#like-- that was my main reason of wanting the romaji lyrics in the first place. but then in hindsight-- and well-- in many moments

[aria0fgold]

Sorry I'm not your God (神様じゃなくてごめんね) Romaji Lyrics

Nee,

Kimi kara mite boku no kao wa

Nani iro ni mieteru no kana

Hontō wa kimi ga egaku yōna

Sunda iro nanka janainda

Monogatari no shujinkō mitaina

Seigi no hīrō no yōna

Kodo to kotoba o nazotta

Sono kekka ga ima no bokudatta dakenanda

Shinzō ni tenteki o sasu yōna utade

Asa o ikinobite wa

Yoru no omosa ni kubi o shimerare nagara

Iki mo tamerare yashinai

Nigiri tsudzuketeita shinzō mo

Dareka no bunda to shitteshimatta

Sono kuse dareka o sukuitakatta

Sore ga hontō no boku nanda

Aa,

Shōdoteki na aide sukuwaretakunai yo

Nante mie o hatte itteshimatta

Kakkoyokunakute gomen ne

Aa,

Sekai yori kimi o erabutte

Minna ni ichatta

Kono ude wa ni hon shikanai no ni sa

Kamisama janakute gomen ne

Aa,

Furimaita nasake ga

Kiba ni natte osōtekichatta

Kitto subete yuruseru to omotta

Tsuyokunakutte gomen ne

Aa,

Tsunaideta te o hanashite

Kimi o oite ichatta

Kimi o mamoru tame no hazudattanda

Kamisama janakute gomen ne

Kitto boku wa yasashii hito

Demo kimi wa boku yori yasashii hito

Yasashii hito bakari kizutsuiteiku

Kono dōshiyō mo nai sekai de sa

Kitto boku wa orokana hito

Demo kimi mo onnaji orokana hito

Dakara wakattekureru to omotta

Sore o negatteshimattanda

Aa,

Kitto boku wa yasashii hito

Demo kimi ga boku yori yasashii hito

Dōka kimi dake wa boku mitaini sa

Hikari o miushinatte shimawanaide

Kitto boku wa orokana hito

Demo kimi mo onnaji orokana hito

Dakara kimi ga nami o omōka wakaru yo

Konna ketsumatsu jaiyada yo ne

Aa,

Tsuranuita shisō ga

Dareka no kokoro o koroshichatta

Sore dake ga tadashii to omotta

Kirai ni narenakute gomen ne

Aa,

Itsu no hi ka nageta kotoba ga

Zenbu kaettekichatta

Kono ondo wa tashika ni aru no ni sa

Kamisama janakute gomen ne

Aa,

Sayonara o shinai tameni

Kōsuru shika nakattanda

Kimi no me ni tayoritaku natteshimatta

Risō ni narenakute gomen ne

Aa,

Zen jinrui o aisu nante koto wa

Dekinakatta yo

Dakara dōka boku o urandekure

Kamisama janakute gomen ne

[rubyjcat]

[Behind-the-Scenes] HELIOS Rising Heroes: Animation Showcase

“HELIOS Rising Heroes: Animation Showcase” is an English voice fan project I worked on all by myself (barring voice actors) that took five months to make.

The original plan was to make just one video, but it ended up being eighteen of them!

Link to YouTube playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0UbdFyWSx0n_ewcd-t0iAB0adGe5lghH

In this write-up, I’ll be discussing details about the response to the project, recording all the footage, video editing, voice acting + audio processing, script translations + rewriting, which fonts were used, and even the emulator used. I’ve organized it into sections to make it easier to find certain things. Also, this is directed to English-speaking readers since I’m not gonna bother translating the entire thing to Japanese.

THE DREAM

I wanted to make this fandub ever since the game was released (in Aug 2020). I just knew that English voices would be extremely fitting to the world of HELIOS with a setting inspired by America and characters, places, and terms mostly in English. I was disappointed to hear that the studio behind the game, Cacalia Studio of Happy Elements K.K., had no interest to localize their games outside of Asia, which meant the chances of an English dub, let alone a global release were close to zero.

I was able to understand how to play the game thanks to the fan translators, some of which came from other Cacalia Studio games, and got inspired to continue learning Japanese (there was a previous attempt to translate Japanese lyrics years back).

What I thought was just the silly dream of one overseas player’s became something much more!

THE TIMELINE (BRIEF OVERVIEW)

I played the game for about two months prior to working on the project. Before starting the project, I had to sort out graphical and technical issues on my end first as I was unable to play the game smoothly until November.

November 2020

Finding all the in-game battle lines

Writing transliterations (romaji) of lines by ear

Learning and translating lines to Japanese

Started recording footage

December 2020

Further translation revisions

Held a casting call

Script rewriting and finalizing

January 2021

Completed casting

Started video editing (learning process)

Started audio processing

Recorded more footage

February 2021

Recorded more footage

Japanese script revisions

Finished working with VAs

Finished audio processing

Continued video editing

Published Preview video

March 2021

Recorded the last of the footage

Japanese subtitle revisions

Finished Showcase video

Finished Individual battle clips

Gave recommendations to VAs

The exact start and end dates were Nov 1st, 2020 to March 31st, 2021. Pretty neat.

RESPONSE TO THE PROJECT

I was absolutely shocked with the response to the preview video, which at the time of writing has just hit 10K views and almost 600 likes on Twitter and YouTube combined. Not bad for an unpaid hobby fandub (a joke only I find funny...) of an otherwise “niche” Japanese-only mobile game.

As of Apr 4th, 2021 - Thank you so much. This is more than I could’ve asked for.

The preview video blew up way more than anticipated, setting up for a bit of disappointment when the Showcase video was released.

The amount of views I expected for this project within its prime were a couple hundred views, so I’m content that the Showcase video reached that amount (it had ~500 by the end of March).

The expectations for the battle clips were an average of 100 views and a handful of likes - and each one got roughly that amount (or more) - so I’m also content with that, especially for something that’s just “bonus material”.

I tried my best to promote this project on Twitter with three main tweets. My one regret with promoting the project was making the second tweet after publishing the Showcase because the Japanese I wrote there was pretty terrible (as I was all worn out from editing and was in a haste to tweet about it). I tried to make up for it in a follow-up reply the next day, but it was too late. I was satisfied with how my third and final tweet and thread of battle clips turned out, but it sadly didn’t garner much attention. A reason for this was probably due to bad timing. I knew that the timing of the last tweet was awful as HeliosR did something special for April Fools’ day, plus the Easter event was being hyped around the same time, but I really wanted to finish up the project within March (my timezone, at least. It was already April 1st in Japan).

It was important to also make the videos accessible to the Japanese audience as they were a large portion of the viewers. This proved to be a challenge as my knowledge of Japanese is limited - at least for me, it’s easier to translate grammar-correct Japanese than it is to write my own sentences.

I ultimately decided against posting any of the videos on NicoNico because I wasn’t sure about Japan’s laws regarding copyrighted material. I knew it was already risky enough posting on social media and didn’t want to take any additional risks.

ABOUT THE FOOTAGE (1) – HEROES & ATTACK ORDER

HeliosR uses a gacha system, so to be able to even make something like this, you’d first need access to all 16 ★4 OG Heroes in the game.

I had them spread across five different accounts, four of which were reroll accounts. Asakou from the Cacalia RPG server gave me two of those accounts, and I rerolled myself for Keith and Ren during their Birthday Orders (one free 10-pull per account). Every account is also given a free ★4 selector ticket which I made good use of.

3,000 rubies (in-game currency) were sacrificed to pity the ★4 OG Dino when he was released in December just for the sake of the fandub!

Besides covering all of the Heroes, I also needed to play through each account to unlock certain story chapters, event stages, and evolve the Heroes for their shiny evolved CG art. Some of the Expert event stages (that had the Nighttime backgrounds) proved difficult to clear with a new account.

When using skills, the order of the Heroes were edited such that everyone was able to have the majority of their lines used at least once. All Heroes had two “receiving support” lines, two or three “supporting” lines, and two or three “skills against the enemy” lines. Some of the extra lines didn’t make it into the Showcase, so they were used for the individual clips instead.

I should’ve used Gray instead of Marion for the account that had Billy because you can see Marion’s sprite in Billy’s image. xD

In the Showcase, you may notice that the "Union Attacks" consist of all the ★4 CG images. These were spliced together; I never had all four Heroes of the same sector on the same account. For example, I would have Gray, Asch, and Jay on one account and Billy on another account, recorded their ★4 Bursts separately using the same background (from unlocking the Expert stages on both accounts), and then edited all the footage together.

Jay’s Burst was later re-recorded with a different attacking order so that he wouldn’t link to Billy.

It was also important to keep the same order of Bursts as well as use all four Bursts in the same turn. The ★4 Burst order was usually determined by who didn’t link skill with one another (with the exception of East sector as I was still figuring things out) because I didn’t want the link skill activation getting in the way of the animations.

As a little bonus, I also showed off the exclusive damaging skills of the Chapter 6 and 7 ★4 frames that I was lucky enough to pull from the gacha: Marion’s "Invitation To The Dance“ (roses), Faith’s “Synthetic Vibes” (beats), and Dino’s “Crow Mark Dead End” (claw marks).

ABOUT THE FOOTAGE (2) - BACKGROUNDS

Since I didn’t want to use the same battle music and backgrounds for all of the videos, I decided to use some of the themes from the limited-time events which went as far back as Nov 2020.

Each background has three variants (Daytime, Afternoon, Nighttime) and so I carefully picked them based on the colours. I ended up using mostly Expert stages - or Nighttime backgrounds, since Daytime versions were only used for Normal difficulty stages (which are too easy to clear).

The backgrounds used for the Showcase, all from limited-time events.

I decided to mix up some of the Heroes from other sectors in the individual clips for fun, basing it off of their relationships with each other. Using South sector’s background for Gast’s clip was a purposeful choice because I already used the North sector’s background for the other three North sector Heroes. I made sure to include Akira and Will of the South sector in Gast’s clip so it didn’t feel too random!

The only default background I didn’t use was Chapter 2’s because I already made use of the Casino theme for OG West sector’s individual clips. (...Plus I didn’t really like that background :p)

Here’s a list of all the backgrounds I used:

Escape the Prison (Nov 2020) - used for Showcase [EAST]

Mission of CASINO (Nov 2020) - used for Junior, Faith, & Keith clips

HAPPY NEW YEAR SHOW! (Jan 2021) - used for Showcase [SOUTH]

Help! Cooking Hero! (Jan 2021) - used for Will and Oscar clips

A Sweet Spell Garnished With Chocolate (Feb 2021) - used for Showcase [WEST]

Grandiose Chinoiserie (Mar 2021) - used for Showcase [NORTH]

The Hero Is A Detective!? (Mar 2021) - used for Billy and Jay clips

Default backgrounds: Chapters 1, 3, 4 (shared with 7), 5 (shared with 6) - used for all other clips

The Christmas event was the only event that went unused during the Nov 2020 - Mar 2021 period.

I didn’t record the East sector event (Christmas) in Dec 2020 because I was actually too busy with the casting call! I also didn’t think I would make use of it after already recording the Prison event intended for East sector. The project ended up taking so long that it actually benefited from having a wider selection of events over the months, which also showcased the beauty of the game.

ABOUT THE WORK & VIDEO EDITING

Hardware:

A decent computer.

A pair of no-name earbuds I found while cleaning out some junk.

Software:

All FREE!

*There’s a catch

NoxPlayer* emulator (debloated, read more about in its own section) and Open Broadcast Studio were used to record game footage and sounds.

Davinci Resolve was the main tool I used to edit the videos. A very demanding program that I only recommend using if you have a mid to high end computer.

MediBang was used to edit some of the art like the logos, but I ended up using Resolve for the majority of the graphics, including the thumbnails.

Audacity and Cakewalk were used to edit audio.

Many aspects for this project took longer than I had hoped because there was a learning process with using Resolve for the first time. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist, re-exporting videos tons of times just to fix small mistakes. Lastly, the time it took to make all the fancy effects was longer than I’d estimated. As the project dragged on, there was pressure to not delay the release of the videos any longer than I had to. A lot of this was self-imposed though.

There were days where I just did something else other than work on the project, which helped re-fuel my motivation when I decided to pick it up again.

Pretty much everything in the videos were taken from the game itself. The only graphics that were taken from the official website instead were the Substance symbols (the pictures with HERO at the bottom).

Additional overlay graphics were custom-made. It took two whole days to make the 3-second long sector intros and another two days to create and animate the arrow graphics for the credits. These were made using Resolve’s fusion and colour features. Much of the edit was inspired by the official HeliosR designs.

Left: Official in-game graphics // Right: My fanmade video (sector intros)

Sector intros were inspired by the four Heroes version of Union Attacks in-game.

Left: Official HeliosR video // Right: My fanmade video

The Preview video took after the ★4 Burst mini-previews as part of HeliosR’s promotional campaign, uploaded before the game was released.

Left: Official HeliosR video // Right: My fanmade video

The credits at the end of the Showcase were inspired by a different video, this time being the Half-Anniversary video.

The Showcase - which had a duration of 29:07 - was 11.5GB large in size. It took almost three hours to render (which I re-rendered to fix things) and two DAYS to upload to YouTube because I experienced multiple uploading interruptions. It’s a good thing you can re-upload the same video to continue where you left off without having to restart the entire process.

The individual hero clips didn’t take as long to make (but they took a while anyway as I re-uploaded some of them to fix minor mistakes). The recommendations for the VAs that were given alongside the publishing of each clip also spanned over another five days as I wanted to personalize and think about each one carefully.

A pretty frustrating part of the project was the prevalent lag when recording footage, which may have been due to the emulator and/or some technical things on my end. The Prison event used for the Showcase was the very first one I recorded when I wasn’t as aware about the lag, and so it suffered a bit as a result. The Union Attacks were the worst offender. I re-recorded the same battle scenes several times each just in case, then went through the footage frame-by-frame in Resolve and chose the ones with the least amount of lag. If all of the recorded footage suffered lag at different parts, I would even compare and splice together parts of them that didn’t lag. There was also audio lag (a known issue of NoxPlayer) so I had to move all of the audio forward by 1/3 of a second.

By the end of the project I had over 200 videos of game footage with a total size of over 24GB and a total duration exceeding 9 hours, not even counting all the ones that went unused.

The Heroes weren’t the only ones who evolved. MS Paint not recommended for thumbnails.

Overall, (despite the few mistakes here and there that nobody other than me would notice) I was happy with how everything turned out, down to the gorgeous thumbnails! I am an artist, after all~ :^)

I also have much more respect for video editors. They should be called VIDEO ANIMATORS!

ABOUT THE VOICES & AUDIO PROCESSING

When making a dub, it doesn’t mean we want to replace or best the original language, we just want to give it a new interpretation. In fact, the characters’ voice descriptions and direction provided in the scripts were heavily inspired by the seiyuu (Japanese VAs) and how they performed their lines.

Honestly, this was THE dream cast!! Some of the VAs had comparably similar voices to the Japanese ones which was an amazing coincidence. The ones that may not have sounded as similar had unique interpretations that I felt still suited their characters well. I also chose actors based on their performance, and everyone delivered!

Voice actors were not expected to imitate the Japanese voices and lines. They were provided direction and reference videos to help time their lines, but were otherwise given liberty when it came to their own interpretations.

You shouldn’t hear any jarring differences between the voice actors’ microphones and setups. That’s because I took the time to process the audio. Faith’s audio was submitted to me post-processed so it was used as a guideline for what the audio quality should sound like. Some of the others had comparable quality to Faith’s, so I only added compression to balance their volumes. Most of them benefited from equalization of various levels - this took some experimenting back and forth with the frequency spectrum. Lastly, a couple more benefited from clip fixing, noise gate, de-essing and/or click removal. It was very important for VAs to have at least decent room treatment; while small differences between mic frequencies can always be altered, echoes are difficult if not impossible to remove completely.

I feel that audio engineering is highly underrated and more important than ever as voice actors continue to record from home studios.

And in case it wasn’t already clear, this was purely voluntary work. No VAs or myself were paid to contribute anything for the project. Though, the experience alone was worth more than any amount of money.

ABOUT THE SCRIPT & TRANSLATIONS

HELIOS Rising Heroes「エリオスR」English Translation - Battle Lines

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ImWrAfvS_hgp6qr5qt30vCP63uHEk2o79uqY0h-3wL4/edit?usp=sharing

This spreadsheet consists of the literal translations for all the battle lines I could find in the game (it still isn’t done -yet-, plan to finish it when I get the chance). These are only fanmade and are not guaranteed to be accurate, especially as I wasn’t able to find another translator to help or proofread it.

After translating the lines, I made many additional revisions from the literal meanings such as changing the intention of the line slightly to flow better, having extra words added in to provide more context, or changing them completely. Thus, the lines used in the video are NOT literal TLs!

Another thing of note that may not seem apparent, but is what I feel an important aspect of character writing, is to remain completely unbiased towards all the characters. Personal favourites aside, I ensured that every Hero had their own spotlight as well as lines written in a way that remained faithful to their personality, no matter how unlikeable they were (looking at you, Asch Albright).

Even after giving voice actors their scripts, I made another revision in February after the release of the aforementioned Half-Anniversary video with the transcriptions for the ���4 Bursts, which is when I discovered a couple of mistakes with my transcriptions. This resulted in me having to edit out a part of one of the voice actors’ lines (Billy’s “String Show” line in his ★4 Burst) because of a translation mistake! I’m really glad I was able to double-check the correct lines before releasing the Preview video, or it would’ve looked pretty silly to Japanese viewers.

The last set of revisions were just minor edits to the subtitles (such as using kanji instead of kana) while I was working on subtitling all the videos.

Notable changes included:

WILL SPROUT

During attacking combo

Original line:

tanonda zo... ike! / “Counting on you... Reach!”

Rewritten line:

“I’ll become stronger... For everyone!”

The rewritten line is a condensed version of one of Will’s ★4 Evolved CG lines (“For everyone... I’ll become more and more stronger!”). He had “Reach!” in both his attacking combo and regular Burst, so I gave him an extra unique line.

★4 Burst

Original line:

warui kedo... kore de oshimai da! / “Sorry, but... it ends with this!”

Rewritten line:

“I’m sorry, but... it’s over for you! HAAAH!”

There were a couple of oversights I made with the script, and this was one of them that didn’t fit the animation properly. Props to Ryan for coming up with the extra shout at the end! So yeah, we kinda winged this line.

OSCAR BALE

When using skills against the enemy, during attacking combo, and in the ★4 Burst (repeat line)

Original line:

osoi! / “Slow!”

Rewritten lines:

“Too slow!” / “You’re slow!” / “Over here!”

Rewritten simply because I wanted to minimize repeated lines and change things up.

GAST ADLER

When supporting an ally, and during attacking combo

Original lines:

tetsudau ze / “I’ll help (you).”

itchouagari / “All done.”

Rewritten lines:

“I’ve got your six.”

“Target eliminated.”

I wanted to add in a few military terms to reflect Gast’s background.

FAITH BEAMS

★4 CG line (for the credits)

Original line (literal TL):

“It’s not terrible or evil, right? Surely this isn’t punishing... I guess?”

Rewritten line (with “mistake”):

“I’m not doing anything horrible or evil, alright? This is just business as usual... I suppose?”

Faith’s CG line had a mistake when I first translated and handed it off to his actor. I accidentally wrote “oshigoto” (work/business) instead of “oshioki” (punishment). The original has him pretty much saying the same thing twice anyway, so I would say the intention was still retained.

KEITH MAX

When supporting an ally

Original line:

gambare yo~ / “Do your best~.” or “Hang in there~.”

Rewritten line:

“Stay alive, would ya~?”

I know Keith’s meant to say “serious” things in a sarcastic or snarky way, but I just had to add in this fun line!

DINO ALBANI

Using skills against the enemy

Original lines:

haa! / “Haah!”

hei! / “Hey!”

Rewritten lines:

“I can do this!”

“Leave it to me!”

The Japanese lines for Dino’s offensive skills were rather basic, with the third and unchanged line “Here goes!” being a repeat line Dino also says when attacking. I wanted to give him some more lines - as standard as they are - to show his personality a bit more, along with having an additional fun West sector interaction. The changes fit the animations better too. (I actually had his VA say the "Haah!" line, but ended up using a different take of “Here goes!” in place of it.)

ABOUT THE FONTS

Fonts were taken from various sources and were either FREE for personal use or had an open font license. I didn’t have access to the commercial fonts (such as Futura) used in-game, so these were the following fonts I made use of:

Techna Sans looked similar enough to Futura when capitalized, and still looked decent in lowercase.

Jost* is a font that was derived from Futura. Some of its uppercase letters are sharper than Futura's, but it worked pretty well for the text in the credits.

Gau Font Over Drive was used for the ANIMATION SHOWCASE text.

Gen Jyuu Gothic LP was used for the majority of the Japanese text and its English letters were also used for the battle clip subtitles on Twitter.

Meiryo UI (default font) was used for the Preview videos’ subtitles.

Noto Serif JP (default Google font) was used for the serif Japanese text in the credits.

ABOUT NOXPLAYER ANDROID EMULATOR

ETA: AS OF VERSION 1.1.18 (04/23/21), EMULATORS NO LONGER WORK WITH HELIOSR (AS WELL AS OTHER CACALIA STUDIO GAMES). THE BELOW INFORMATION IS OUTDATED.

If, for whatever reason you’re interested in using NoxPlayer, you should take caution when installing it onto your machine. I don’t advocate for or recommend installing Nox. I had to resort to emulation so that I could record the footage and sounds directly from my computer using OBS. The reason why I used Nox specifically is because Cacalia Studio doesn’t like emulators, blocking most of them from running their games. I found further instructions on how to run the game in Nox from the Cacalia RPG Discord (via Twitter @HeliosR_en).

First, not all Nox versions are safe. It should only be installed from the official website, Bignox. More recent versions (I believe from 6.3.0.6 and up) may contain malware such as Segurazo and Chromium packaged with the installer which can be annoying to remove. The version of Nox I used was 6.3.0.0 (you can install older versions, then just don’t update it), which has Android 7 and doesn’t contain packaged malware (AFAIK).

Second, NoxPlayer may be “free” to use, but it comes with bloatware and profits off of its users’ data by collecting and sending it to many different servers. The below guide is what I used to debloat Nox and minimize communication to these servers. Scroll down the comments for additional domains to add to the hosts file.

Debloating & Optimizing Nox:

https://gist.github.com/Log1x/12d330ef7685d6fbc611d1d57efb5c29

This is another good guide that makes use of command prompt to remove additional bloatware from the emulator.

How to Remove Bloatware on Nox and LDPlayer Emulator:

https://codefaq.org/emulator/how-to-remove-bloatware-on-nox-and-ldplayer-emulator/

ENDING NOTES (TL;DR)

Images of the first and last video for the HeliosR project. We’ve come full circle!

One very tired and average person decided to translate, script, cast, direct, and edit an ambitious project all by herself using only FREE tools, and ended up taking too long to finish it. But at least she finished it, right?

Translators = RESPECT

Voice actors = RESPECT

Video editors = RESPECT

Audio engineers = R E S P E C T (their work is especially behind-the-scenes)

Hell, I even like Asch now.

During my time working on this, there was one question I always had in mind: “What would the fans want?”

I hope this follow-up has given you a bit of insight into the makings of the HeliosR project. Thank you for reading!

~RubyJCat

[ioasaya]

Haruki Sakura’s Message

Spoilers for part 3 under the cut. And by part 3, I mean to the very end of part 3. You’ve been warned.

Okay so remember Sakura Message? And how Haruki had apparently relayed a message to Nagi via the song’s lyrics?

Someone on Twitter figured it out, and though they’re not 100% certain, I think it makes sense, and I’ve gotten their permission to translate it (it’s not 100% accurate, but I’ll do my best to get the gist of the deduction across!!)

Original Tweet (@kiorish)

Full cipher break in Japanese

※ In a magazine interview, lyricist Masaki-san stated that “The truth is that the gimmick is set in ‘Sakura Message’“.

※ In order to break the cipher, I’ve used song lyrics.

※ This is simply me playing at deductive reasoning. Please remember that this is not intended to be the absolute truth and may not be accurate.

Regarding the deduction,

I started at the solo parts sung, beginning from Nagi at the end of the song.

[[In order to make it easier on those who can’t read kanji, or suck at it like me, I’ve included romaji and turned all kanji to hiragana, and separated the romaji to correspond with each hiragana character.]]

(Nagi) いつでもキミをひそやかにおもってる [[I tsu de mo ki mi wo hi so ya ka ni o mo t te ru]]

(Yamato) そのこころがとじこめたかなしみも [[So no ko ko ro ga to ji ru ko me ta ka na shi mi mo]]

(Iori) さいて [[Sa i te]]

(Mitsuki) そして [[So shi te]]

(Sougo) ちにかえる [[Chi ni ka e ru]]

(Tamaki) うすべにの [[U su be ni no]]

(Riku) 一ちずさでつつむから [[I chi zu sa de tsu tsu mu ka ra]]

(All) 気づけばこんなに今日の世界を 伝えるための言葉が並んだね [[OP didn’t use these lines in the same way so I’m not transliterating it]]

Words that describe the world today are lined up, so assume the answer is hidden here. Next, from the lyrics each member sings, extract one hiragana character like so:

ナギ　６　「ミ」 [[Mi]]

]大和　２　「の」 [[No]]

一織　１　「さ」 [[Sa]]

三月　３　「て」 [[Te]]

壮五　５　「る」 [[Ru]]

環　　４　「に」 [[Ni]]

陸　　７　「つ」 [[Tsu]]

[[Okay, so in this part, OP takes the hiragana that corresponds to each member’s number from their respective line. e.g. Nagi’s number is 6, and the 6th character in his line is the katakana ミ , and Mitsuki’s number is 3, and the third character in his line is て .]]

Then take those characters and write them in romaji, and break the anagram.

MI NI SA TE RU NI TSU

↓  Pic of the anagram

N SI NI SO U MA T TE RU

N SINISOU MATTERU

N 死にそう　待ってる

ナギ　（春樹が）死にそう　待ってる

Nagi, (Haruki)’s dying, he’s waiting for you.

Sakura Message’s chorus/main is not the work of the usual in-verse i7 lyricist, but “threatened and written-in”.  [[They definitely talked about this in the last (two?) chapters, when Nagi began confronting Natsume proper.]]

Natsume called it “ironic”. [[In game, when talking about Sakura Message, Natsume used the phrase「皮肉」 , “hiniku”. But I don’t understand Natsume like half the time he talks because he’s so damn cryptic so  (シ_ _)シ]]

This is directed at Nagi: Haruki, who seems to be dying, is waiting at the place where “Today’s world = reality, the present”. Since Nagi didn’t notice this hidden message at all, Natsume calls it ironic.

...So it seems. 

T/N: I’m dy in g.

First of all, nothing we didn’t already know from the actual story (I think?) but I thought this was really cool.

Uh, yeah, I’ve basically just included notes up there so.

But yes, please go give きおさん props because this really is amazing.

SOMETHING TO NOTE I ALMOST FORGOT

The romaji for 死 is technically “shi”, but if you type “si” into a Japanese keyboard, you get し, which IS “shi”.

EDIT: there are more Sakura Message deciphers??? do i want to translate them. I just took a look at the first line in the other one and uh. is. is part 4 going to involve more violence. or like. politics. because that’s what it seems like if this 2nd cipher is right aljfka

[maryannemagnolia-blog]

Hisashi Imai + Sayoko Takahashi interview translation

From Rockin’on Japan September 1992 or BT8992

Sayoko Takahashi was the vocalist and main lyricist of the new wave band Zelda. The name Zelda was taken from Zelda Sayre, they are famous for being one of the very first all-girl bands in Japan, and of course, the members wrote lyrics, music and played instruments themselves. In my opinion, they were one of the best in the 80s Japanese new wave scene. The band was formed in 1979, made their major debut in 1982, disbanded in 1996.

Takahashi was born in 1964, joined the band in 1980. She has also released works as a solo singer, now she is in a band named Sayokootonara.

Sorry for the possible mistakes in this translation, including spelling and grammar ones. All I can say is that my translation won’t create big misunderstandings.

I = Imai

T = Takahashi

Interviewer = Tetsushi Ichikawa

Hisashi Imai + Sayoko Takahashi

We are new wave fellows

B-T and Zelda. Man and woman. Science and primitivity.

Countryside and metropolis. Even with all those differences, they are still of the same race, an interview of “the two motherlands”.

—Imai, when was the first time you listened to Zelda?

I: 1st grade at high school, it was their first album.

T: I was 17 years old then.

—You are close in age.

I: I bought many Japanese new wave records like Ippu-do and Lizard around that time. I knew the name Zelda, but their records were not easy to find in Gunma.

—What’s your first impression of Zelda?

I: impression...their music was pop, but with a strong metallic feeling.

T: Ah, metallic.

I: I love every song on the first album.

—So you are a passionate Zelda fan.

I: I was a fan!

T: “Was”?

I: Hyahahahah

T: He let it slip. I once met him in Okinawa, he told me “I like your first three albums.”

I: I’m sorry.

—But Imai felt much regret after that, didn’t he?

I: Yes.

T: Please just tell us your true feelings.

—It was the “book girl era” of Zelda, so you like Sayoko’s lyrics?

I: I like them very much, such as the triple meter one with short lyrics.

T: Ah, “If you go to buy peace~”

I: Yes, yes, yes, yes, this one.

—”The development area is always in twilight”.(Note: It’s the name of the song, “開発地区はいつでも夕暮れ”) Many people say “the old Zelda was better”, it seems Zelda have a cult following, however, as someone who has already been making music for ten years, wouldn’t you get angry at those comments?

I: Ah

T: But when people says that...

I: So you did get angry.

T: No, no. I have thought the same about other bands. If we can continue making music, and make something even better, maybe one day we will return to our old sound. Times revolve, continue creating is the most important thing, we shouldn’t be defeated by the complaints.

I: I think your sound went through a significant change in the 3rd album.

T: Yes, it changed in Sora-iro Boshi no Hi. You like the 2rd album better, don’t you?

I: But the 1st album is still my favorite.

—He annoys people. Anyway, in 1981, Zelda seemed to be so innovative, the lyrics, the sound, the appearance all had that aesthetic feeling.

T: We have attracted the most attention because we are girls, but during that period, there were also many boys bands who were very innovative in both music and the way of being.

—But among all those bands, only Zelda continues to exist in the original form till today.

T: Hm, among the Tokyo Rockers, Friction and S-KEN have been active in their original forms as well. (Note: Tokyo Rockers = bands who played in S-KEN studio in the late 70s, “Tokyo Rockers” was the name of gigs they held in that studio, later they made a complication live album with same name.)

I: Here come the great names.

—Then Sayoko, When did you know B-T’s name?

T: When we were recording Sora-iro Boshi, our former manager brought us the self-made record, the one with black-and-white cover, on which Sakurai-kun had his hair put up.

I: Ah, ah!

T: He bought us that record, said, “Those people like your music.”

I: I’m very glad. It’s “TO SEARCH” from Taiyou Records.

—What’s your feeling about it?

T: I’m sorry, to be honest, I didn’t have much of an impression.

I: ......

T: But, but I bought many bands’ many records at that time, I’ve forgotten almost all of them, I only remember BT’s, the cover was so cool.

—Hahahaha. You are about the same age, and your musical experiences both began with new wave.

I: Ah, yes. For me, it’s Japanese new wave bands, YMO, The Stalin, we were a Stalin copy band at the beginning. (Note: I think everyone already knows that, but Stalin was the name of a band)

T: It’s absolutely amazing. For me it’s foreign music, I was obsessed with Patti Smith, listened to her again and again. When I was in middle school, I thought, “Someday I will surpass her as a singer.” Then one day I saw the special issue of Tokyo Rockers in a magazine, I realized that even in Japan, there were people using words and music to express what I was thinking about. They wore black sunglasses and thin ties, put their hair up, all looked so stylish. I went to Shinjuku to see them. Tokyo Rockers were the first Japanese groups to give me influence, they were the direct reason that I decided to make music myself.

I: I didn’t see them in real time, I knew their name before actually listening to their music.

—Do you consider Zelda as “Tokyo Rockers Children”?

T: “After Tokyo Rockers”, together with Stalin and JAGATARA, we are the next generation influenced by them.

—Isn’t new wave a very special genre? The sense is more important than technique, knowledge and pattern.

T: Yes, 99% of me is feeling, so I think I was born into a good time to make use of my talents. What we are doing is more than just making music, there is something artistic about it.

—You can take elements from other subcultures.

T: Yes, yes, yes, it’s so good that we can do anything, it’s the best for me.

I: I have thought the same. I found that in this genre it’s okay to do anything, so I thought “I can do it as well”.

T: Yes, people would think so.

—The core of new wave is that even someone who has never touched an instrument before can do it, because it’s a matter of sense.

T: Yes, at that time, everyone thought so, now we can say that way of thinking was truly an innovation.

I: Me too, I began playing guitar and started the band at the same time.

T: Therefore we have much more possibilities, it’s very important that you can make music when you are not a real musician.

—Don’t you consider yourselves real musicians?

T: No, no.

I: Hmm... No. What I make is music, but I don’t understand things like music theory.

T: Me, too! Me too.

—We were born with new wave, so let’s follow nothing but sense till we die! Something like this?

I: When we keep advancing, following the sense, naturally we will find things in music theory, like the scales, look more and more familiar.

T: I feel the same. It’s not about knowing the music theory, it’s about living with music, music is inside my heart, I can release myself into the world of music while playing it. I think it will be great if I can carry music with me in this way. Do you write lyrics, Imai-san?

I: Yes, I don’t write as many as before though.

T: What are they like?

I: What!?

—Just introduce your favorite lyric.

I: Introduce? It’s a song called ��Brain, Whisper, Head, Hate is noise”.

T: Whispers of brain, sounds cool, it rhymes.

I: It can be explained in many ways, I described it in an abstract manner.

—What did you describe in an abstract manner?

I: Hmm...I got a suspended sentence for it. (Note: Oh I thought only Acchan wrote that kind of lyrics after it, Maimai bravo)

—Hey.

T: I can’t understand, what’s that?

I: ...It’s like, in the midnight, doing something to make your mind so sharp.

T: Was it an awakening?

I: Yes, it feels like you are looking at something that shouldn’t be seen, suddenly you know the truth, you know too much.

T: This bad trip feeling could be experienced even when you are just writing lyrics or listening to music, when you are longing for something which belongs to a place outside normal every day life. I like that twisted feeling, twisted things are more beautiful, I can understand.

—In the early days of Zelda, Sayoko wrote lyrics about extraordinary things which were almost identical to daily life.

T: I wrote about my frustration, like “I don’t want to go to school”.

—But your expressions have a strong literature feeling, there is a kind of dignity floating around.

T: At that time, I couldn’t help hating lyrics about attacking others, but being blind to one’s own shortcomings. So I wasn’t interested in punk, which didn’t say anything about oneself, only spat on others, it sounded too selfish for me. However, new wave felt like being alone inside one’s own world, it wouldn’t cause trouble for others. Then I wrote lyrics not in a straight way, I made them warped, added a lot of adjectives, till I had added so many colors into the lyrics that they became incomprehensible.

I: I was influenced by your style.

T: Really?

I: Such as in the first album, the one with “father and mother have both turned into robots”.

T: It’s “Robotomeia”. (Note: I wrote it in Romaji because I can’t figure out its possible English spelling.)

I: It’s wonderful, I mean the mysterious feeling. But in our early days, when I was the main lyricist, I wrote a lot of embarrassing love songs. Writing straight love songs makes me nervous, so now I write them in an completely abstract way so that people won’t know they are love songs.

—But I think this straightness, this awkward feeling is one of the keys of Japanese new wave.

T: Weren’t those unorganized feelings part of our generation’s everyday life? The everyday life of shy teenagers like us.

I: Yes.

T: The appearance of new wave has freed many people from their emotional repression, including me.

I: In my case, showing my true self to others makes me embarrassed. Even the fact that Acchan is the one who has to sing it won’t help.

T: You are a bit too cold. I used to think “where is the good of singing about my real experiences”? However, 3 or 4 years ago, in Shout Sister Shout, for the first time, I wrote a love song based on my real experience, then people told me “Actually I have felt the same”. I began to know that what I felt could be felt by anyone, it’s not too embarrassing.

—You have overcome your shyness.

T: Yes, then I began to take pleasure in it, I tried to write lyrics more honestly, eventually they became too honest.

I: I have been embarrassed by music as well. It makes me want to disappear from earth.

T: I understand, our first album for me...

—Hey, sitting next to you is someone who has been enjoying your first album for 10 years.

I: Thank you.

T: But it’s our first recording, I felt repressed. I cried so much before the recording of one song, my voice was shivering, so I feel uncomfortable listening to it.

I: Which one?

T: Hehehehe, it’s “To Ra Wa Re”. (Note: it’s my fav on the album “Zelda”)

—So it’s not funny. Then, from the starting point of new wave, you went in different directions, Sayoko went for world music, Imai went for techno, it’s very interesting.

T: But if we keep going, I feel one day we will be back to the same road. Forms of our music are different, but we have the same roots. People from the new wave era have chosen the native direction, or the electronic direction, but the differences are on the surface, the basic idea of desiring to escape from the ordinary is still the same.

I: In my case, I took the guitar by chance. The digital sounds are what I have been seeking for from the beginning. I often get unsatisfied with the sounds I have made, I keep buying effects units, till I find the sound I want. No matter it sounds like a guitar or not, if it’s the sound you like, there is no need for self-control, just use it.

T: I’m different, in the end, the sounds I want are what come directly from human bodies, from a place without electricity. So we are the leading edge and the origin, but we have the same starting point.

—Imai’s “ignoring the schemes” is new wave, Sayoko’s “returning to the origin” is new wave, too, are there no such things as traditions or patterns which are followed in this genre? I mean, your ideas come not from seniors, but rather from your individual selves.

T: That’s right, it’s an universal genre dominated only by sensibility.

—I want to hear about your roots.

I: My natural sensations match new wave and techno, by coincidence. When I was in kindergarten, I got unusually excited when I saw metallic things like the vacuum tubes inside a television, one day I went to the garbage dump in a hospital, there were many plastic syringes, I felt very happy seeing those.

T: Hahahaha.

I: When I listen to music like new wave, a similar feeling comes to me. I hated listening to music before, but I began collecting records after knowing about new wave.

—For Imai, new wave is inorganic products like syringes and vacuum tubes.

I: Yes, I was attracted by the idea of turning human into machine at the beginning.

T: In my case, being born in Tokyo during the economic miracle period has a great influence. When I was a child, instead of mountains and rivers, I saw tall buildings, subways, high ways everyday around me, and I loved it! I found myself imagining doing things like diving from the skyscrapers, riding bicycles on the highways. The concrete felt like nature to me, there lay my playground, I was also very fond of reclamation ground (Note: on Zelda’s second album “carnaval” there’s a song named “Umetate”, which means “reclamation”, Sayoko said “I go to reclamation ground everyday” in it). But every place I had been to had the marks of city life, finally I grew bored of metropolis. I moved to Kamakura 2 years ago, now I live with the nature, but sometimes I return to Tokyo, find the sights to be beautiful again.

—Zelda is the synonym for metropolis.

T: People always say we are a band of Tokyo.

—It seems the glitz of B-T is not a Tokyo thing.

I: After all, we are a band of Gunma.

Fun fact 1: Kokusyoku Sumire have covered Zelda’s song Watashi no Orchestra. You can try Zelda’s version even if you don’t like Kokusyoku Sumire’s, because Zelda were not Lolitas, they were punk rockers.

Fun fact 2: Being a bungaku shoujo, Sayoko once had a essay column in the magazine Takarajima, which was a subculture magazine focused on new wave artists like YMO, Jun Togawa, etc. Later this magazine began to feature newer popular bands like Seikima II, Buck-Tick, Jun Sky Walker(s) and X Japan, then it turned into an adult magazine, became very successful. And I’m not suggesting BT is something lies between 80s new wave and porn, sorry.

(scanned by Tigerpal on Livejournal)