Six the musical – Japanese MegaSIX: transcript and translation!!
Photo credits: https://x.com/sometsur/status/1885304606261137766 (cropped, Meimi and Sonim are so cute)
I haven’t seen anyone make one on Tumblr… but I absolutely love it! I watched many videos to get the transcript right haha
Transcript and translation are mine (source: I’m Japanese, but I have no academic experience translating from Japanese). Please credit me / tag me if you use it! Notes at the end.
旦那が 私を追い出すなんて、Baby ありりりりりりりえない
別れられると思うなんて、本当にあり (夫婦関係を取り消すなんてあげない)
悪かったわ悪気なくて、楽しけりゃいいじゃん! ありえない!
やりたいように 変えるだけ ブレない この心 おおー
やりたい事、やりたい事、なんて声を合わせて歌おう!
愛はもう良い、愛されなくても良いわ、乗り越える時だわ
Are you ready? Tokyo, ikuyo!
Danna ga watashiwo oidasunante baby aririririririenai
Wakarerareruto omounante hontouni ari (fuufukankeiwo torikesunante agenai)
Riririririri rienakattawa!
Warukattawa waruginakute tanoshikerya iijan! Arienai!
Atama atama hiyashite kizutsuketakuwa naino
Demo majide demo iyanara watashiwo kowasenai
Yaritaiyouni kaerudake burenai kono kokoro ooh
Isuni, hitori, koko watashino oshiroyo!
Yaritaikotowa sukini suruwa, sou
Queen wa watashidayo, hizamazukinasaiyo!
Yaritaikoto, yaritaikoto, nante koewo agete utaou!
Yaritaikoto, yaritaikoto, naraba aishite aah
Ai wa mou ii, aisarenakutemo iiwa, norikoeru toki dawa
Aisarenakutemo ooh soredakejanai!
Are you ready? Tokyo, let’s go!
My husband is driving me away? Baby I can’t believe it!
You think that I would leave you? / You think you are capable of leaving me? I really can’t believe it! (I won’t let you revoke our married relationship)
I’m sorry I didn’t feel bad! As long as I’m having fun! I can’t believe it!
Keep a cool head! I don’t want to hurt you / I don’t want to hurt it
But – for real – but – if you don’t want to – you can’t break me
I’ll change it as much as I want, this unwavering heart
Alone, on a chair, this is my castle!
I’ll do what I want, however I want, yes
I am the queen, kneel before me!
What I want to do, what I want to do, is for us to raise our voices and sing!
What I want you to do, what I want you to do is to love me
I don’t need love anymore, I don’t need to be loved, it’s time to overcome it
Even if I’m not loved, that is not it!
Notes (very long I know, read what you want, I’m just passionate about linguistics)
Okay, Japanese is a tricky language to translate due to its grammar and syntax, which is very different from English. I did my best to show nuance, but it’s also 3 AM lol. If you have questions or remarks, I’d love to discuss them!
Aragon: heard 2 versions, the one in parentheses is probably a mistake, a different line in the main song (not 100% sure, as there are no recordings that I know of) – but it gives us an insight into No Way! For the second line, I gave 2 possible translations. Japanese is very much a context-based language, and sometimes things can be interpreted in different ways (the agglutinative language and homophones combo is strooong). Here, I like that both Henry’s and Aragon’s points of view are included! Japanese being syllable-based makes it sometimes hard to put a lot of meaning in a short line, but here the ambivalence works great imo.
Boleyn: the Japanese version kept Boleyn’s playfulness, which is so cool. Love how they also used an idiom “Atama hiyashite” – followed by, once again, an ambiguous syntax which gives us 2 very funny interpretations: I don’t want to hurt you (Henry’s feelings), or hurt the head! The repetition is for “head”. The transition is a bit clumsy from Aragon’s part, but tense change is great (Aragon is old news to Boleyn!)
Seymour: I feel like this is the closest meaning-wise to the original English. The emphasis is on heart (kokoro), which is meaningful ofc.
Cleves: okay, “chair” instead of throne is UGLY. But it is a chair. I guess the rhythm won over lyricism here. I like that “get down” was translated into the specific verb “to kneel” (which I learnt translating this). It makes up for the chair lol.
Howard: another case of agglutination galore. Even though the proposition “yaritaikoto” (= what one wants to do) remains the same, meaning changes with morphemes, hence the different forms when translated. She’s also nicer lol, it’s not your favourite queen song, but she wants us to sing together. I like that the transition with Parr is with A for Ai, love.
Parr: I’m being repetitive once again, agglutination + context and all that here. Great use of love as both noun and verb, which remains the same morphologically in Japanese. “I don’t need to be loved”, while remaining the same, becomes even if I’m not loved… uniting all six queens 🥺❤️
TL;DR I love SIX, I love translation, I hope there will be an official recording of the Japanese version (highly doubt it) or someone is brave enough to bootleg it (please lmk)