The Elite Beat Agents are an organization devoted to helping people using song and dance, operating as an independent task force headquartered somewhere in the United States of America.
Overview[]
The Elite Beat Agents operate as special agents as part of a small, independent task force. Members are capable of using song and dance to raise the morale of the downtrodden and help them overcome their problems. Agents are primarily male and wear sunglasses and dashing black suits, virtually the same color as the black gakuran of the Yuuhi Town Ouendan, and are also equipped with microphones held in their right, dominant hand. Like the two Ouendan in the Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! duology, the Agents have their own female cheerleading subdivision, known as the Elite Beat Divas. All members are assigned an identification code, with lower numbers given to the most seasoned and successful Agents.
Like the Ouendan, Agents are dispatched to their missions as a team of three people, with one leader and two backup dancers. Owing to its small size, the agency only has nine known members, comprising of a commander who leads the force, five namesake Elite Beat Agents and three Elite Beat Divas. The commander is the six-star Commander Kahn, a former CIA Agent who can also lead the Divas. He dispatches the Agents to their targets and they have multiple methods of transportation at their disposal to do so promptly and provide aid in their time of need, such as a car, jetpacks, a motorcycle with twin sidecars, a roller coaster, a banana boat, a submarine, a teacup ride and a rocket glider. Despite being located in the United States, the Agents can serve overseas if a situation calls for it.
The Agents can supersede local authority, as evidenced by how they use their dancing skills to help a taxi go fast and evade law enforcement to help deliver a pregnant woman to a hospital in the mission "Hey, Taxi! To the Hospital, and Hurry!!" and their appearance is seldomly acknowledged by any parties involved in their missions. The Agents do not physically interfere with anyone's affairs, perhaps under strict orders, with one known exception during the Rhombulan invasion, as seen in the first part of the mission "No More Music!? The Last Hope!!", in which they leap into the line of fire of the aliens' petrification beam to protect a crowd of rebels whom they rallied to fight back while under captivity.
Members[]
- Agent Chieftain (BA-1), leader of Sweatin' (hard) difficulty
- Agent J (BA-2), leader of Cruisin' (medium) difficulty
- Agent Morris (BA-3), backup dancer
- Agent Derek (BA-4), backup dancer
- Agent Spin, leader of Breezin' (easy) difficulty
History[]
The Elite Beat Agents' first known assignment was to use their dancing skills to help a babysitter do her duties taking care of three children on her off day and still maintain a relationship with a star football receiver from her school. They then respond to calls for help from various sources, including a director under pressure to make his movie a next hit, a sailor trying to look for treasure and a newscaster trying to keep her day off sunny for her son. Other unusual problems they have been called to resolve include guiding a dog who has accidentally wound up hundreds of miles from home, helping a ninja retrieve stolen car plans from a car company that rivals his father's and even rallying a white blood cell army to secure a sprint runner's immune system just in time for a crucial contest.
Following these incidents, the Agents are then called to a house one snowy Christmas to help comfort a girl named Lucy who lost her father to an accident while he was on a business trip. With their help, she is able to bring his spirit back for one last Christmas and even get her one wished gift from him: a girlfriend for her teddy bear. The Agents are then called to resolve a few other problems, before an alien invasion suddenly arises. The whole world is threatened by an alien race called the Rhombulans, who conquer the planet and outlaw all forms of music, which they despise. Those who disobey are either petrified or locked away in detention camps.
One detention camp happens to contain all the people the Agents helped. Fed up over the Rhombulans' music ban, they scream for the Agents' help and they arrive to rally the prisoners to fight back against the Rhombulans. The Rhombulan leader takes notice and aims a large petrification ray at them, but the Agents step into the line of fire and are turned to stone instead of the rebels, who are then shocked and saddened by their sacrifice. As silence fills the air, they decide to chant the acronym of the Agents to reverse the petrification and the Agents are freed after many shouts of "E,B,A". The Agents then rally everyone to dance and counterattack the aliens, with success.
Behind the scenes[]
The Elite Beat Agents were conceived by Keiichi Yano as part of efforts to respond to international interest in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan and its innovative gameplay for protagonists of a new game with the same mechanics. Owing to his exposure to American culture at a young age, Yano drew from influences from American popular culture to create the Agents, which were inspired by fictional heroic task forces like Ghostbusters, Men in Black, Austin Powers and the Blues Brothers. A dispatcher character with no Ouendan equivalent, Commander Kahn, was created to further flesh out the team and make the start of missions more exciting and fitting with the game's "special agent" theme.