UNISON SQUARE GARDEN's "Sugar Song and Bitter Step" (シュガーソングとビターステップ) served as the ending theme for the 2015 anime adaptation of Blood Blockade Battlefront (血界戦線), the supernatural action series from Trigun creator Yasuhiro Nightow. Composed and written by vocalist-guitarist Tomoya Tabuchi, the song balances driving pop-rock energy with a bittersweet lyrical edge, a duality reflected in its title. The track debuted in the maimai series on June 30, 2016 as part of maimai PiNK PLUS, classified under the POPS & ANIME genre. Nearly three years later, on July 11, 2019, it received a full set of DX charts at the launch of maimai でらっくす. Its availability, however, was limited by licensing terms: the song was removed from Chinese cabinets starting with 舞萌DX 2021, from Asian-region cabinets starting with maimai DX UNiVERSE, and from all regions worldwide on March 24, 2022. Players who did not acquire it before that date can no longer play it on official hardware. Beyond maimai, "Sugar Song and Bitter Step" appeared in two other SEGA rhythm games, CHUNITHM (from CHUNITHM PLUS onward) and オンゲキ (from its first chapter), making it one of the relatively few tracks to bridge all three major SEGA arcade rhythm-game lines. The maimai charts were designed by two established note designers: はっぴー (Happy) handled the DX Expert, DX Master, and Standard Expert charts, while Jack authored the Standard Master chart, a dense 12+ (12.6) configuration with 887 notes and a heavy Tap-note count of 771.