Talk:Totakeke's theme

Totakeke

If "Totaka's Song" is conjectural is it?, then wouldn't "K.K. Song" from the Animal Crossing games be an official name? Considering K.K. is sort of an avatar for Totaka K. LinkTheLefty (talk) 19:15, April 22, 2024 (EDT)

Makes sense to me. Especially since the name "K.K." is also used in Link's Awakening (K.K. Sniper). Blinker (talk) 11:55, April 23, 2024 (EDT)

No, because that name only appears in the Animal Crossing series, not in the Mario series, so you can change the name in other wikis, but not in this one.

User:AGFA1 18:38, April 29, 2024 (UTC-4)

Don't see why the source for the name of a non-series-based song should matter. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 19:08, April 29, 2024 (EDT)

Yeah, plus Animal Crossing: New Horizons IS newer than Luigi's Mansion 3DS. SONIC123CDMANIA+&K(B&ATSA) (talk) 10:44, May 15, 2024 (EDT)

This is a really rare case of taking official titles of songs from another Nintendo franchise for a title of a song article on the Super Mario Wiki. Have we ran into similar situations before? --EleCyon (talk) 22:52, July 4, 2024 (EDT)

Not sure about music, but there have been unnamed cameos, such as Joe and Mac, that get titles elsewhere. LinkTheLefty (talk) 04:02, July 7, 2024 (EDT)

Hmm...I kind of agree about this, but we're a Super Mario wiki, not an Animal Crossing wiki. Should we be taking cues from other franchises? -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 18:30, July 29, 2024 (EDT)

No, K.K. Song is not the name of this jingle because this jingle originated before Animal Crossing; the song itself is a reference to this jingle, not the other way around. Personally, I'd rename this to "Totaka's Jingle" rather than a song but search results for this jingle are consistently called "Totaka's Song" so I think this title is the best choice for this article even if it is technically conjecture. Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 18:55, July 29, 2024 (EDT)

I agree. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 18:06, July 30, 2024 (EDT)

What about the name "Totakeke's theme", from the unused Melody Pianissima question? Blinker (talk) 06:22, October 7, 2024 (EDT)

What is the point of this conversation in mario paint it’s called Totaka's Song And in animal crossing it’s called K.K.s song it’s really that easy Waluigiboys

Can you specify where in Mario Paint it uses that name? Mario JC 20:46, February 24, 2025 (EST)

Finding out right now give me a few months Waluigiboys

You know, all this makes me wonder where the name "Totaka's song" even came from. If it was pure conjecture, who found out it was specifically written by Totaka and coined the term for it? (Honestly, Nintendo Music is a godsend for things like this, at least whenever the Mario Paint soundtrack comes out on the app and if it will include Totaka's Song as a separate track).
Alternatively, I guess we could call it "Totakeke" based on this Link's Awakening easter egg, for the time being. rend (talk) (edits) 13:31, February 26, 2025 (EST)

Hm, apparently in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Original Soundtrack, the version of the theme from the easter egg is officially called 名前入力隠しBGM「とたけけ」, or "Name input hidden BGM 'Totakeke'". Blinker (talk) 08:56, March 2, 2025 (EST)

Huh, I didn't know there was an official OST for Link's Awakening. Hmmm, they're calling the other instance of Totaka's song in this game リチャードの別荘隠しBGM (or "Richard's Villa Hidden BGM"). Beyond it being called a "hidden BGM", it seems a bit less clear than the one from the file name themes (but that one also had like two other hidden themes). rend (talk) (edits) 14:57, March 2, 2025 (EST)

Mario Paint was just added to Nintendo Music and gave Totaka's Song the name "Title Theme 2," do we move it to that? Kaptain Skurvy 04:12, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

I'd say so. Official names should always take priority over fan names. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 07:04, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

Honestly, I think this is a rare case where an unofficial name is important and notable enough that it's the better name for the article. This song is not from or exclusive to the Super Mario franchise, and using its Mario Paint title gives the impression that its other appearances are in some way derived from its appearance in Mario Paint. I think if "Totaka's Song" is good enough for Wikipedia, it's good enough for us. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 11:57, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

"Title Theme 2" is a completely awful name for this song and I'd be opposed to moving this page to it, especially because it's a recurring theme in the series and it's a generic term that clashes with other Title Themes. If we were to strictly follow Nintendo Music's naming scheme you need to slap a very clunky identifier to a whole bunch of songs to even clarify what game the Title Theme came from. Hell, I'm very leery in using many of Nintendo Music "titles" as a source just because of how bad its naming is (I don't want to have pages that describe the hums Luigi does in the Luigi's Mansion games, "Luigi hums "Title Theme (Humming)") Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 12:02, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

@JanMisali: Mario Paint isn't the first appearance of the theme, but current policy allows us to use a name for a later version of a theme if the original version has no official name, such as DS Waluigi Pinball. And in this case, the original appearance is in a non-Mario game, so even if we had an official name for that, I'm not sure if it would take priority over a name that actually comes from the Mario franchise (and it helps that Mario Paint was its earliest Mario appearance too). Wikipedia has very different policies and shouldn't be relevant to this wiki's decisions, with their misspelled Aquatic Ambience and misnamed blue shell (heck, they don't even use the same name for the franchise itself, so consistency with Wikipedia is clearly not a priority).
@Xiahou Ba: I don't think we should refuse to use an official name due to personally disliking it, since that's completely subjective (I personally don't think "Title Theme (Humming)" is that bad a name). And I don't see why this page would need an identifier, what other themes on this wiki are called "Title Theme 2"? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 12:34, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

I don't dislike the title because I dislike it personally, I gave my reasons for the dislike. Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 12:42, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

The reasons you gave were "it's completely awful" (which I thought referred to a personal dislike of the name), "it's a generic term" (so is Title BGM, this is very standard for music names in this franchise), "clashes with other Title Themes" (which I again ask how, there are currently no other articles on the wiki called "Title Theme 2"), and "I'm very leery in using many of Nintendo Music "titles" as a source just because of how bad its naming is" (which I again interpreted as a personal dislike). Am I misunderstanding something here? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 12:50, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

I'm not arguing this any further, if you feel so strongly about the naming scheme, write a proposal about it. Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 12:55, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

I suppose that's fair enough. (To clarify, I don't mean to be insulting or anything when I say your argument is based on personal dislikes, I just genuinely don't understand how else to interpret the argument that you wrote.) Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 13:05, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

A lot of discussion about this has been happening on Discord. The main reasons I see (and agree with) for not using "Title Theme 2" as the article title is that it's incredibly nondescript, isn't the original so shouldn't apply to all arrangements of the song anyway, and just overall makes for a worse wiki experience. If this is the result of current naming policies, then the issue lies in those policies, and they should be revised. Considering all this, if you still want to propose a move, then I think Xiahou Ba's advice to write a proposal is sound. (Personally, I think we should move it... to "Totaka's song", since the current capitalisation implies some incorrect sense of officiality.) Reese Rivers ^{(talk | contribs)} 13:07, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

I feel the need to clarify that I don't think all of the wiki's policies are infallible and probably won't use a policy as an argument if I think it's a bad policy. But they do exist for a reason, and in this case I agree with the policy of "use official names instead of fan names", which is why I'm using it as an argument. (If we aren't moving to "Title Theme 2" then I suppose "Totaka's song" would at least be better than what we currently have, since conjectural names aren't usually capitalised.) Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 13:12, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

It's correct that policies aren't infallible, they can be revised at any point, especially if a proposal has been raised about it. I'm not a fan of the current policy's guidelines either if there is this much discussion about it, it signals to me that the policy isn't in service and needs to be tweaked. Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 13:19, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

Coming in as the messenger for developments from the Discord; someone did point out that an unused puzzle in Luigi's Mansion (one extra song for Melody Pianissima's quiz) calls the song "Totakeke's theme". We think we'd be fine with a move to that name, as while it's from unused data, it's still an official source, is evocative of what the theme actually is, and it's not like Luigi's Mansion is some auxillery source; it still has the motif, just in the controls menu, rather than as part of Pianissima's puzzle. Whoever makes the proposal, please make that an option! :o ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 13:20, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

Personally, as of right now, I would concurrently prefer "Totakeke's theme", "Totaka's song" or "Totakeke" (or even "Hidden BGM"). I dunno, I would also want to wait until X hits Nintendo Music and what the app calls its version of Totaka's song (if they even include it, that is (looking at you, Yoshi's Story and Luigi's Mansion))... it's the very first (publicised) iteration of the song, after all. rend (talk) (edits) 13:22, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

Our personal bet is that the version in X would probably just be called "Fake scientist" or something like that, considering that's the context of the original appearance. Also not a great name, but at least it's slightly more searchable...? Though, to be frank, "Totakeke's theme" or "K.K. Song" would still be our first choice for an "official" name. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 13:26, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

I'm personally not a big fan of calling it "K.K. Song". That seems to imply that it's actually K.K. Slider's song instead of the guy he's based on, and wouldn't make a lot of sense considering that it appeared in a variety of titles that aren't related to Animal Crossing before Animal Crossing was even a thing. rend (talk) (edits) 14:29, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

The fairly recently introduced music naming policy does say that we can't use internal names for music, but this is actually a policy I disagree with, as I think it's weird to single out music as the only thing we can't use internal names for (and in this case, the policy's justification that these names "are often generic or challenging to decipher" doesn't apply). I'd still prefer going with "Title Theme 2" since it's from a higher-priority, public-facing source, but I guess "Totakeke's theme" is still better than the completely conjectural name we have currently. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 13:29, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

Thinking on it more, it does make some sense for this theme to be an exception to the usual rules, which are focused on prioritising the "original name" of a theme. My logic for using "Title Theme 2", like with other cases such as "DS Waluigi Pinball", is that we're effectively using the name of an arrangement as a placeholder of sorts while we wait for the original appearance to get an official name. But the difference is that if and when an official Mario Kart DS soundtrack comes out that calls the theme "Waluigi Pinball", we'll just switch to that with no complaints, whereas Totaka's song is unlikely to ever get a satisfactory "original" name, especially since the first game it appeared in isn't a Mario game and it would seem weird to prioritise names from non-Mario media. Mario Paint is the earliest Mario game to have it, but its version is still an arrangement and can't be said to be the "original".
So yeah I'm pro-"Totakeke's theme". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 15:51, July 29, 2025 (EDT)

It just came to my attention that the song is explicitly titled「トタケケぶし」(Totakeke Bushi, "Totakeke Song") in Mario Artist: Talent Studio, so I've added it as a NIOL on the page. In light of this, "Totakeke Bushi" may be an appropriate option to retitle this page. Reese Rivers ^{(talk | contribs)} 15:04, September 20, 2025 (EDT)

Proposal: Move page to a more appropriate title

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

Rename to "Totakeke's theme" 10-5-3-2-1-5
10 out of 14 voters (71.4%) approve the first place option.

It's been a while since we've discussed this, and in light of things I've learned recently, I'd like to propose a couple of options for renaming the "Totaka's Song" page. Here are all of the facts:

• "Totaka's Song", to my knowledge, has not been used as an official title for this song by Nintendo themselves; it is purely a colloquialism. However, most people know it by this name. A possible alternative is the more generic "Kazumi Totaka's song".
• In a Shogakukan interview for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (translation available here), Kazumi Totaka (who composed for the game) states that "Totakeke" is his nickname. This name has also been used for a monkey enemy in Link's Awakening (given the unused English name "K.K. Sniper" in its Nintendo Switch remake), and more famously for K.K. Slider, a caricature of Totaka, in the Japanese releases of the Animal Crossing series.
• The song, or arrangements of it, have been given at least three explicit names within the Mario series: from Mario Artist: Talent Studio we have the Japanese title「トタケケぶし」(Totakeke Bushi, "Totakeke Song"), and from an unused string in Luigi's Mansion, we have the English title "Totakeke's theme" (notably, no Japanese equivalent to this string exists). The Mario Paint rendition of the song is titled "Title Theme 2" on Nintendo Music.
• The song is known in the Animal Crossing series as "K.K. Song" (Japanese:「けけソング」Keke Songu).
• The song as a whole originates from X, predating Mario Paint by a year.

With all this considered, I see five options for a retitle, and one for no change:

1. "Totakeke's theme". This has the advantage of being a descriptive English title, but its disadvantage is that it comes from unused text in a game.
2. "Totakeke Bushi". This has the advantage of being unambiguously official, but it is not very descriptive to most English-speaking readers.
3. "Title Theme 2". This is the most recent official name for the theme, but is specific to Mario Paint and is even less descriptive.
4. "K.K. Song". This is perhaps the second-most known name for the theme by fans, but is specific to Animal Crossing.
5. "Kazumi Totaka's song". This is a more generic/descriptive alternative to the current name, in the case that none of the above are found to be suitable.
6. "Totaka's Song" (no change).

Proposer: Reese Rivers (talk)
Deadline: October 5, 2025, 23:59 GMT

Option 1: "Totakeke's theme"

1. Reese Rivers (talk) Primary option.
2. Camwoodstock (talk) Primary option. We're gonna be real here, our music naming policy is in dire need of a revamp--having Nintendo Music as the uncontested top source is... Not great, especially since, if we followed that to the letter, the result would be going with "Title Theme 2". We do not want to name this page "Title Theme 2". Out of the options, Totakeke's theme is our favorite--it comes from a primary source (Luigi's Mansion) and while the puzzle where this is namedropped went unused, Totaka's song appears in Luigi's Mansion anyways, so it's not like it's not to be trusted about Totaka's song affairs.
3. Hewer (talk) This is probably the closest we'll ever get to an official English name that refers to the original version of the song. The only problem is that it comes from unused content, which technically means it runs afoul of the naming policy that prohibits using internal names for music, but I don't like that part of the policy anyway (and the justification given in the policy that such names "are often generic or challenging to decipher" doesn't apply to this name).
4. Blinker (talk) Per proposal. (@Hewer I wouldn't call this an internal name anyway. An internal name is meant only for use, well, internally. This name isn't that. It was meant to be seen by the player, it just happened not to in the end.)
5. The Dab Master (talk) Per all.
6. Arend's theme (talk) Preferred option; by far the clearest official name for the song at this moment. Shame it wound up never used.
7. Metalex123 (talk) If we can't keep Totaka's Song as a name, then "Totakeke's theme" seems pretty close to it and is official. Per all.
8. PaperSplash (talk) First choice. Certainly the most straightforward and accurate official English name for this little ditty we've got, and might ever get. Only downside is that it's unused, an I know "internal names" for music tracks are technically against wiki policy, but there's an exception to (almost) every rule, and per Blinker, it's not even really an internal name in the conventional sense.
9. janMisali (talk) Secondary choice, per all. More official than "Totaka's Song", more helpful than "Title Screen 2".
10. Jdtendo (talk) The only official (though unused) English name that is not overly specific to a given use of the melody.

Option 2: "Totakeke Bushi"

1. The Dab Master (talk) Secondary option. This wiki is no stranger to Japanese-only names.
2. Arendo Bushi (talk) Secondary option; the second clearest official name, and the clearest one that's actually used. Not as preferable since despite what I said about its clarity... not a lot of non-Japanese readers are gonna know what "Bushi" means until they looked it up. (I happen to recognize it since it was used in "Shiokara Bushi)
3. PaperSplash (talk) Third choice. I don't like resorting to untranslated Japanese on an English wiki, but it's unquestionably official and public-facing at that, and actually shows up under this name in a Mario game.
4. janMisali (talk) Tertiary choice, per all.
5. Jdtendo (talk) Secondary choice, the most official and encompassing name (though in Japanese).

Option 3: "Title Theme 2"

1. Hewer (talk) Second choice, as this is the only public-facing English name for this theme in the Mario franchise. It has the benefit over "Totakeke's theme" of not being from unused content, but the disadvantage of being the name of a specific arrangement rather than the theme as a whole.
2. PaperSplash (talk) Fourth choice. Per Hewer. Another drawback is that it's very vague and non-descriptive outside of the context of this specific game, and the fact that it technically only refers to this specific game's arrangement makes it additionally rather misleading as a general title.
3. Salmancer (talk) I think our endeavor is "where possible, the page should be named after the original theme". That's impossible in this case: this is an easter egg song whose role is to be found, so putting it on any soundtrack release defeats its own point. The song is outright in Luigi's Mansion and [[Yoshi's Story] but absent on both Luigi's Mansion (Nintendo Music) and Yoshi's Story (Nintendo Music). Whenever it does bubble up enough to get a name it's never as "the original", its always as a different thing where the easter egg is to recognize its actually the same thing. There's no way we ever get a straight answer as to what the original name for this song is unless either X shows up on Nintendo Music and it somehow includes this song or we ask a Nintendo employee directly. (Watch that soundtrack release name this song something sci-fi-y and/or specific to the role it has in X. Which I'm confident will happen because Nintendo almost always names songs after where they are used, and this trend becomes more and more likely the older the game is. Despite having the original name we would go right back having the name of the article fail to match the expectation of the wiki for the title of this page somehow being agnostic to where it is used despite Nintendo's usual naming structure. If "Title Theme 2" isn't great, and I think its fine given our policies, I'm not sure a name based directly on X's context will be any better for the wiki.) Since getting a name for the original theme is so far off that the name might as well be a twinkle in the sky, the next best thing is to throw our hands in the air and say those times where the song bubbles up and is assigned a name are good enough. This is one of those times. (I do think prioritizing used Japanese names or unused English names over used English names is really odd, and basically bending policy to get the answer people want. I don't like that.)

Option 4: "K.K. Song"

1. PaperSplash (talk) Second choice. It's the most straightforward and well-known public-facing official English name for this track.
2. Salmancer (talk) And this is the second of those times. If Eggplant Man's infobox image is from Chibi-Robo! Plug Into Adventure!, I think we can allow other media providing the best representation of this subject's name to name this article. If the need is to pick a name that is searchable, "K.K Song" is leaps and bounds ahead of every other option, including "Totaka's Song". MarioWiki:Manual of Style says that "the majority of visitors to the MarioWiki are North American." Further, we can assume that on average, most of them know significantly less about video games than the editors do, and a good chunk might not even be regularly looking up stuff about games. (The usual xkcd comic about experts overestimating what average people know Ask A Game Dev saying only 20% of players will read anything online about a game) Given this, if someone hears this song in Luigi's Mansion, recognizes that it appears in some other game they've played, and wants to know more about it, I think the "some other game" they're using to know what the song is enough to look it up by name is most likely an Animal Crossing game they played at some point. Unlike in the Super Mario franchise, this song is not well hidden secret in Animal Crossing anymore, apparently as of Wild World all you have to do is win the RNG roll with K.K. Slider in a game people are supposed to play over a long period of time to get the item that tells you what the song is called. And equipped with that knowledge, a person can actually make the call that the oft-hidden melodies in other games all have one source. At least, that theory is more likely than knowing who Kazumi Totaka is, determining he's the common denominator between the games where this song appears, and looking up his name or any variation of that specifically. And the odds only get worse if they also need to have Kazumi Totaka's nickname, and get worser still if they also need to put in the name for a Japanese genre of music. ("Bushi" is a genre)

Option 5: "Kazumi Totaka's song"

1. Reese Rivers (talk) Secondary option.

Option 6: "Totaka's Song" (no change)

1. Colin's Song (talk) most people refer to the song by this name, so I see no reason to change it.
2. Metalex123 (talk) Second option. I really like Totaka's Song.
3. janMisali (talk) Primary choice, though I don't think it's likely to win. This is an abnormally notable unofficial title, and I think it's fair for an exception to the normal naming policy to be made just to keep this article at this title.
4. PrincessPeachFan (talk): Clearly says what it is.
5. bwburke94 (talk) The Nintendo fandom overwhelmingly refers to it as Totaka's Song.

Comments (rename "Totaka's Song")

In case anyone's curious why, exactly, we dislike "Title Theme 2", here's an excerpt from us having bounced this around in our head back when the Mario Paint songs dropped on Nintendo Music, and our own thoughts on "Totakeke's theme" versus "Title Theme 2". Pardon its informal look, as this was us writing down our thoughts after at least a few of us got tangled up in this...

"Totakeke's theme" - the one we like

• clearly illustrates what the page is about (the recurring motif that is the signature of composer Kazumi Totaka)
• more clearly explains what it *is*, being a motif (while, again, "theme" isn't the same as a "motif", it is at least more specific than "song")
• pretty dang simple to search, and most importantly, comes from a primary source, Luigi's Mansion. the downside, instead, is that this is from an unused puzzle--while totaka's song is in the game, the part where it's specifically referred to with this name ultimately got scrapped for brevity's sake. despite this, this is a perfectly valid, non-filename, english name for the song; a concession we think we're willing to make. in addition, we can see this relying a bit on a redirect, but this is inevitable with *any* move, and it's not more so than most other names to move it to

"Title Screen 2" - when you want a 5% chance of being replied to with a 🤓 emoji

• fails to properly illustrate what the page is actually about (the recurring motif that is the signature of composer Kazumi Totaka, which was not a title screen song in its appearance in its original appearance in *X* for the Game Boy, or indeed, just about any of its other appearances)
• fails to properly adequately explain what it *is*, being a motif (rather than just a single song in mario paint's title screen)
• most of all, it is practically unsearchable without redirects ("Title Screen 2" is such a generic term, and one that is so wildly contrary to its usual nicknames both conjectural and official (Totakeke's theme, K.K. Song), that it is practically impossible to tell at a glance what "Title Screen 2" is without being redirected to it from "Totaka's Song". and unlike Totakeke's theme, where a redirect is merely "about as likely as usual", a redirect is practically *mandatory* unless someone already knows about the name--you lose the chance of someone typing "Totak" and seeing the page name in the suggestion box.)

~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 14:06, September 21, 2025 (EDT)
If this page is going to remain titled "Totaka's Song" (though given how the proposal is going so far a rename seems like it's very much in the cards), I'd recommend at least changing it to "Totaka's song" (with a small s) to be consistent with most other conjectural page titles and make it look a little less official-ish. PaperSplash (talk) 18:52, September 21, 2025 (EDT)

If the first option wins, would it be like Marimba Block, Dropdown Countdown Lift and Downpour Cloud in that the dev data template was determined to be unneeded? LinkTheLefty (talk) 13:55, October 3, 2025 (EDT)