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Un mal nécessaire. Dir en grey, sukekiyo, Japan

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Dir en grey from Tour25 Enen (ignore the text on them)

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ヒィロ☺︎キレイのサポート 小顔＆痩身『DearLily』エステティシャン (@neu_hixro) on X

楽天総合ランキング1位＆美容部門1〜3位独占 口コミ35000件超えエステコスメ『DearLily』→https://t.co/rDrsy5eunH｜ 1ヶ月の予約が2分で埋まる小顔＆痩身サロン『DearLily』→ https://t.co/Lw8P9m54ZM ｜只今8月末ま

This esthetician celebrity apparently saw Toshiya again recently and he has been tweeting about how incredible his body is, how there is no body fat at all, how long his legs are, how he comes straight out of a manga, etc.

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「巨大DIR EN GREY」東京・有明に出現　メンバー巨大化　18，19日にAR特別企画（日刊スポーツ） - Yahoo!ニュース

　ビジュアル系ロックバンド、DIR EN GREYのメンバーが18、19日の2日間、“巨大化”して東京・有明に出現する。16日、明らかになった。 　DIR EN GREYは、両日に東京ガーデンシア

Dir en grey just announced that, during the concert or maybe only outside the venue, there will be QR codes at certain GPS locations to access a site that will make you see "giant Dir en grey" through your phone via Augmented Reality, just like with Pokemon GO.

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[direndetails]

Vinushka - a proper translation

And still about translations: the official translation of my favourite song, Vinushka makes my skin crawl. This is a poem, not a dadaist succession of individual sentences with no rapport to each other. Let me put my Japanese MA to good use - told you I’m a pretentious motherfucker - and give you a proper translation. You’re welcome. 

Vinushka, or Dear guilt (1)

Dear guilt,

Holding my breath as I trade whispers with the clouds, It dawns on me that I am but a blind shell, a body scorched by shadows, who longs to forget, - with a desire to sink into anthills - and to be born again.

May tomorrow sleep, may I take comfort in looking back, and may it carry me back, back into the jagged swell of feeling. Even though the undulating current proves that I am still alive, it beckons a tomorrow that drowns in its tears.

I have become but this writhing(2) Dogra Magra(3), my mottled hurts, have eyes that no longer revel in the spectrum of all colours, - will I too, be swept away by hypocrisy? Standing alone on a crimson stage, wishing upon rising stars, - only in them lies my truth. 

And yet I can’t hide, in the remote corners of my heart, that I still want to be here, - so who is it that I cannot bring myself to forgive? With my voice gone cold, I send out its ringing sound, as I make my vows. Walking hand-in-hand with my karma, with this I shall go, with my body separating Heaven and Earth I shall scream, with my punishment carved in me, I shall give myself over to the wind, - and what proof of me shall remain? I have now gazed at the unchanging moon, for so long that I grew tired, watched it fail to turn me to wolf. Instead I went mad, instead, it made want to devour necks, instead, it made me want to turn them to fragile wreckages, instead, it made me want to keep you awake, for I have reached an age where I crave tenderness, and for you, my Lady of the Night(4), I’d go mad. Everyone, fooled into thinking it is happiness, reaches out a hand, only it makes them turn to demons lurking in the dark, forms born from the void, crawling back into the womb, to rot. And there is a truth that no one dares to touch, an ear-shattering truth, a truth of repressed wills, and for that sin you should atone,  and begone from this life! Fleeting antitheses to the weeping Earth, my bones I bury, in the mass grave submerged in the thesis, - the melancholy I shoulder, shall be swept away by a caustic deluge. For I am a man who found no value in life, - I spent it laughing through bitter tears - I shall hang myself at the top of my thirteen steps(5), facing you, a crowd that cheers in complacent concord privy to your weak-willed ideologies that do nothing but wound. You, are far too sad. You, crush underfoot your blood-splattering primal instincts. You, speak of death. Walking hand-in-hand with my karma, with this I shall go, with my body separating Heaven and Earth I shall scream, with my punishment carved in me, I shall give myself over to the wind, - and what proof of me shall remain? And there is a truth that no one dares to touch, an ear-shattering truth, a truth of repressed wills, and for that sin you should atone,  and begone from this life! You, crush underfoot your blood-splattering primal instincts. You, speak of death. Walking hand-in-hand with my karma, with this I shall go, with my body separating Heaven and Earth I shall scream, with my punishment carved in me, I shall give myself over to the wind, - and what proof of me shall remain? And there is a truth that no one dares to touch, an ear-shattering truth, a truth of repressed wills, and for that sin you should atone,  and begone from this life!

If I too, am a villain, am I guilty if I want to live?

--

(1) According to Kaoru in an interview I wasn't able to find again (so you'll just have to trust my word for it), the word Vinushka is a creative spin-off of the Russian word вина (guilt). Since -ушка is a diminutive used to make a name or word sound more endearing, I chose to translate the song title as “Dear guilt”. Yes, I took some artistic liberties here because I find that’s the title that fits best.

(2) In this verse Kyo uses a made-up word, うえつく (uetsuku). Unsurprisingly, he often uses made up words. I took the liberty of translating it as “writhing” because it sounds like it derived from the verb 飢える (ueru), which means to writhe. It fits the rest of the stanza, so why not.

(3) Dogra Magra is the title of a notorious Japanese avant-garde horror novel by Yumeno Kyosaku. The phrase in itself means nothing. In the context of the book, it can be read as some sort of incantation that fits the novel’s themes of psychosis and dissolution of the self. Fun fact: the band Sukekiyo borrowed its name from an eponymous character in this novel. I wrote a whole post about it here. 

(4) I translated 小夜 as “Lady of the Night", which is a bit of a shot in the dark. The kanji spells the female name Sayo, and Kyo does sing "Sayo". But because the literal meaning of the name is “small night”, and since there are no other references in the poem to "Sayo", I took some creative liberty to translate it as “Lady of the Night” because it fits the theme of the stanza.

(5) In Japan’s modern penal history, prisoners are hung from a platform reached by a staircase that has 13 steps.

-- A few words on Vinushka. This is a work of great stylistic brilliance. It has a very complex structure, which is uncommon in the corpus of Japanese poetry that prefers simplicity over intricacy. What refers to the narrator and what refers to the "others" he is trying to address lies in very subtle indications that I tried to transpose as accurately as I could. The narrator oscilates between wanting to remain and wanting to be gone. He despises "the others", probably humankind, but recognises that he is one of them. This generates a sense of guilt, thus the title of the song. References to being reborn, karma and crawling back into the womb can be inferred to be an allusion to eternal recurrence. Through the times, humankind repeats the same sins, the same cruelty and the same blindness to the truth, but also the same survival instinct, the wish to remain.

[direndetails]

Void - a proper translation

I’ve been listening to the song Void a lot. It has grown on me over the months. Now I don’t know who Dir en Grey’s official translator is, but they do a consistent job of translating verses word for word, effectively butchering whatever poetic intent or nuance might lie beyond the very clunky clatter of Japanese grammar. 

Your old man here is not happy with this. So I decided to provide a proper idiomatic - and pretentious AF - translation for free. You’re welcome. Feel free to submit my application to Sun Kraken, this starving writer will work for free gigs. 

Void

As black wings crowd the sky the dead gather in the greenery where only their souls  slip free and away from their demise.

If you can cross your way through time, then go.  And if you can’t, what purpose is there in standing still?

If you can move beyond time, then go. And if you can’t - look around you, hold my helping hand (1). 

I’ve always watched, I’ve always longed, to be someone who belongs everywhere and nowhere, to understand, those who laugh, who hope, who feel, who live.

If you can move beyond time, then go.  And if you can’t, what purpose is there in standing still?

If you can move beyond time, then go. And if you can’t - look around you, hold my helping hand. 

Maybe we are just living things, thinking into the void (2).

Living things, Living things.

--

(1) The original Japanese does not include the pronoun "I" or "my" in this verse. It reads, word-for-word, something like "turn your eyes to your surroundings, toward the place that is being offered to you". The verb here is 差し伸べる, though, which usually means "to offer" or "to extend a hand". I took some artistic liberty in translating it as "my helping hand" since the poem has a first-person narrator. It reads more true to the intent to me.

(2) Again, I had to reformulate this part a bit so it is understandable. The original Japanese reads "living things for whom thinking is useless". It reads clunky to my ears, though, so I used a more idiomatic formulation.

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I am absolutely mesmerized whenever I watch Shinya play the drums on GLASS SKIN. The irregularity of most of his percussion composition in general, the non-sensical movement of the right drumstick, the use of so many drums compared to a lot of other bands’ set, the dancing side to side at the rhythm of the song, and yet all that is encompassed in elegance. What a mad genius drummer we’ve got. 

This is from his “drum cover” video on Shinya Channel. Please watch the full video and help us make that video reach 100K views so that he will upload a new one!

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He's insane like only a genius can be. I love him! Still not over this composition and performance.

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Kyo saying that he is, in fact, the phantom Matenrou in the series Omoikkiri Tanteidan Hardgummy.

Omoikkiri Tanteidan Hadogumi

Omoikkiri Tanteidan Hadogumi (おもいっきり探偵団 覇悪怒組, Omoikkiri Tantei Dan Haado Gumi, Junior Detective Team: Hadogumi) (Localized as The Eager Dete

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