.
Has nothing to do with Maria†Holic and ×××HOLiC. Also, not to be confused with the music circle SoundOnline.
SOUND HOLIC provides examples of:
- Compilation Re-release:
- The NANA HOLIC series is a compilation of Nana Takahashi songs.
- The REVIVAL BEST series is a compilation of 709sec. tracks.
- zikeez is a compilation of tracks arranged by zikee.
- SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO ～JAZZ ARRANGE SELECTION～ is a compilation of jazz tracks from the SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO series.
- Concept Album: The "Kanji Series" albums have a theme reflected in the kanji in their titles. It's usually one specific game, but a notable example is with the album -LAST BOSS- which is themed around the Final Boss themes from all Touhou games released up to Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (the then-recent Touhou game released by that point).
- Covers Always Lie: The characters on the cover are usually relevant to the album. The exceptions are the albums based on bosses from specific stages:
- The cover of LAST BOSS features Reimu and Marisa. Only Reimu has served as a final boss, and none of the themes on the album belong to her at all. At least both of the girls have fought most of the bosses represented on the album.
- The cover of EXTRA BOSS features Sakuya and Youmu. Neither has ever been an Extra boss, and they've only faced a few Extra Stage bosses each.
- The cover of FIFTH BOSS features Sanae and Aya. The latter has — you guessed it — never appeared as a stage 5 boss. At least Sanae's theme is arranged on the album.
- Greatest Hits Album: THE BEST SELECTION
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
- Their SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO have titles on the form SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO ～[Japanese title]～
- The Kanji Series and New Kanji Series both follow the pattern [kanji] -ROMANIZED KANJI-:
- For their one-game albums, the kanji is the third kanji of the game's title (i.e. the first that isn't 東方). If they later make another album based on the same game, the new title will use the third and fourth kanji. Examples: their Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith albums 風 -KAZE- and 風神 -FUUJIN-.
- In the "New Kanji Series", the kanji are the last name of a playable Touhou character.
- The Splatoon parody album uses "烏賊", which means "squid".
- One album uses "令和" (Reiwa). It's SOUND HOLIC's first all-new album in the Reiwa era.note
- Their boss-themed albums follow the basic pattern, but still stand out: they all use "強敵" ("Tough Enemy") for the kanji, and replace the romanization with "[STAGE] BOSS" (e.g. "FIFTH BOSS").
- All of their metal albums have "Metallic" or "Metallical" in the title.
- The Featuring 709sec. albums have titles that consist of two English words, e.g. Frozen Freezer and Chaos Bringer.
- Instrumentals:
- The SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO albums are mostly or entirely instrumental. The compilation SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO ～JAZZ ARRANGE SELECTION～ consists of instrumental jazz arrangements from this series.
- Their main Touhou albums start with an instrumental intro. Some of them contain more instrumentals later on as well.
- The TOHO PIANISM albums are entirely instrumental.
- Lucky Charms Title:
- The Fantasy★A La Mode album series.
- The song titles "LOVE ≒ HAPPY", "デタラメ妖精大戦争☆ (Dull Great Fairy Wars☆)" and "渚のぷるぷる果実♡ (Plump, Jiggly Fruit on the Shore♡)".
- Rearrange the Song:
- Their Touhou arrangements, of course.
- The EUROBEAT HOLIC series features eurobeat remixes of some old songs.
- Self-Titled Album: The entire SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO series is partially eponymous.
- Remix Album:
- Most of their albums consist entirely of Touhou arrangements.
- ROCKMAN HOLIC is an album of Mega Man arrangements. It was released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the franchise.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: The song title "W∀NTED".
- Work Info Title: The title of SOUND HOLIC MEETS TOHO ～JAZZ ARRANGE SELECTION～ lets you know that it's a compilation of jazz tracks. Similarly, the EUROBEAT HOLIC albums are eurobeat albums, and TOHO PIANISM is a series of piano albums.
SWING HOLIC provides examples of:
- Concept Album: Most of their albums focus on one Touhou game.
- Rearrange the Song: The circle made Touhou arrangements.
- Title 1: SWING HOLIC VOL.01
