25 years after the release of the Japanese-exclusive lifestyle-sim Roommania #203, Sega has published a message on social media about the obscure title, announcing that the "fictitious" band from the Dreamcast game, Serani Poji, has just won an award from the record label Nippon Crown.
Serani Poji, in case you're unaware, was a band created for the Sega game by musician Tomoko Sasaki (who notably worked on the music to Ristar and NiGHTS into Dreams), as well as the music producer Fukutomi Yukihiro, and the vocalist Yukichi.
It was originally created to serve as the fictional favourite band of the Roommania #203 protagonist Neji Taihei but ended up becoming a proper act after the group's debut album "Manamoon" became a success in the country prior to the release of the game.
Notably, since then, the group has been involved in several projects, being credited on the 2002 PS2 port of the Sega Dreamcast game, and its 2003 sequel New Roommania: Porori Seishun, in addition to releasing other new material. However, not all of the original members would end up sticking around to see out all of these projects.
The record producer Fukutomi Yukihiro, for instance, ended his involvement with the project in 2002, while Higashino Yumi replaced the founding member Yukichi as the band's main vocalist between 2002-2004.
According to Sega, the project won the "Streaming Hit Award" at the 2024 Nippon Crown Awards — something that is attributed to the band's music recently having a resurgence on TikTok, where songs like “Pipo Pipo” and “Where’s Smiley?” have become popular with users.