Asian Addicts Anonymous

Hello everyone! Chani-chan here – you can call me Chani – and this is my first Song Translation Blog Post for Asian Addicts Anonymous! I actually fully intend to do some anime reviews and the like, one of these days, and I’ve had a blog post on “Evangelion 1.0” sitting around for months, but while I continue to procrastinate and fear the idea of a massive review blog, I shall brush up on my Japanese by doing song translations!

Just so everyone knows my background, I studied abroad in Japan for one semester in the fall of 2006 and I have about two years training in the language, making me a beginning/intermediate speaker as it is such a hard language to learn. Unfortunately, 2006 was quite a long time ago and I fear I might lose the language through lack of adequate practice, which would be a terrible tragedy! 😦 Thus, NeeNee has provided me with this blog translation opportunity and I think it’ll be a lot of fun. However, please do note that the translations may have mistakes, especially some of these earlier ones. Still, I will try my best and I think the general meanings will get through! After all, Japanese songs are often quite abstract, and the one that follows is most definitely NOT an exception to that rule – LOL!

This song translation was requested by NeeNee. I will take requests (as long as you can send me the song music file to listen to as well as the kanji lyrics) and I will also pick some of my own songs. Today’s song is “Curse of Contract” by Misaruka.

Translation Format is as follows:

Kanji

(Romanji)

(English Translation)

If this format is too weird or hard to follow just let me know and I’ll try something different next time 🙂

Translation notes at specific lines are marked with superscript numbers and addressed at the bottom of the page, along with some translation choice explanations, as translation is often more art than science and, again, some songs can be quite abstract, like this one.

-CURSE OF CONTRACT-

Lyrics/Music: rui

Arrangement: ミサルカ (Misaruka)

もう何も感じない
(Mou nanimo kanjinai)
(I can’t feel anything anymore)¹

“人間の足”は
(“Karitome no karada” wa) ???²
(The human body)²

慰めなら…もう何も聞きたくもない
(Nagusamenara… Mou nanimo kikitakumonai)
(If it is a comfort …I don’t want to hear anything anymore)¹

あぁ…暗い部屋で
(Aa…Kurai heya de)
(Ahh…in a dark room)

独り泣き濡れても
(Hitori naki nuretemo)
(Although I’m crying alone)¹

誰も私の声
(Daremo watashi no koe)
(Everyone’s and my voice)

聴こえはしないのだから…
(Kikoe wa shinai no dakara…)
(I can’t hear, but…)¹

あぁ…貴方に
(Ahh…Anata ni)
(Ahh…to you)

いつかこの想い届きますか？
(Itsuka kono omoi todokimasuka?)
(Will this feeling reach you someday?)¹

伝える”声”も持たぬ
(Tsutaeru “sume”mo motanu³
(I also hold the reported “voice”)^1,3

私のこの想いを
(Watashi no kono omoi wo)
(This feeling of mine)

¹Throughout the song I will be inserting interpretational pronouns at all lines that have a 1 superscript. At least, that’s what I’m calling them. Here, for instance, I translate the first line as “I can’t feel anything anymore”, but the word “I” was never used. Japanese sentences very often do not contain a subject, so they can be talking about “I” or “you” or “he” or “she” or “they” or whoever, it is either left to interpretation or can be found in context. In songs, it’s sometimes hard to know whether the singer is talking about themselves or another person in the lyrics and whether it even necessarily matters. Generally, I translate to “I” in sentences like this (though sometimes I use “you”), but you may feel differently and that’s okay ^_^ – if a line doesn’t have a 1 superscript but it does have a pronoun then that means the pronoun was actually in there. “Watashi” means “I” and “Anata” means “you” (Just don’t run around calling random people “Anata” because that particular “you” pronoun is usually reserved for the romantic context!)

²Often, in Japanese songs, a different reading is given for a common kanji. Usually the readings are related in some way, such as using the word for “soul” when the kanji for “mind” is used, or something like that. That seems to be the case here. UNFORTUNATELY, however, the reading they use for the kanji here is listed NOWHERE in the actual lyrics page! Usually they list furigana (small characters) above the kanji letting you know how you should read it, but they don’t here, so I was forced to listen and try to figure out what they were saying. The kanji in the quotes is “Ningen no ashi” which translates to “Human legs” or “Human feet”, but they seem to be saying “Karitome no karada” or “Karetome no karada”. “Karada” means “body” but I have NO IDEA what the other word is, so I took a middle road here and translated it as “The human body”.

³The kanji used in the quotes here is “koe” or “voice” which is how I translated it, but it sounds like he is saying “sume” and I can’t find a translation for that in my dictionary, so… “voice” it is for lack of an alternative!

So, as you can see this song is very abstract and up to personal interpretation! The lyrics are pretty cool, though, really. I actually love abstract songs! 😀

Thanks for reading! See you next time! ^_^

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