“全人類ヒューマノイド/We are to be humanoid beings” Analysis or Whatever by firstname “bunny” lastname
My caveats
1. I have an extremely elementary understanding of Japanese, DeepL and language forums can only take you so far. Going off the English translation of the lyrics in the video and just doing my best with the written interview
2. Even more basic understanding of music theory, I am a simple college dropout vocalist
3. Never read hamlet, not an astronomer
This seems to be a work where every aspect of it is a different story expressing the same or a connected theme. We get different information in each part that pulls it all together.
A. Lyrics
B. MV
C. The music itself
D. To Be
BONUS: thing I just considered
It’s the feeling of losing humanity and the Earth, quite literally ⤵️
But also how this dynamic can fit in one’s personal life
LYRICS
So, first time through, it appears as a breakup song full of resentment and either a literal sci-fi horror romance event, or a little delusion. The protagonist, A, is going through a breakup full of cruelty, rage, and the feeling that they don’t know who they’re with anymore. A feels like their partner, B, isn’t even human anymore. A does consider if it’s themself that’s changed, but regardless, it’s over. A still feels deeply for B and wants the best for them, (though I don’t particularly trust them as a narrator) but it’s over.
The second verse is about how soon some humans, including B, are going to participate in the project of abandoning earth to move to mars. I’m unsure if A is also joining because of the “I hope your comrades on mars make you happy” line. Maybe when A & B get there they’ll just stop hanging out, though.
If we aren’t taking this literally, the event isn’t migration but something that pushed A too far and caused the breakup. I think understanding the original lyrics would help me sort out this part better. 😞
I also think it’s possible that the perspective switches between A & B due to the “to be” factor which I will get to!
I think the thesis statement of the lyrical story & themes are in the title and the English lyrics. Of course the title will stand out, and why use a different language if not to emphasize it? Maybe because it sounds different or fits better but she’s a very intentional and thorough artist.
For the final part with the title “humanoid” is repeated multiple times while the protagonist breaks down into total despair with the final line “in a room without you” it adds an enclosed feeling, as opposed to the video where those characters are out in the open. 「全人類ヒューマノイド」 is an endgame event, a terrible occurrence. Suffocating and life destroying.
For the English portions there are:
“Break up, it’s over / stay away from me”
And “I’ll never say you again 「愛してるよ」” / “I’ll never see you again” which strongly establish the breakup portion of the story. I think there could be a reading that maybe the couple will get back together, there are still feelings there, but with these ideas emphasized, that’s the ending for sure.
But my favorite is “survive in any form.” I think this speaks strongest to the overall message of 「全人類ヒューマノイド」 / “We are to be Humanoid Beings.” No matter what happens, even if you become “humanoid” rather than “human,” you will continue. It’s the theme of survival over humanity, staying in the relationship despite loss of love(/respect/care/whatever), staying alive and free despite having to carry the burden of death.
VIDEO
The characters are White, Black, and White2.
White is in extreme poverty, living on the street in the city and we see Black sitting in a run down building. While scavenging, White is caught by him and tied up. We also see her sitting under a streetlight and Black appears offering her hand. She takes it. Black leads her out of the city, over water and trails, feeding her and assumedly taking her out of poverty. The power shifts at some point, where still tied up, White drags Black through the dirt. When they’re far enough away from the city, Black unties her. She chokes him to death. We see a similar scene under the streetlight but instead of offering his hand, he walks past her. White breaks down sobbing. We see a montage of their time together and her life before they met. She returns to the city, now wearing his clothes. Under the streetlight, White stands before another girl, White2, wearing White’s previous clothes, and offers her hand. White2 takes it.
Notes:
- The rope and bottom of White’s shoes are bright reddish orange. I believe this represents the Mars angle
- In a scene under the streetlight a rat runs by and when she’s being led to a field, there’s a couple shots of frogs (that appear to be, anyway) having sex. Lucky!!! Very fitting!!!
- Throughout the video there are very quick shots and still images of White digging in trash and sitting curled up in the city. Sometimes the colors change and ummm it’s just a very good video
- I think it’s possible to read the end as White and White2 being the same person and the cycle continues inwards but I don’t think that’s the case. We see a shot of White2’s face and I think it wouldn’t be too hard to make it look like Saechi is both people. I’m going with the interpretation that they’re two different people.
I think this video tells a few stories. Taking it all very literally, where a man kidnaps a woman under the guise of helping her, she kills him, and then takes on his role to then do the same that was done to her, to another woman. I would watch this movie. I did watch this movie, it’s a music video. It’s very good. Did I say that it’s good yet?
Next, connecting it to the lyrics, it can be a regular bad love story. Someone emotionally vulnerable is taken advantage of and coerced into an abusive relationship. There’s power imbalance and struggle there and even though they break up, the victim carries that hurt and continues the cycle of abuse into their next relationship.
But I think it’s mostly about Mars. In capitalist cultures we (broadly speaking) don’t take care of the Earth, we don’t take care of each other, we don’t even take care of what we’ve made ourselves. We build and we destroy and we take over and then we leave it to rot when it doesn’t serve us. If you can’t make money, what use are you? People have debates on who “deserves” health and happiness based on how much work they do. This is also how we treat the planet. Is it worth saving or is fattening rich people’s wallets more important? If we move to Mars, we haven’t learned anything. We’ll do the same thing to her. We’ll do the same thing until we’ve died out. This story is a terrible tragedy and a simple statement. If we continue as we are, it’s inevitable that humanity will disappear.
MUSIC
I don’t have much to say here but I think it’s worth mentioning that I think the actual arrangement and music itself is part of this story building. It feels huge and dark, while building a lot of tension. There are a lot of instruments used but they compliment each other rather than blend together (in my opinion!) so it really suits the idea of a planet-altering event. I really don’t know how to talk about this 😰 the feelings the strings bring is a base feeling of tragedy and adding chorus, piano, guitar, in the way that they’re used really creates a kind of terror. The inhale at the end of the song makes me feel like there’s more to the story, too, going along with the cycle ending of the video.
“TO BE”
In the video description it says
原作「To be, or not to be」：大塚紗英
Original work “To be, or not to be”: Sae Otsuka
PART A
[I’ve just found out that there is a film with the same title but I’m pretending that’s not an option because I don’t know anything about it (curtesy)]
And that is the very famous phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I’ve actually been meaning to get into Shakespeare maybe I’ll start with this one? Info ⤵️
Basically, this is the beginning of the speech where Hamlet considers if he should commit suicide or murder and if life is worth it despite so much pain. Is death a peaceful sleep or not?
Is it worth it to break up a relationship you’re so used to being in? Is it worth it to give up on Earth and try to survive on a planet you weren’t made for?
PART B
The official English title of the song is “We are to be Humanoid Beings,” something that surprised me! 「人類」 is not a word I’d ever consciously come across before so I was curious how it would be translated and thought it would be something like “All humanity are humanoids.” This shouldn’t have surprised me though because recent releases have a similar thing going (“ロマンスのはじまり /the beginning of romance” is officially “romance dawn” and “ロマンスは映画より奇なり / romance is stranger than films”became “romance is stranger than this sweet movie”). This is super telling to what the core idea is, like with the usage of English in the lyrics. She’s incredibly deliberate with her word choices.
“Humanoid” in English, and I think it’s the same in Japanese but forgive me if I’m missing nuance, is something that looks like a human but is not. Robots, aliens, monsters, that kind of thing.
“To be” is connected to Hamlet in the description but in addition to being an English verb it’s also a phrase meaning “future.” “Soon-to-be”, “bride-to-be,” “humanoid being-to-be.”
If we aren’t on Earth, are we still humans?
BONUS: THING I JUST CONSIDERED
There is also something to be said about gender here because Mars’s symbol ♂ is also used represent the male sex scientifically and culturally and Venus ♀, the feminine counterpart, is another planet people have theorized about terraforming/colonizing. I took the romance story as gender neutral/fluid rather than about a straight couple’s power dynamics. I think I could do a whole queer lens reading about why White2 is specifically a woman but I think it’s more to show that the gender doesn’t matter here? Abuse and hurt can take place in any kind of relationship. (Or she is who they had available/it would stand out more to have a guy in a dress.)「僕 」and 「あなた」 are what’s used for “I” and “you” which are neutral in English. 「僕」 is masculine but not uncommon to be used by women in lyrics and 「あなた」 is neutral but there are more masculine alternatives. (I don’t know if any of the other lyrics are particularly gendered, forgive me 😰) So it could be BF -> GF but I think along with the video with the story of GF -> BF it balances it out. Maybe! Just thought about Roman mythology and sailor moon for a moment and thought it was worth mentioning!
IN CONCLUSION: LETS TRY TO NOT DESTROY EARTH OR EACH OTHER, OK? 💕💕💕💕
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