Walking down the street, going home in the evening, with the bright orange street lights and dark blue sky above. You raise your eyes up and suddenly the desperate 'koe ni...' fills up everything around. It feels like the wind is carrying the song on its wings. It feels like the voice comes not from the earphones but from somewhere in the air, from all possible directions.
Technically, this is due to my mp3 player and earphones being of good quality. Honestly, this is because I tend to imagine things. However, my Japanese teacher told me once, when I asked her to revise the text I wrote for the speech contest: 'I like this part where you say that when you turn the music on everything you see looks like a mirage. I understand you so well.'
At first I was going to translate a song like 'Life' or maybe 'Passion' - with some romance in the lyrics and wonderfully touching melodies. However, I ended up translating 'buranko'.
Together with +Арагорн Араторнович we were discussing different things concerning our lives, our past and future, and how we are getting older still unable to accomplish something meaningful, when suddenly I heard
大切のは足跡じゃない
There aren't many songs I can call my 'lifesavers'. Probably Tamura Naomi's 'Bottom Line' comes up to mind, and I also liked 'mirai no kyoudaitachi e' from 'Sakura Wars' a lot. Well, now 'buranko' is one of them.
What do people want to learn, what do they cherish
When they start running?
They wanted to know why, but they could not,
And still they were clinging to the white swing
Entrusting bodies to the flowing wind, those changeless days
They feared the unknown tomorrow
Overcoming the sadness, erasing the doubts,
The flower I grasped
Is soothing my heart each time it is hurt
Extricating my heart break
Probably, that time my feet could not reach the ground
And I was asking for too much…
Every day I was only praying for my wishes to come true,
As if on a white swing, entrusted to gods
What is important are not your footprints,
But you bare feet following your heart which treads on your present
Overcoming the sadness, erasing the hesitation,
Let us keep on walking wherever it takes
Tomorrow will be more dazzling that today,
I believe in that on my way
Overcoming the sadness, erasing the doubts,
The flower I grasped
Has the light by the name of hope,
And is pouring it into my heart strongly
Overcoming the sadness, erasing the hesitation,
Let us keep dreaming forever
Let us become a big blossom blooming in this age,
A rosebud stealing eternity
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you either give up and compromise, which may be not bad, by the way, or not. and if it really makes you feel remorse and regret, then do what Hideki tells you!
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The Japanese love to replace reading of common kanji with those of another. Here you can see 'riyuu' replaced with 'wake' which only slightly changes the meaning from 'they want to know the reason' (something exact, concrete) to 'they want to know what's what/how and why of things' (what it's all about). Also, 'mirai' - future - is replaced with 'asu' - tomorrow, which makes the 'future' less distant and implies that every new day was frightening with uncertainty.
