Night of Nights / Night of Knights

About

“Night of Nights” (Japanese: ナイト・オブ・ナイツ, Naito obu Naitsu), also known as “Night of Knights” or “Knight of Knights”, is a musical arrangement based off the theme of character Sakura Izayoi from the bullet hell vertical shooter game Touhou Project. This fast-paced song has since became one of the most popular Touhou remixes, being featured in numerous MAD videos and YouTube Poop Music Videos (YTPMVs), along with musical covers and parodies, and as well as being a contributing factor to the spread of popularity for the Touhou Project series.

Origin

“Night of Nights” was originally arranged by Japanese amateur musician/producer BeatMARIO (ビートまりお), a member of the popular doujin group COOL&CREATE. The song was based on the Sakuya Izayoi’s stage theme Flowering Night (フラワリングナイト), composed by series creator ZUN for her appearance as a boss character in Touhou: Phantasmagoria of Flower View, the 9th installment in the Touhou Project series.^[1]

Left: ZUN– Flowering Night | Right: COOL&CREATE– Night of Knights

The remix was initially compiled with other Touhou remixes in a three-disc compilation album titled “花詠束 – hanataba -” (trans. Bouquet – hanataba -) and was released at the Touhou convention Reitaisai 4 in Japan by the group Unionest.NET on May 20th, 2007.^[2]

Spread

Over a year later, the song would be uploaded to Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga (NND) for the first time on July 20th, 2008,^[3] where it received over 518,000 views, and it was uploaded a second time two month later, becoming the most popular upload, gaining over 2 million views as of July 2013.^[4] Following the same route of previous Touhou songs like "U.N. Owen was Her?," “Night of Nights” soon became a resource for MAD remix. According to the song’s Nico Nico Pedia^[5] page, the first known mash-up of the song was a derivative of Futae no Kiwami series, which was uploaded to NND on August 7th, 2008.^[6] But the video that would spark interest in remixes of the song was uploaded to NND on August 16th, 2008.^[7]

Being an off-branch of the Enemy Controller MAD series, the video received more then 1 million views before being taken down due to copyright claim. From there, over 3,100 videos, ranging from MAD videos to musical covers of the song, has since been uploaded to NND^[8] as of July 2013.

On YouTube

Around the same time, the song has also been favored positively with YTPMV makers, after videos from NND began to be reprinted to YouTube, and began introducing it into their works. As of July 2013, over 58,000 videos relating to the song have since been uploaded to the site.^[9]

Notable Examples

Musical Covers

Niconico 【東方】　「ナイト・オブ・ナイツ」を弾いてみた　【ピアノ】Niconico 【ギター】ナイト・オブ・ナイツを弾いてみた【東方】
Left: Piano | Right: Guitar
Niconico 【チート】ヒケナイ・モノ・ナイツ【雑貨】
Left: Violin Cover | Right: Ruler

MADs / YTPMVs

Niconico バルサ･オブ･ミコス Niconico マクド・オブ・ドナルド
Left: Balsamic Vinegar! | Right: Donald McDonald – Ran Ran Ru

Left: Team Fortress 2 | Right: Epic Sax Guy^[10]

Raging X / X on drugs

Raging X refers to a series of hand-drawn animated video featuring various characters frantically dancing to “Night of Nights.” These animations were originally inspired by a video titled “Crazy Raging Reimu” (みだれあばれいむ), uploaded to NND on January 24th, 2009^[11], where it featured Touhou main character Reimu Hakurei dancing to the song.

The video had led to more than 100 creations on NND featuring characters from other series doing the same dance and interacting with various objects (usually a box) and characters from their shows. Most of these videos uploaded in YouTube are known as as “X on drugs” and may feature characters from series other than Touhou.