If I have a penny for every time I felt powerless after listening to an epic 14 minutes song about the legend a boy who turned into a flower, I won’t be rich because that might only give me just about one dollar. But hey, one dollar equals to a hundred pennies! So, yeah, that’s just about the total count on how many times I have listened to this song that is so epic.
But I wonder what was all of it about. All the emotions I felt solely came from the grandiose orchestration and how it able to bring such an emotion from the arrangement alone. Heck, I didn’t even read the lyrics, and knowing that it’s in Japanese, I knew that I need to ready myself for some in-depth prose analysis. I mean, c’mon, Japanese has too wide of a repertoire of words and terms that on surface level, they have just about the same meaning. But doing some analysis on the kanji, radicals, and etymology, turns out there are more things that what it shows. Maybe that is why when you say “lyrics” in Japanese, which is written using 歌詞, the 詞 part can be translated as “poetry”, which is probably why some actually good song has this deep meaning attached to it. Yet, I still feel powerless because Japanese is fucking muzukashii. Like, they tend to overcomplicates thing a lot, and the majority of the audience won’t notice the small details anyway. It’s only marketed towards those that are real nerds, geeks, otaku, and some people with too much of free time.
Or people in denial of other deadlines that they tend to make themselves have free time. Anything goes.
So here I am, doing an attempt on analyzing a song that has it’s own saga. It is, probably, an overdone attempt on musikalisasi puisi, which is turning a poetry into a music. I don’t know the correct term in English. Gosh, I need to study deeper on English even, smh.
花になった少年の神話 – The Legend of A Boy Who Turned into A Flower
The close translation would suffice, and it’s as straightforward as it is. The song, spans for about 8 sections, tells a story of a boy who turned into a flower. It’s unclear as the action were done figuratively or literally, as it has the writing style of a folklore. And many details are left as vague as possible as this is probably a folklore, a legend, that already went through so many alterations.
Let’s just jump into the prologue, or the first section.
I プロローグ
それはそれは遠い昔の物語
遥かな国のお話
眩しい空の下で太陽の神(僕)と少年(君)は出逢った 二人は幸せだった…
「もう一度巡り逢えたら… もう一度声が聞けたら… 君だけを失くしたままで 何処へゆけばいい?」
I Prologue
This is a story from long, long ago. A tale from a far-off land. Beneath the brilliant sky I [God of the Sun] and you [a boy] met by chance. We were so happy together.
“If we where to meet again just once more… if I could hear your voice just once more… Where am I to go now having lost you?”
Woah, Japanese! Of course la, it’s a Japanese song. This section is really is a prologue, and it briefly tell about our two main characters: The sun god and the boy. It lays the establishment of a bittersweet story, where you can feel the remorse, sadness, and the loneliness that the sun god felt.
Now, I don’t want to overanalyze this thing, but I was particularly interested on the words choice used. めぐり合う (meguri-au), is probably the simplest form used and it translates to “to encounter”, but why does it using the alternative writing 巡り逢う in here? The only thing I found is that 合う and 逢う have different nuance, as the former only telling about the event of meeting someone, but the latter has the nuance that you only use this when meeting someone you dear. So, was it about a love story? It was not just a simple meeting and happy moments, but it was something more.
So, it is, a love story.
II 雲の女神
鮮やかに緩やかに陽光を貪りながら 運命は残酷の楽園へと崩れ落ちた
愛し合う者は周囲の嫉妬を呼び起こすもの 彼らの仲を
雲の女神は許さなかった
「SAY!SAY! 愛して
SAY!SAY! 見つめて
SAY!SAY!私に跪きなさい
SAY!SAY! 誰より
SAY!SAY! 私こそ一番美しい…!」
奪われた躯に 女神の爪痕が 狂気に侵された
喜劇の蜃気宴(ミラージュ) 少年は変わらず彼を待ち続けた
愛しき者が捕らえられたと知らずに…
Okay, we now are getting into the real shit. The second section, “The Cloud Goddess”, introduces another character which could probably the antagonist of the story. Now, let’s go to sub-section analysis because holy damn Japanese is hard.
鮮やかに緩やかに陽光を貪りながら 運命は残酷の楽園へと崩れ落ちた
As the vivid and gentle sunshine devours [us], our fate crumbles into the paradise of cruelty
愛し合う者は周囲の嫉妬を呼び起こすもの 彼らの仲を雲の女神は許さなかった
Those who love each others evokes jealousy to the Cloud Goddess, and she didn't allow of their relationship.
Translating it into something poetic in English is hard, but from here we can see that the Cloud Goddess is filled with jealousy and she wanted our protagonist to be separated. I felt that there are no hard metaphor in the second part, and the first part is only a poetic retelling of a tragedy that bound to happen. I personally like the usage of 残酷の楽園 here, as it has “zankoku” which means cruel, and “rakuen” which means paradise. It is, a bittersweet experience, as there is no such thing as “cruel” when you’re in paradise, but there you are.
「SAY!SAY! 愛して
"Say! Say! Love me!"
SAY!SAY! 見つめて
"Say! Say! Look me!"
SAY!SAY!私に跪きなさい
"Say! Say! Kneel before me!"
SAY!SAY! 誰より
"Say! Say! No one that is..."
SAY!SAY! 私こそ一番美しい…!」
"Say! Say! ...more beautiful than me in this world!"
This is probably the monologue from the Cloud Goddess herself, as her jealousy filled her with anger and the desire of receiving such words from the boy. And yeah, the ego and narcissism is high in this one. As we arrived in the end of the monologue, the music now goes into the first chorus. The first “main event”, as to say.
奪われた躯に
女神の爪痕が
狂気に侵された
喜劇の蜃気宴(ミラージュ)
With the body [of the boy] the goddess has stolen, she carved madness into him.
An amusing [mirage] of tragedy.
少年は変わらず彼を待ち続けた
愛しき者が捕らえられたと知らずに…
Unchanged, the boy kept waiting for him
Without knowing his beloved had been taken away...
Yes!, some action! and holy shit, my first assumption were already crumbled here as the boy is using 彼 instead of 彼女, which means that his beloved is... yes, not a goddess.
Haha, I’ve been translating and cried over a BL folklore. :’D
But let’s continue, shall we? :’D
:’D
But for the record, there is no strict regulation on using a gendered pronoun here as the concept of god and goddess in folklore are often intertwined. Same story, different version, different retelling. Though, I want to believe. I wanted to believe.
Back to the analysis, the conflict is now clear, the main antagonist is now clear. The first part was pretty hard to translate because 女神の爪痕 (megami no tsumeato) is really vague. It translates to “the goddess’ claw marks”. Knowing the poetic upbringing, this is a symbolization of the goddess’ solid action, not just leaving a scratch, but to actually leaving something deep within. It could be also be the metaphor of the goddess’ jealousy, as to link with the previous stanza. 喜劇の蜃気宴 has 喜劇 (kigeki) which means “comedy’, and 蜃気楼 (shinkirou) where the last kanji is changed into 宴 (utage). The last part is then being read as ミラージュ “mirage”. So, “an amusing mirage”, but with the utage part is being inserted, it would point to the “banquet” of “mirage of comedy”… or “an amusing banquet of illusion”. Though, knowing the tragedy that is brewing, I’m going to translate it into “an amusing [mirage] of tragedy”.
These kind of wordplays are the thing that makes learning Japanese interesting, though, sadly it’s an express ticket to the paradise of headache.
III 媚薬の森の魔女
「ようこそお待ちしていたわ。ここは媚薬の森
全てを忘れてここでさぁ愉しみましょう
お休みなさい 可哀想な太陽の神よ
お休みなさい 女神が戻って来るまで」
ほの暗い森のなか太陽の神は目を醒ました
風の精が囁いた 「大変よ 女神は少年のもとへ行ってしまったわ」
"Welcome, I have been waiting for you. Here is the forest of aphrodisiac."
"Forget everything - come, let's have fun."
"Rest, o' pitiful sun god."
"Rest, until the goddess come back."
In the midst of gloomy forest, the sun god has awakened.
The wind wisp whispered, "It's bad! The [cloud] goddess has followed the boy [into the forest]"
Damn, this is… hard… but in the context of telling which is which. This section translates to “The witch of the forest of aphrodisiac”. The word “aphrodisiac” here is strong, but definitely not in sexual manner, but as a hint that the boy has been devoured by the illusion, or the mirage as to say. It is, as clear as day, that the monologue shows the act of spitting towards the sun god, laughing above his pitiable state and his helplessness.
The hard part in here is on the section title itself. “Witch of the forest of aphrodisiac” tells that there is another character, but is she a definite character? Or is she just a product of the mirage previously mentioned? Knowing that in the context of the boy, who was sent to madness by the cloud goddess before, we’re now talking in the world surrounding the boy, and taking the PoV (Point of View) of the boy also. Being intoxicated, being seduced, we can say anything is vague. Including the witch. So by this context, the section just tells how the boy has gone even deeper into the grasp of the cloud goddess.
As we are finished with the monologue, the song also turned fast, with heavy percussion that aims to raise the tension. We are then being brought to the perspective of the sun god, who has just awakened, getting the bad news about the boy. Now that is just unfortunate.
Chapter Break
Now, now, I want to continue with the rest of the song, but as I proceed, turns out the song 「花になった少年の神話」is directly connected with the song in the same album 「奏愛カレンデュラ」. It’s also the only other song in the same album. Knowing Ceui, which is already a veteran in writing song for so many bishoujoge out there, I just know she cooked something.
But surprise, surprise! 奏愛カレンデュラ is the ending theme for the second season of anime “Hakkenden”, where the source material is from a shoujo manga.
So it’s indeed, a BL song.
Let me take a brief moment into internalizing what my days of effort had turned into, and what my tears had went to. This is the same feeling when listening “Yoru no Kakeru” by YOASOBI, knowing it’s a bop, then learned that the lyrics is about suicide. And “Shoujo Rei” by mikitoP which is also about a girl couple and jumping into the train.
Gosh, why Japanese are like this.
Also, I might need to actually check the alleged source material, although it might or might not be related at all with the music itself, but hey, having more context is better than none, any?
Anyways, I’ll see you again in the next part of this overanalyzed song analysis.
