Zetsu wo nozomu / Kiryu

Kanji & Romaji: hiphopvomit
Translation: myself

Lyrics & music: Sakai Mitsuki





絶ヲ望ム [Zetsu wo nozomu]
Desire to perish



Floating on a twinkling flash     Gaze of immorality that one cannot hide
Forgetting one's reasoning      Instantly setting one's instincts free

As if I were robbed of everything     Certain people laugh in a rainy day
I always recall     Tears running in black and white

When living is painfully harsh     I look away from an injured heart
Living through, spinning life round (1)     Living is painfully harsh

Going round, the answer I've found is endless "despair"

I even tried to live peacefully     Ran away from that distress
Living through, spinning life round     Clinging to baseless "despair"

Going round, the answer I've found isn't really an answer
Live... Live... Live... The future I struggle to reach is a
"Return to its starting point"

Footnotes:

1. As in "to make a yarn"

Rant Discussion:

Mitsuki, what are you... Itoshiki Nozomu?
Well.
Do you know what will happen when you get rid of all kana in 絶ヲ望ム ? You'll get 絶望 [zetsubou] - despair. Despair is also what I went through while trying to translate the title, because 絶 [zetsu] is used in such a weird way and it is by no means used as a word in and of itself:
絶える [taeru] - to cease, to die out, to vanish
BUT
Aforementioned 絶望 → 望 hope
絶対 [zettai] - absolutely, totally → 対 opposite
絶滅 [zetsumetsu] - extinction (in biology) → 滅 destruction
絶好 [zekkou] - best → 好 like, pleasing
See? No good.

So I attempted find any good one-word translation for this kanji regardless. Actually the song is about someone suffering from a crippling depression. A person caught in an endless spiral of despair, who tries to live through, yet wants to put an end to his own life. Having this thought in mind, extinct might be a fitting word, albeit it does not sound good in a title. End is somehow not satisfying as well as vanish and die is too blunt. Frankly, perish is the best possible translation I could come up with.

ZETSUBOU SHITAAA, SONO KANJI NI ZETSUBOU SHITAAA!!

Afterword:

Recently I've got a couple requests for translations. Zetsu wo nozomu, Aien kien and Akai mi hajiketa, that is. I thought, it would've not hurt if I'd translated Zetsu wo nozomu, so here it is, however the remaining two... A friend of mine already translated Aien kien some time ago. I'd need to read that translation once again and analyze it. I know, it doesn't seem to be a difficult task, but by analyze, I mean to translate it on my own using my friend's translation as a base, because otherwise I won't be able to interpret the lyrics. Also, I wouldn't want my friend's hard work to be wasted. It may take me a while since the lyrics are really intricate.

Akai mi hajiketa though is a whole different story. I've already made a template for that song with a 2016/6/30 date on it and I temporarily aborted the translation mission due to its lyrics' abstract and bizarre form (seriously Mitsuki, reconsider your diet please). But I'll eventually (emphasis on eventually) translate that monster as well.

Please be patient. I focus mostly on Kiryu anyway, therefore, sooner or later, I'll do something about those songs.

Also! I'd like to thank you for every nice and warm comment I get here. Everytime I get them, I feel like I'm doing something right and my translations actually make any consistent sense. Thank you again!