AKATSUKI

Released on 2013 Jun. 19th, coupled with MEGITSUNE (included in the regular edition).
Lyric: NAKAMETAL, TSUBOMETAL / Music: TSUBOMETAL / Arr.: Kyôtô

This is SU-METAL's solo tune.

AKATSUKI (Crimson Moon)

Going over thousands of nights,
some love shall survive.
So, until my body perishes,
until my life disappears,
I shall keep on cherishing this love.

Shining in the depths of the eyes,
the moon is about to cry.
Red tears overflow
and dye the night sky.

In the silence,
the two damaged blades stand face to face.
Our loneliness and our uneasiness
slash even our hearts.

Going over thousands of nights,
some love shall survive.
So, until my body perishes,
until my life disappears,
I shall keep on cherishing this love.

In the passage of time,
I keep my eyes shut.
Even if the red thread flowing in my hand breaks,
I still feel we are tied.

In the silence,
I hold the damaged blade face to face.
My loneliness and my uneasiness,
I slash, even my heart,
now.

Going over thousands of nights,
some love shall survive.
So, until my body perishes,
until my life disappears someday...

Going over thousands of nights,
some love shall survive.
So, until my body perishes,
until my life disappears,
I shall keep on cherishing this love.

Dye crimson! Dye bloody crimson!

---

  ROMAJI LYRIC AND NOTES ARE BELOW.

[i] About Akatsuki and Kurenai

The official title of this tune is "紅月 -アカツキ-", which is read as "akatsuki" as a whole. The latter katakana is "yomigana", which is added just to show the reading of the kanji word because it has several possible readings and "akatsuki" is not so popular (I'm sorry not to notice some non-Japanese people caught in this trap).

"Akatsuki" is a contraction of "akai tsuki" (= red moon). The moon looks red when it is low in the sky just like sunrise/sunset (because more of the non-red spectrum of sunlight/moonlight is scattered when it travels longer distance in the Earth's atmosphere). The full moon is near the horizon at dawn & dusk, and the time just before dawn is also called "akatsuki" (暁), but their etymologies differ.
    The totally eclipsed moon also looks red (because, though the direct sunlight is blocked by the Earth, the red spectrum of sunlight which is refracted but not scattered by the Earth's atmosphere can reach to the moon). Not a few fans think the word "Akatsuki" refers to this type. I cannot tell which type of red moon the lyric-writers thought of. (Appended on 2019 Dec. 15.)

The kanji "紅" also has a reading "kurenai". Kurenai is a name of some deep red color that is often translated to crimson, so I translate the title to "Crimson Moon". But both kurenai and crimson are not so specific.

There is a famous heavy metal band named "X Japan", and "Kurenai" (1989) is one of their smash hits. It can be said that the last line of this song is homage to it. And some X-Japan's fans say some (piano and guitars) parts of this tune are homage to X-Japan's "Silent Jealousy".

[ii] About the Damaged Blade

"Kizutsuita" (= kizutsuku; (to get) wounded / damaged) is used much more for persons than for blades. Grammatically "kizutsuita yaiba" can be possibly "the blade by which I was wounded", but it is the last option. I think a damaged blade is a metaphor for teenager's keen and fragile heart.

Teenagers tend to think "all that glitters is gold" (some are as keen as thinking something like "rock musicians should rather die by drug overdose with one masterpiece left than continue to release dull albums"). They want themselves and others to be so, but they can't be so. Keen blades are easily nicked. Such teenage friends, or teenage lovers, can't help hurting each other like razor blades knocking at each other.

Some Japanese teenagers seem still to think like the above, but Japanese society can no longer provide teenagers with enough room to get hurt and to be cured. Such thinking is regarded as mere nuisance among young people. If the lyric writers are on that side, the above interpretation may be totally wrong. (Such thinking is included in "中二病" (chuunibyoo; age 14 disease; what junior high students are likely to think). This word was used with some sympathy at first (1999), but now it has only scorning or self-scorning usage.)

[iii] About Unfinished Ver.

In Legend "1997" concert on 2013 Dec. 21st, a piano ballad version of this tune was performed. It is called "Unfinished ver." (I don't know whether it is really unfinished or merely named after X-Japan's tune). She sang it sitting weakly down on the stage (see cold6001 san's comment on 2014.1.4 & my reply).

Before it, many fans had wanted to listen to a ballad version (and some had made their original ballad mixes, extracting SU-METAL's vocal tracks by processing full ver. minus air vocal ver. and adding their own backing tracks), but I don't know whether this version satisfied them or not. In Unfinished ver., some lines were skipped. They are between { and } indicated below. I wonder why the last line was skipped.

The Apocalypse limited edition of BABYMETAL's first album includes "Akatsuki (Unfinished ver)". Some say it is the heavily processed live take, and many say it is another newly recorded studio take.

Since 2014 Mar. 1st, the introduction part of Akatsuki has been replaced with that of Unfinished ver. It is switched to the original version at "(mamori tsuzuke)te yuku" when a hard guitar riff begins, and SU-METAL shouts "Akatsuki daa!" after a while. But X Japan begin Kurenai singing with a guitar arpeggio, and, when it ends, the vocalist shouts "Kurenai daa!", the drummer starts counting, and then a guitar riff begins.

AKATSUKI (Crimson Moon)

Romaji Lyric	English Translation	Notes
Ikusen mo no yoru o koete	Going over thousands of nights,	0
iki tsuzukeru ai ga aru kara	some love shall survive.
kono karada ga horobiru made	So, until my body perishes,
inochi ga kieru made	until my life disappears,	1
mamori tsuzukete yuku.	I shall keep on cherishing this love.	2
Hitomi no oku ni hikaru	Shining in the depths of the eyes,	3
nakidashi-soona tsuki wa	the moon is about to cry.	4
akai namida afurete	Red tears overflow	5
yozora o somete yuku.	and dye the night sky.
Seijaku no naka de	In the silence,
kizutsuita yaiba sashi-mukai	the two damaged blades stand face to face.	6,[ii]
kodoku mo fuan mo	Our loneliness and our uneasiness	7
kiri-tsukeru, kokoro made.	slash even our hearts.
Ikusen mo no yoru o koete	Going over thousands of nights,
iki tsuzukeru ai ga aru kara	some love shall survive.
kono karada ga horobiru made	So, until my body perishes,
inochi ga kieru made	until my life disappears,
mamori tsuzukete yuku.	I shall keep on cherishing this love.
Sugite yuku toki no naka	In the passage of time,
hitomi o tojita mama	I keep my eyes shut.
kono te ni nagareru akai ito kiretemo	Even if the red thread flowing in my hand breaks,	8,9,10
kanjite-iru, kizuna o	I still feel we are tied.	11
{
Seijaku no naka de	In the silence,
kizutsuita yaiba sashi-mukai	I hold the damaged blade face to face.	6
kodoku mo fuan mo	My loneliness and my uneasiness,	7
kiri-tsukeru, kokoro made,	I slash, even my heart,
ima.	now.
Ikusen mo no yoru o koete	Going over thousands of nights,
iki tsuzukeru ai ga aru kara	some love shall survive.
kono karada ga horobiru made	So, until my body perishes,
inochi ga itsuka kieru made	until my life disappears someday...
}
Ikusen mo no yoru o koete	Going over thousands of nights,
iki tsuzukeru ai ga aru kara	some love shall survive.
kono karada ga horobiru made	So, until my body perishes,
inochi ga kieru made	until my life disappears,
mamori tsuzukete yuku.	I shall keep on cherishing this love.
{
Akaku somare! Makka ni somare!	Dye crimson! Dye bloody crimson!	12,[i],13
}

Notes

0. 0okamino san on 2019 Apr. 23 told me that "thousands nights" should be complemented with "of" (i.e. "thousands of nights"). I changed the translation on 2019 Jul. 28. Sorry for very late update.
1. This is "until I die".
2. "Mamori" (= mamoru) means "to protect" or "to keep", and the original line doesn't have the grammatical object, so there are many possibilities. I take most natural one: "this love" (= my love to you).
3. At the very first time, I had a vision: I look at a girl, the moon is shining in her eyes, and she is about to cry... But her tears can't dye the night sky. Maybe it's better to ignore the first line and to think the latter three lines describe what she sees. But I can't.
4. According to school grammar, "- wa" indicates "tsuki" (= moon) with two whole lines is the grammatical subject. It might be "the moon being about to cry, which shines in the depth of the eyes, dyes the night sky with red tears overflowing". But "(somete) yuku" at the end of the lines suggests the spreading of color, and it corresponds to the overflowing of tears. It sounds to me that "(tsuki) wa" links to nowhere.
5. Tears are red because they reflect the red moonlight.
6. Grammatically there are two possibilities: Two blades face each other, or I face a blade. Anyway, I think a blade is a metaphor for teenager's heart. If two, a girl faces her lover. If one, a girl faces her own heart. I think there are two in the first part and one in the second part, and so translate, but maybe it's better to think there is one in both parts.
7. Grammatically "kodoku mo fuan mo" (= loneliness and uneasiness) has two possibilities: She slashes them to take them away, or they slash (that is, they drive her to slash) her (or her lover's) heart. Anyway, they are the causes and the result is that she (and her lover) hurts herself (or each other).
8. "The red string of fate" is a belief originating from a Chinese legend. The god in charge of marriages ties two persons as destined lovers with a red string (originally: a red string around the ankles / in Japan: a red thread around the little fingers). It is invisible and shall never break. If you like to learn more, see Wikipedia or elsewhere.
9. "The red thread" also has some relation with blood. If it refers to the blood flow in her artery/vein, "breaks" may mean her death. If it refers to the stream of bleeding on her hand, "breaks" may mean that her damage is gone. (Added on 2015 Mar. 27th, thanks to Braiden Humphrey san, updated on 2019 Dec. 15.)
10. In Japan, if "akai ito" (= red thread) doesn't refer to an actual thread, it is associated mostly with "the red thread of fate", so I thought the former line should mean "if the red thread of fate breaks" no matter whether it refers to her blood flow or not, and these two lines were difficult to understand for me. However, I seem to have been wrong. There seem to be two red threads (visible & invisible), and these two lines seem simply to mean: Even if the visible red thread in my hand breaks (i.e. she dies), the invisible red thread of fate never breaks. (Updated on 2019 Dec. 15, thanks to Psycho-Kun san on 2019 Oct. 11.)
11. Literally "I am feeling the bond (between us)".
12. "Somare!" is an imperative like "Burn!". Maybe she sees her tears and the crimson moonlight blurring her sight, or she feels her "heart" "gonna dye deep red with all of pain" (from the lyrics of X-Japan's Kurenai).
13. Literally "makka" is "true red", but it is often used as "very red" for angry faces, etc.