If you look at the album Philospher's Propeller, you'll see that tracks 2 through 4 are named "Rubedo," "Nigredo," and "Albedo." Another track later on the album is called "Opus." A quick glance at the Wikipedia entry for the term "rubedo" will tell you that these terms are connected to alchemy and (Mr. Hirasawa's favorite) Jungian philosophy. I've even seen Philospher's Propeller marketed as "Hirasawan alchemy."

But what does this actually mean? ( Read more... )

So, despite the order of the tracks on the album, perhaps we should try listening to the songs in this order: "Nigredo" then "Albedo" and then "Rubedo." "Albedo" is an instrumental track, but the same melody is presented with lyrics as the final song on the album: "Philosopher's Propeller-2." So, in alchemical order, the tracks might actually be "Nigredo" - "Philosopher's Propeller-2" - "Rubedo."

I'm going to translate all three of these songs to see if the lyrics brings us anywhere interesting in this strange world of alchemy and psychology. :)

Links to the lyrics translations:
- Nigredo
- Philosopher's Propeller-2
- Rubedo
- Opus

Today, Mr. Hirasawa brought up the idea of making his Twitter account private, so that only people he allows to will be able to read it. It sounds like he's investigating whether he can make his account private or whether he'd have to make a new account altogether, and what a "locked" account entails.

In response to the general cry of despair and questions about what prompted this desire for privacy, he wrote: ( about how having 50,000 followers makes him uncomfortable, and how he hates people taking his words out of context. )

...

I am not sure what he's referring to. Was there some particular incident that brought all this up? Is he simply tired of people making fun of him or taking him out of context on NicoNico or Youtube or Twitter or 2ch or Pixiv or blogs? He's a public persona and does get talked about a lot.

These statements also made me wonder whether I should keep translating Mr. Hirasawa's tweets here. ( Read more... )

If he does make his account private, I will not publicly translate his tweets anymore.

I think I will try to translate more of his older tweets, but take more care to make sure that the risk of something being taken out of context is minimized. Perhaps friends-locking those translations would be one step I could take.

If you have any thoughts on the matter, I would really appreciate your input.

Google has inexplicably disabled the e-mail account I used for this blog, and attempts to have them restore the account or at least explain WHY they deleted it have failed. It was an account used solely for things related to this silly little translation blog, so I have no idea what terms of service I supposedly violated. Let this be another lesson in why you should never trust that "the cloud" will safely store all your information! It was just a relatively minor account that they disabled for me, but I am now backing up my primary Google account to other places in case they decide to disable that one for no reason!

So if you e-mailed me recently or left a comment and didn't get a response, that would be the reason why.

I have set up a new e-mail account at Hotmail and should be receiving comment notifications and such again now.

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In Hirasawa-related news, he has made some statements on Twitter that make me question whether I should keep translating selected Tweets as I have been. I think it's good to share some of his tweets in English since many fans don't read Japanese, but I don't want to do anything that seems to go directly against his wishes. So I'm going to mull this over a bit longer and then share his statements here, along with my decision.

Below is my quick translation of Mr. Hirasawa's new anti-nuclear power protest song. It's a remake of P-Model's "Boat," so it has a very catchy tune, but the lyrics are sarcastic, angry, and straight-up political. I love it. I hope it goes viral!

Mr. Hirasawa's story is that this song is made by a mysterious being known as "Stealth Man" who attacked Mr. Hirasawa, took over his website, and released this song on it. I guess this is a new personality to join the ranks of Kaku_P and the like? Will there be more songs by Stealth Man?

( Japanese lyrics. )

( Romaji lyrics )

( My rough English translation )

Hello, all!

Sorry for the lack of translations recently, but life is very demanding right now. Still, I am closely monitoring our dear Mr. Hirasawa's latest actions on Twitter and will probably post a more detailed update on it as things play out a bit more and I find the time to translate it coherently.

But I'm so excited, so I thought I'd jot down some notes about these developments: ( Read more... )

It'll be interesting to see how this fictional story develops, but it's sounding like he has a whole new character in mind, a superhero Stealthman who fights evil nuclear power, or something like that. What's most fascinating to me is that it seems that Mr. Hirasawa FOUND this storyline within his own actions. I don't think he started measuring radiation or making yogurt at night as part of grand scheme to make a random protest song go viral. I think he did those things and--being the genius he is--discovered the potential story and is now elaborating on it every day, teasing us with more details that paint an ever broader picture. It's also rather interactive, since he seems to be doing it all via Twitter right now (and even though he denies it, it is VERY clear that he does read the responses he gets on Twitter, at least sometimes).

It feels like we're watching a master storyteller improvise a new tale with a few random elements and before we know it, we might witness how that random tale takes the form of a legend. ;)

Perhaps I'm overly excited, but I can't wait to see how this plays out!

Mr. Hirasawa will on occasion use Twitter to recommend a friend's album or business or whatever. And sometimes he will talk about other members of P-Model.

And sometimes this is the result: ( It began relatively peacefully. )

OH HO HO. The recording industry takes another hit!

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy and have a cold. ;_;

This song came up in a meme I did recently elsewhere, and so I decided to translate it. I find this song pretty relaxing and good for going on a walk, what with the steady beat, the random electric noise in the background, the gently flowing lyrics interrupted only by the oddly cute "ha ha ha ha" lines that sound like "bwabwa bwabwa".

But as for the lyrics: this song is essentially a ghost story with intriguing Buddhist nuances. (Be sure to check out the translation notes below!)

平沢進 -「人体夜行」
( Japanese lyrics. )

( Romaji lyrics. )

Hirasawa Susumu - "Night Walking Wearing the Human Body"
( My English translation. )

Translation Notes: ( Read more... )

Today I nearly lost it when I was reading Twitter. You may recall that I translated some old tweets by Mr. Hirasawa about his vegetarian diet and the names he gives his meals. TODAY HE TWEETED ABOUT HIS FOOD SPECIFICALLY FOR NON-JAPANESE READERS. I thought I'd share, as it's already quite thrilling to be mocked as a regular "horse bone/nobody" on his Twitter and rather rare to be lovingly mocked as a foreign fan.♥

The first tweets are written in only hiragana (instead of the usual mix of various kana and kanji that's typical for Japanese). You can see it in the quotations below, but this makes the text look very simple, like that of a children's book or the intro lessons of a beginning Japanese class. He also uses a different greeting from his usual "Good day," so everything is slightly off.

He writes: ( Read more... )

At least he's being productive. And that mysterious side of him only improves his reputation as an artist, I guarantee it. :)

Today I'd like to present you translations of a selection of legendary tweets connecting Mr. Hirasawa to the character Hirasawa Yui from the manga/anime K-On!. (Incidentally, the characters in K-On! have last names derived from those of P-Model members and other musicians.) This Twitter incident also serves as a prime example of TsunderesawaHirasawa's (supposed) love/hate relationship with Twitter.

( I am not Hirasawa Yui. )

For some reason I am most amused by his warning that if you follow him on Twitter you'll lose friends. What.

I can never decide if I love OLD P-Model songs because of their own inherent qualities or because the contrast with later P-Model/Hirasawa is so interesting. "Sunshine City" is a nice punk-ish song, with music by Tanaka and lyrics by Mr. Hirasawa's own older brother. :)

Incidentally, the song "Sunshine City" is from a 1979 album. In 1978, the Sunshine City area of Tokyo opened up--a very visible symbol of Japan's economic booms in the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, (as noted in the comments on the LJ version of this post) it was built on the former site of Sugamo Prison, which housed first political prisoners of the Japanese and later war criminals arrested by the Allied Occupation. WELL THEN.

P-Model -「サンシャイン・シティー」
( Japanese lyrics. )


P-Model - "Sanshain Shitii"
( Romaji lyrics. )


P-Model - "Sunshine City"
( English translation. )