Dadaroma – A PLAIN Translation

Kanji

Translation

 

I pierced through the night sky and tried to fly.

I wanted to see a scenario I’ve never seen at least once…

But, in order to reach high places

I know you have to climb stepping over other things.

 

Even though I’m sad, I won’t cry, so my real tear have vanished away,

earnestly living is difficult,

but since I want to be earnest, I don’t care if the other laugh at me,

as long as I’m loved, being earnest is fine

so I’ll be myself.

 

I told lies and those remained forever,

when I suddenly realized that, they had piled up on my shoulders.

But it’s too late now, they won’t vanish,

if such is life, I just want to be like a child.

 

Even though I’m frustrated, I won’t cry, so my real smile has vanished away,

earnestly living is difficult,

but since I want to be earnest, I don’t care if the other hate me,

as long as I’m loved, being earnest is fine.

 

Even though I’m sad, I won’t cry, so my real tear have vanished away.

Even though I’m frustrated, I won’t cry, so my real smile has vanished away.

 

You know, there’s not just fun things,

since there are also sad things

let’s laugh and cry earnestly!

Since it’s fine even if you do something wrong, let’s just spit what we won’t to say from our guts,

as long as I’m loved, I guess being earnest is fine,

just the way you are.

 

Note and Others

I think the words “a plain” stand for the Japanese expression “ありのまま” (read “ari no mama”) meaning “the way it is” or “honestly”, which is used many many times in the song. The song itself look like the thoughts of a person who climbed a place (or perhaps a social postion) high enough to jump off of it.

ザアザア (Xaa Xaa) – キオク (Kioku) Translation

Kanji

Translation

Title: Memories

 

Someone is calling,

how nostalgic, it has been so much time,

she looks fine.

 

A long loong time ago,

we used to open up our palms

and show them to each other.

 

Today too someone called me from afar,

I opened my eyes

and there was just a earbuzz.

 

When I realized that, I had already forgo how to cry

and had been tainted by the colours of this city.

Even though I didn’t want to forget, even though I promised,

I can’t remember.

 

Who is she?

I don’t recognize her name nor her face,

how strange.

 

My chest hurts

and only the pain remains in the room,

it is so painful.

 

Recently it felt like I could reach you,

beyond the window

the sky is the same.

 

My sight has worsened,

it’s all blurry,

I want to see you.

 

I came really far, or at least that’s how I feel,

but I turned to many times, but I don’t know about that,

I forgot where I was going and even who I am,

I just keep on walking.

 

When I realized that, I had already forgo how to cry

and had been tainted by the colours of this city.

Even though I didn’t want to forget, even though I promised,

I can’t remember.

 

Someone is calling,

how nostalgic, it has been so much time

 

Don’t open your eyes.

 

Notes and other

I just assumed that the person who the protagonist cannot remember is a “she”, but can even be a “he” or whatever you like.

The song is about the main character forgetting his memories, just walking towards something without aiming at anything, unable to remember his past or his memories: the word “memories” is in fact written in katakana instead of kanji, giving a sense of distance from the speaker (as if they were just shapeless images).

Dadaroma – キスをしよう (Kiss o shiyou) Translation

Kanji

Translation

Title: Let’s kiss!

 

I set up a vague grey discussion

at the table in front of everyone

like “Ok, so who dies tonight?”

and plot on it according on how I want it to go.

 

Why are you laughing? There’s no nothing to laugh

about this funny discussion on people dying!

 

Hey, let’s kiss!

Until the night of the end of the world comes,

so that you and me can stay here, just you and me.

 

A person we don’t know hit or kicks without noticing

a landmine that someone placed,

“Ok, so who dies tonight?”

I plot on it according on how I want it to go.

 

Why are you crying? I don’t want to listen

to a sad discussion on people dying!

 

Hey, let’s kiss!

Until the night of the end of the world comes,

holding hands until we fall asleep.

 

Hey, that’s enough!

The liars saying that this rain

will stop one day are already laughing,

I kinda grew tired of it.

 

Why are you laughing? It’s better not to laugh!

It’s a dirty world where you are crying.

 

Hey, let’s kiss!

Until the night of the end of the world comes,

so that you and me can stay here, just you and me.

And then, when the world ends,

let’s just be here, you and me!

Holding our hands to fall asleep.

 

Notes and Other

A ballad in which the main characters invites the partner not to mind stupid discussion on people dying or suffering and just enjoy love, until the world ends, and then just fall asleep holding hands.

ザアザア (Xaa Xaa) – カラカラ (Kara kara) Translation

Kanji

Translation

Title: Rattling

 

I grab a scrap of paper and get outside,

sell me love, satisfy me!

 

My dream since I was a child

was to become a masked hero.

 

Empty, the sky* is lamenting that it is void*,

no matter if hold it in one hand, it suddenly falls.

Laughing, screaming, where am I?

In the burnt smoke, I feel ill,

where are you?

 

When, where have I become an adult?

What even is an adult that doesn’t understand?

I guess I’ll die without knowing,

without becoming a hero.

 

Empty, the sky* is lamenting that it is void*,

no matter if hold it in one hand, it suddenly falls.

Laughing, screaming, where am I?

In the burnt smoke, I feel ill.

 

Rattle rattle,

the rattling sound of bones

resounds in vain.

Even now, when I woke up,

where are you?

 

Notes and Other

*= the kanji used for “sky” has also the meaning for empty if read in a different way: the author is using this term to underline the fact that dreams (represented by the sky) are just empty, no matter how much we try to grasp them, they just fall from our hands.

The whole song bases on the ambivalent meaning I just explained and the similarity between the words “empty” and “rattling”: perhaps the image the author had in mind was that of someone walking through the streets aimlessly, searching for a purpose in vain, with a rattling sound as if it was already a skeleton.

Dadaroma – カリスマロックスターは売れないぜ！ (Charisma Rockstar wa urenaize!) Translation

Kanji

Translation

Title: Celebrity Rockstars don’t sell!

 

Don’t use “rock” as an excuse!

 

He’s a celebrity” “A celebrity”!

He really is a celebrity” “A real celebrity”!

 

Celebrity rockstars…

“Don’t sell, don’t sell!”

 

Those unconveyable are just masturbation

 

The next morning after a drinking night,

a woman I don’t know wakes me up.

All my friends laugh at that,

to put it in the right words “that’s rock!”

 

He’s a celebrity “It’s an excuse!”

He really is a celebrity “It’s just an excuse”!

 

Celebrity rockstars…

“Don’t sell, don’t sell!”

 

When you’ll realize that, you’ll be alone

 

“They don’t sell! They don’t sell! They don’t sell…”

 

Notes and Other

A song in which Dadaroma mock celebrity rockstars, most probably referring to the ones appearing in japanese tv programs merely for their image instead of their music: what they imply is that they have to sell their “being rockstars” because they don’t sell any more cds. And I can actually see that: some of them are old and can’t even be defined “rockstars” even if they wear such image on tv.

Dadaroma – 部屋とブラジャーと私 (Heya to Burajaa to Watashi) Translation

Kanji

Translation

Title: The room, the bra and I

 

A two floors designer apartment,

a uselessly large semi-double bed

and two un-utilized pillows,

I wait for your arrival.

 

I hide my worn out jersey,

the satin lingerie you like

is actually a bit uncomfortable.

I hide the me stretching the shoulders,

I touch your body with my experienced fingers,

I awkwardly play calm,

just like a tv drama,

a platonic love show.

 

The bra falling on the floor and the me over the bed

are almost always the same, we do look miserable to you, right?

Your love is until the next morning, until the next morning in which you will leave this room,

like a pink tailored tv drama, I’m a Tokyo Cinderella.

 

Ebisu, too fancy restaurant,

caprice-couples make me happy,

they are all escorts with not much experience, ladies first,

they hold my heart in the same way.

 

I touch your body with my experienced voice,

I awkwardly play calm,

you must not see through the play.

Please, put my lipstick on again!

As I got used to, I bring the glass,

I pretend to make my heart dance in the night scenario,

just like a tv drama,

a platonic love show.

 

I drink down my glass of wine, I drink down even cheap lies,

Will you tease me by saying that the magic was about to vanish?!

Don’t loosen our entangled fingers, don’t loosen until the end,

like a pink tailored tv drama, I’m a Tokyo Cinderella.

 

I pretend to get drunk

and give my best to act like a spoiled child,

you even see through that, don’t you?

Love me, for real!

 

A pink tailored night comes, still I wish for love,

I hide my crumbling makeup, a melancholic show.

I take off my worn out shoes and throw them away, barefoot I jump off

and run away from your castle, to a platonic love show.

 

The bra falling on the floor and the me shaking over the bed

are almost always the same, we do look miserable to you, right?

I’m embraced by your lies, I too strive for love,

like a pink tailored tv drama, I’m a Tokyo Cinderella.

 

Well, perhaps just a side character.

 

Notes and Other

A song sung from the perspective of an escort in Tokyo which, to escape from his prison, jumps off the apartment where she usually welcomes her customers.

Dadaroma – 蛍 (Hotaru) Translation

Kanji

Translation

Title: Fireflies

 

I found them in a summer sunset, at a side of the brilliant red stage.

 

The full moon sleeps and the sirens ruin it.

The full moon and the sirens threaten us.

 

There’s a place that only the fireflies dancing near the water can see,

I hold your hands before our strength weakens.

 

There’s a place that only the fireflies dancing near the water can see,

Let’s go for a walk holding our hands!

 

In the current of the river flowing blandly

one, two leaves of trees with no sunlight,

as if it was a promise to be carried to a secret place,

the same promise that children at the park make.

 

The small lights vanish one after the other,

as if the night was become lighter,

the crows collect the trash and pollute the city,

it’s just us left, uh?*

Morning will soon come

while I desperately grasp your fingers.

 

There’s a place that only the fireflies dancing near the water can see,

I hold your hands before our strength weakens.

 

There’s a place that only the fireflies dancing near the water can see,

Let’s go for a walk holding our hands!

 

Surely, that is a such a beautiful secret place

where nobody is.

I’ll tell just to you

the secret place just for the two of us.

 

Surely, that is a such a beautiful secret place

where nobody is.

I’ll show it just to you.

 

Notes and Other

*= looks like a joke: the crow pick up all the rubbish, but they don’t pick us up, as if we were even worse than rubbish.

A really sweet song talking about the scenery of night fireflies until the morning shared with a dear person.

己龍 (Kiryu) – 転生輪廻 (Tenshou Rinne) Translation

Kanji

Translation

Title: The circle of Transmigration

 

Before I knew it, I was thrown here,

clinging to a life in which I was about to drown,

lured by a lukewarm hand, just walking forward in a line.

 

To refuse life is a sin, to fight against death will be punished.

 

The guardian of the cow and the horse* holds tightly the reins.

 

And now, the gate of the prison open its mouth

 

“Welcome back”

 

That voice pierces me and a face glimmers,

it looks so much like me,

but it’s somehow different**,

such is the box of my sins.

 

Eating everything without distinction***

 

By eating someone else’s sins, I receive my temporary punishment in the present.

Who will devour my sins?

 

Before I knew it, I was thrown here once again, going in circles****

 

“The circle of transmigration”

 

I grief for a life I didn’t wish for, I just walk forward in a line.

 

I’m just a resentful aborted child, a single seed burst open

 

A life burnt into the flames of the jail, like a bonfire***** spitting someone’s sins,

I’ll be screw here next

when?

Where?

From where?

For what?

 

Eating everything without distinction***

 

Turning and turning, round and round,

being used until my death for sins and punishments,

has made me fond of my food.

 

Hunted down in this uninterrupted dejà-vu, loitering in some times I saw somewhere.

 

Did I kick on my own the piled up stones in the children’s limbo******?

I am tired of living… I’m tired of dying… I’m tired of killing myself.

Still, will I continue to live, die and kill myself for someone else?

 

Notes and Other

*= during the Obon recurrence, a period in which is said that the spirit of the ancestors come to visit to their household to then go back to the beyond realm, it is said that they arrive with a fast horse and go away on a slow cow. Might have some link.

**= the word here has a more negative nuance than simply “different”

***= it’s a buddhist crime and is pretty much what demons in japanese folklore do: they feel this unsatiable hunger and eat other living beings, perpetrating their sins again sentient beings.

****= the word used here was also used in the past to indicate a method of praying consisting in walking in circles around a temple.

*****= so, I think this sentence needs some visual representation: like this. The structure of the bonfire looks like a prison’s bar and the spitted out sins are the small sparkles jumping outside from the bonfire.

******= the children’s limbo of Buddhism is the shore of a river on which aborted child “play” by piling up stones for eternity: they cannot get out from there because they had no chance to achieve enlightenment. Sometimes demon pass by there and kick down their stone tower and some other times some children resentful for the sins they are not responsible for ( but still have to pay for) turn into demons.

The song is about an aborted children turned into a demon and its destiny of dying and being rebirth innumerable times. Being a demon, it has an unsatiable hunger and preys upon anything, killing it and perhaps giving it a better chance for a rebirth closer to enlightenment. On the contrary, the demon-children keeps repeating its sins and so keeps being reborn in the same existence, condemning itself to such suffering, waiting for someone to free him by “eating” its sins (because only a hungrier demon can kill it). Kind of gore-ish halloween like song.

Dadaroma – トゥルリラ (Tururira) Translation

 

Kanji

Translation

 

A baby’s first cry sounds like a scream.

 

The divine providence of nature is a playing music sheet,

there’s no meaning in questioning the meaning of life.

 

If you listen closely to the melody of the stars,

both laughing and crying will have no meaning.

 

Tururirurara Tururirurara The rain plays its tune

Tururirurara Tururirurara and the earth jests.

Tururirurara Tururirurara People are powerless,

Tururirurara Tururirurara people sing, people pray.

 

Inside this grace we have been bestowed, we discuss many theories,

but there’s no daybreak to our days of agony.

 

Why do people fight, even though it has no meaning?

Why do people hate, even though it has no meaning?

Why do people suffer, even though it has no meaning?

Why do people mourn, even though it has no meaning?

 

“Inside the divine providence of Nature, humans are just powerless small existences.

People devote to such grace, they born and die and that’s it.

The fact that laughing or suffering are meaningless doesn’t count anything at all.”

Tururiturirurira Sing! Dance!

Such a powerless life! Tururirara

 

Tururirurara Tururirurara Diseases visit again

Tururirurara Tururirurara and the time flows by.

Tururirurara Tururirurara People are powerless,

Tururirurara Tururirurara people sing, people pray.

 

A meaningless life is born

A meaningless life vanish

A meaningless morning comes

A meaningless night comes

 

Notes and Other

A song about the meaningless of existence, more precisely human’s existence. We are such small presences in such a big universe, continuing a process that to our eyes looks so long but that is nothing compared to the (estimated) age of our universe. And in such a small time we managed to develop and evolve, but also to become so confident to elaborate theories and theories to explain with our restricted perspective on things way bigger than us: meaningless theories. Why do we fight? Why do we suffer? What is happiness? What is sadness? We kept asking such question to ourselves, answering worthlessly innumerable times, and what have we achieved? Nothing valuable outside our sphere of existence. We keep fighting, we keep suffering, we keep singing and praying, disaster repeats just as history and time flow by, and one day our existences will end: does the way it will end change something? No.

And still, Nature perfection turns into a beautiful melody, while humans can only make noise, just like as when we are born: a scream.

 

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三浦大知 (Daichi Miura) – Blizzard Translation

 

 

 

Kanji

Translation

 

A monochrome field,

it’s dark even in the morning,

a frozen atmosphere,

and lined up blocks of ice.

 

“Conform!”

such we are told

a happiness just like all the others,

but before you know it even your breath freezes.

 

Here, amidst the great ices,

lies the shell of an heart closed in itself since who knows how many years.

The pressure cramming in the gases makes an irregular reflection,

and my heartbeat inquires me.

 

A mighty soaring wall,

for whom do we cross over it?

Oh Oh Oh Oh Aim at yourself*

Instead of the common right solution,

there’s one and only answer,

Oh Oh Oh Oh The one to choose it

is no one else but you,

now towards the future you can only find here!

 

I looked faintly

at the contour of the tomorrow,

the pieces I gathered

don’t match.

 

The sun shines bright

on the invisible absurdities

growing stronger in this world,

in my heart boil hot blazes.

 

Here, amidst the great ices,

lies the shell of a hearts moisted by water vapours.

The light seeping out from it makes an irregular reflection

and illuminates everything in this universe.

 

A mighty soaring wall,

for whom do we cross over it?

Oh Oh Oh Oh Aim at yourself*

What you carry on your shoulder

is the life you keep in your hands.

Oh Oh Oh Oh The one to seize it

is no one else but you,

now towards the future yours and yours only!

 

A small world,

the cover closes on it,

a withered dream,

the ivy entangles it,

a dense fog,

scream,

now,

and blow away everything

like a blizzard!

 

Break the ice
Break the ice
Break the ice now

Break the ice
Break the ice
Break the ice now

 

A mighty soaring wall,

for whom do we cross over it?

Oh Oh Oh Oh Aim at yourself*

Instead of the common right solution,

there’s one and only answer,

Oh Oh Oh Oh The one to choose it

is no one else but you,

now towards the future you can only find here!

 

The tale continues…

 

Notes and Other

Words in Italic are in English in the original lyrics.

*=in the meaning of aiming as a goal.

The new theme song for the OVA of Dragonball by Daichi Miura. While the theme is classic one of “the awakening”, I can see how the song was written starting by some images of the movie itself: perhaps the shell of the heart imprisoned in the ices might be Broly’s, and suddenly, when he awakens there’s an intense light illuminating the skies. And the last line too, really hints to the “tale of the sayans”.

The rest is pretty much as one can read.

Catchy and strong paced, I think it catches the atmosphere of setting, but I don’t know how well will it match the images of the movie which, I’m quite sure, will be mainly fighting scenes with the characters screaming and so on (not to discriminate on the anime or anything though).

 

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