Taiko and Taiko no Tatsujin

Taiko (太鼓^?) means "drum" in Japanese (etymologically "great" or "wide drum"). Outside Japan, the word is often used to refer to any of the various Japanese drums (和太鼓, "wa-daiko", "Japanese drum", in Japanese) and to the relatively recent art-form of ensemble taiko drumming (sometimes called more specifically, "kumi-daiko" (組太鼓)). The performances can last between 5 and 25 minutes and typically follow a jo-ha-kyū (beginning, middle, end/rapid, sudden, urgent, and emergency) structure, which means the performance will speed up significantly towards the grand finale.

Taiko no Tatsujin (太鼓の達人^?) is a series of rhythm games created by Namco. The series has seen releases for the arcade, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Wii, iOS, Advanced Pico Beena, and mobile phones.

There have been many releases of the game in Japan, and one North American release under the name Taiko: Drum Master. Due to the nature of the series, there were no other releases outside of Japan.

The arcade version of the game is featured in the films Lost in Translation and Wasabi.
Taiko no Tatsujin's famous song, Saitama 2000, is featured in the arcade music game Music GunGun.