Before annualized Guitar Heroes and Rock Bands drove the rhythm genre into the ground, Japanese developers were exploring the genre with wacky characters instead of fantasy fulfillment. Two of the most notable names are now teaming up for a new game, and our hearts are all a-flutter.

Kotaku reports that the new game, Project Rap Rabbit, is the brainchild of PaRappa creator Masaya Matsuura and Keiichi Yano from the Gitaroo Man and Ouendan series. If that second name isn't familiar to westerners, Ouendan was the Japanese series that was refitted with black-suited G-men and American pop tunes for the still-excellent and underappreciated Elite Beat Agents.

The trailer doesn't give much detail on what kind of gameplay we can expect, but we do get a good look at the character designs. The fact that this series is putting characters front-and-center indicates it's the mascot-styled rhythm game of their previous work. Both PaRappa and Ouendan featured real stories that acted as a throughline for their songs, so we can probably expect that again.