2015/03/25

Prolog for BLACK BABYMETAL

Included in "LIVE AT BUDOKAN" (released on 2015 Jan. 7th).
played in "Black Night" concert on 2014 Mar. 2nd.

Prologue for BLACK BABYMETAL   in "Black Night"

In the cyber city "A-KIBA",
seeing the latest movie of "Happy Grape Man", their favorite anime,
YUIMETAL and MOAMETAL got very excited.
They were impressed with "Happy Grape Man" which was full of yahman and love & peace,
and, absorbed in chatting, they kept walking.
Then the onion shining on the roof...
No. From the building on the roof of which the grapes were set,
the song of 4ppiness was heard.
What! There stands the real Grape Man!
"If you show me true reggae, I will give you true '4ppiness'!"
When they have eaten the "happy grape" Grape Man has given them,
saying "Give me, 4! Give me, 4!",
they change into BLACK BABYMETAL
and start "Begging Operation" unintentionally...



  ROMAJI TRANSCRIPTION AND NOTES ARE BELOW.


[i] About Anpanman

Budô Man (= Grape Man) is a parody of Anpanman. Anpanman is a hero of a picture book (& anime) series written by Takashi YANASE (1919-2013). Ever since 1980's, Anpanman is very popular among Japanese young children (< 6 y.o.).

Anpan is a sweet bun (bread) filled with red bean paste. Anpanman's head is made of anpan. When he notices a starving person or animal, he offers them his own head to eat. If it is (partially) eaten, he gets weaker. When necessary, the baker Uncle Jam replaces his head with new anpan. He doesn't try to destroy his enemy Baikinman (= (Bad) Bacteria Man) but only to stop Baikinman's evildoing.

Anpanman's character comes from the author's wartime experience. People in many countries suffered from starvation during & after the World War II, and the justice he had been taught to believe was no longer justice after Japan's surrender, so he came to think true justice is not to destroy the enemies of justice but to save people from starvation and disaster. And Baikinman's character symbolizes the bad side of human nature.

The author thought these were difficult for such young children to understand, and many adults complained eating the head is too shocking, but young children love Anpanman, and his act becomes an opportunity for them to think about the meaning of self-sacrifice. Since Budô Man offers YUIMETAL & MOAMETAL a part of his head though they are in no trouble, I'm afraid 'he' may not understand the theme of Anpanman.


Prologue for BLACK BABYMETAL   in "Black Night"

Romaji TranscriptionEnglish TranslationNotes
 
Dennoo shitii "A-KIBA" de daisuki na anime In the cyber city "A-KIBA",1,2
"Shiawase no Budoo Man" no saishin-saku o mite seeing the latest movie of "Happy Grape Man", their favorite anime,[i]
dai-koofun no YUIMETAL to MOAMETAL. YUIMETAL and MOAMETAL got very excited.
Yaaman de rabu-ando-piisu na "Shiawase no Budoo Man" ni kandoo shi They were impressed with "Happy Grape Man" which was full of yahman and love & peace,3
oshaberi ni muchuu ni natte aruki-tsuzukete-iru to and, absorbed in chatting, they kept walking.4
yane no ue ni hikaru tamanegi... Then the onion shining on the roof...5,6
iya, budoo ga chinza suru tatemono kara No. From the building on the roof of which the grapes were set,7
4awase no uta ga kikoete-kita. the song of 4ppiness was heard.8
Nanto soko niwa honmono no Budoo Man ga iru de wa nai ka! What! There stands the real Grape Man!
"Honto no regee misete kuretara honto no '4awase' ageru yo!" "If you show me true reggae, I will give you true '4ppiness'!"
Budoo Man kara moratta "Shiawase no Budoo" o taberu to When they have eaten the "happy grape" that Grape Man has given them,[i]
"Choodai 4! Choodai 4!" to saying "Give me, 4! Give me, 4!",9
futari wa BLACK BABYMETAL eto henshin shi they change into BLACK BABYMETAL
"Onedari DaiSakusen" o hajimete-shimau no de atta. and start "Begging Operation" unintentionally...
 

Notes

  1. "A-KIBA" (pronounced as "eikiba") suggests the area of Akihabara a.k.a. "Akiba".
  2. The phrase "daisuki na anime" (= their favorite anime) appears in the first part, but it modifies "Shiawase no Budoo Man" (= Happy Grape Man) in the second part. I'm sorry I've missed this phrase. I inserted it on 2017 May 27 (thanks to Fernando san on 2017 May 21).
  3. "Yahman" (= yeah, man) is a Jamaican word which means "alright" or something positive. It seems to be used by reggae music fans all over the world.
  4. It is about 2.5km distance from Akihabara to Budôkan.
  5. This line is borrowed from the song "Ookina Tamanegi no Shita de" (= Under the Big Onion) by a Japanese rock band "Bakufu Slump", 1985. They saw Budôkan and wrote the song because, on the top of the roof, there is a Japanese traditional ornament "giboshi" which looks like an onion.
  6. The grammatical structure of these three lines is: Then the song of happiness was heard from the building on whose roof not a onion (which was sung to be shining on the roof) but a bunch of grapes was set.
  7. The building on the screen is Budôkan, and "budô" (= grape) is a pun with "Budôkan" (= the Hall for Martial Arts).
  8. "4awase" is read as "shiawase" (= happiness) because "4" is read as "shi", so please read "4ppiness" as "fouppiness" meaning "happiness".
  9. This sentence is read as "choodai yon" ("yon" is another reading of "4"). "Yo" is a sentence-ending particle to emphasize the sentence, and it is rarely and playfully pronounced "yon", so the sentence means only "(please) do give me", but it sounds somewhat meaning "give me 4" because the form of "yon" is rare.

5 comments :

  1. Du Enki-san

    Added an .srt, おねだり大作戦 -- your translations: http://dai.ly/x37rqii
    Up at Daily Motion...have no idea for how long. Enable 'CC'
    Enjoy!
    And, as usual, thank you for your translations.
    m (_ _) \m/
    Say, you may enjoy my Lucky Fox BABYMETAL compilation: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjwjJJYBzGyU4lKb-HhPQnrDLf3aAO7XW
    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for captioning and an enjoyable playlist.

      Delete
  2. Hello again Du Enki san,

    I was watching the DVD with your romaji transcription and I've noticed there's something missing in the first line: after "Dennoo shitii "A-KIBA" de", and before "Shiawase no Budo Man etc", I hear something like (excuse my Japanese!) "daisuki na anime" (?). I think you forgot to write that part even if it seems to be translated (the "their favorite anime" part in the line, "In the cyber city "A-KIBA,
    seeing the latest movie of "Happy Grape Man", their favorite anime, YuiMetal..."

    Could you fix that please? I'm interested in having the romaji transcription.

    Thanks in advance,

    Fernando :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for correcting. I will fix it.
      The phrase "daisuki na anime" appears on the screen in the first part, but it modifies "Shiawase no Budô Man" which appears in the second part, so I didn't know which part I should put it in, left it for a while, and forgot it.

      Delete
    2. I'm glad to know that my ears were right and I even did a "GJ" with the romaji :) Maybe I'm improving my Japanese? I know Japanese and Spanish have more fonetical similarities than other languages but, even so, sometimes I become very frustrated with my attempts to at least catch by ear and write correctly at least the romaji form. A very frustrating example for this I have in mind is for a rude word in Japanese so maybe it's better not to mention it, hehe.

      Thank you very much for the reply,

      F. :)

      Delete