バラライカ (Balalaika) arrived in maimai as part of the GreeN PLUS update on July 17, 2014, and immediately stood out for reasons beyond its music. The track is a SEGA-produced cover of the second opening theme from the anime Kirarin☆Revolution (きらりん☆レボリューション), originally performed by Tsukishima Kirari starring Kusumi Koharu of Morning Musume. SEGA's arrangement, credited to composer Shigeki Sako (迫茂樹) with lyrics by BULGE, preserves the original's cheerful Russian folk-inspired melody while reimagining it with a heavier, more assertive vocal delivery courtesy of Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, a longtime SEGA sound team member known for his powerful baritone. The arrangement features balalaika-like instrumental textures that nod to the title's reference to the Russian string instrument. The song's cultural footprint extends well beyond the game. On Nico Nico Douga, a parody version titled "Yaranaika" (やらないか), a homoerotic lyric rewrite set to the song and paired with the Abo Dancers flash animation, became a viral phenomenon, amassing view counts that reportedly surpassed the original. maimai's jacket art and music video embrace this legacy head-on: the jacket depicts Mitsuyoshi in a karate gi, a direct nod to the Yaranaika imagery, while the live-action music video follows him through a day of karate training in Toyohashi, Aichi, filmed in collaboration with his real-life dojo, Hokukai (豊空会). Mitsuyoshi, then 45 years old and a 10th kyu karate practitioner, performs kata on a beach, spars with his instructor, and meditates by a river, all captured on location and later included as a making-of feature in the maimai ジューシー★おとりよせBOX DVD. On the gameplay side, the MASTER chart (level 12, designed by はっぴー) incorporates lyric-matching slide patterns that spell out phrases from the chorus: "乙女心" (otomegokoro) traces across the screen on the line "乙女心ピーンチ", "help" appears during "助けてダーリン", and "いくゾ" accompanies "乗りこえ 踏みこえ イクぞ". This kind of interpretive chart design, where slide shapes mirror lyrical content, was relatively novel at the time and remains a talking point among players.