Viewsic “Countdown Annual 100 Featuring Vibri” (lost special event broadcast of Japanese music program; 1999)
The only found image of the event and associated collaboration.
Status: Lost
Viewsic (now known as MUSIC ON TV! or M-ON!) was a Japanese music cable network created by Sony Music Entertainment. One of its flagship programs was Viewsic Countdown, a music charting program that featured trending and popular music, measured by CD sales and karaoke popularity.
From December 1999 to January 2000, a special variant of the event was broadcasted called “Viewsic Annual Countdown 100” which allegedly featured Vibri from the PS1 rhythm game Vib-Ribbon as one of the hosts.[1][2]
Background
Precise information on the broadcast is hard to find, with most of it coming from surviving Viewsic archives and blogposts.
Viewsic used to air a series of programs called “Viewsic Countdown 20” from 1999-2004, which survives to this day in the form of M-ON! Countdown and its several variants.[3] To celebrate the turn of the century, a special version of the event, Viewsic Countdown Annual 100, was developed, which allegedly featuring Vibri as a guest alongside the tenor Masashi Tashiro and tarento Chiaki, with the latter two taking over for the top 20.
Information on the precise airdates is also scarce, but an archived timetable, the Japanese Wikipedia page for the event, and the aforementioned blogposts allows for it to be presumed that the event aired for 2-hour batches on weekday mornings and Sundays, with another blogpost mentioning an airing in January 30th, 2000. Uniquely, it mentions Vibri announced the number one spot, contradicting the claims Vibri hosted just the top 80.
The surviving and archived blogposts from the time all mention Vibri's appearance. One of them, which reveals the game's creator, Masaya Matsuura, was present (alongside his wife, Kisato), reads as follows:
前に書き込んだ Viewsicの朝早い番組は、やっぱりいろんな人が選曲した曲を2時間延々と流す番組のようです。 松浦さんの選曲のときは、ビブリボンの画面がずっと流れてました。 変なこと書き込んですみません。。。 ピブリボンのデザインをなさった「松浦季里」さんって、松浦さんの奥様なんですね。 けっこう、いろんなとこで見かけたので、関像あるのかなあって思ってたんです。 すっきりしました♪
When translated, it reads:
Viewsic's early morning program that I wrote before seems to be a program that endlessly broadcasts songs selected by various people for 2 hours.
At the time of Mr. Matsuura's song selection, the screen of the vib ribbon was playing all the time.
I'm sorry for writing strange things...
"Kisato Matsuura" who designed the Vib-Ribbon is Mr. Matsuura's wife. I saw it in a lot of places, so I was wondering if there was a barrier statue.
I feel refreshed♪[1]
A tweet by user Kajiwoh mentions that the event ran for nine hours, which contradicts the timetable's two-hour long duration. It's possible that the the January 30th airing mentioned above was a longer, more complete broadcast of the entire list, with the weekday and weekend airings being shortened to twenty spots, which is corroborated by the timetable listing them as Viewsic Countdown 20 instead. Furthermore, the tweet claims Vib-Ribbon gameplay was used for songs that didn't have music videos; given Vib-Ribbon's main gameplay feature was the ability to make levels from music CDs, it's possible it was used for those songs.
Lastly, an archived list of the top 100 can be found on an archive from September 2001.
Availability
As of December 2023, no footage of the broadcast has been found except for one singular photo which resurfaced in March 2020. The blogposts, archived timetable, and archived top 100 list are the only other remaining evidence of the event.
See Also
- Vib-Ribbon (lost original Mercedes-Benz version of PlayStation rhythm game; 1999)
- Vib-Ribbon Xmas Disc (found promotional mini CD for PlayStation game; 1999)