27.10.22

Buck-Tickets

Hey, y'all. We're very sorry we've been so lax with the blogging... our personal life circumstances continue to be very tough and it's been difficult to find the time and energy to update. However, there's something a lot of you have been asking about, that we want to address: namely, tickets to B-T shows.

So, what's up with the tickets?

Now that Japan is finally reopening borders to tourists, a lot of y'all are wanting to come to Japan to see B-T live... and we have some very bad news for you about that, for which we sincerely apologize, though if we had our druthers it wouldn't be this way.

The news is this. Since 2020, Buck-Tick's management have instituted a ticketing system whereby you can only purchase e-tickets via your smartphone. The tickets are non-transferrable, meaning that if you buy a ticket, you can't gift it to anyone else, even if you become unable to attend the show. It goes without saying that the tickets can't be resold, either. This frustrating system was ostensibly introduced to prevent ticket scalping, but ticket scalping was in fact never a major problem with Buck-Tick shows. This reasoning feels a whole lot more like a glib excuse for mass surveillance.

How so? Well, not only do you have to register all your own personal information, but if you buy more than one ticket, you are required to enter the name, birthday, and other info about your plus one. Not only that, but in order to claim your tickets, you are first required to register an account on TixPlus, the extremely dodgy, shitty excremental, incompetent company that currently manages B-T's fanclub and ticketing (blame Victor for this one). You then need to download the TixPlus app - but you also need to download the official Buck-Tick app, because, though TixPlus administrates the ticketing, all B-T concert tickets, whether you get them through Fish Tank (Buck-Tick's official fan club), Love & Media Portable (Buck-Tick's official mobile subscription service) or general sales, I repeat, all Buck-Tickets can only be accessed through the Buck-Tick official app. Last time we checked, this app wasn't available to overseas fans, but if this has changed, please post a comment and let us know.

Once you download those apps, you also have to register a photo of your face on their facial recognition software, because apparently posting really shitty poopy, ugly selfies on a buggy app that doesn't work somehow prevents Covid (!?). Don't ask us why. At the concerts we've attended since this system was instituted, the venue staff have barely glanced at the photos. Oh, and it doesn't help that the facial recognition algorithm is so bad that there's a long line for the tech support booth before every show. The only plus side: the tech support people are the only people in this whole shebang who've actually been professional and helpful.

We don't blame y'all for not knowing this stuff, because the wall of text of disclaimers, rules, etc. that you have to scroll through before even applying to buy a ticket now amounts to at least 20 solid A4 pages in point 12 font. This is not an exaggeration, we actually measured it ourselves. Does anyone read this shit, you ask? Even people fluent in Japanese don't want to read 20 fucking pages of disclaimers just to buy a concert ticket! The disclaimer bullshit horse manure used to be around 1-2 pages, tops! Where did this shit poop come from all of a sudden? Well, kids, we don't have an answer, but we did read through all that garbage, last year, when we first tried to get a ticket under the new system and the app didn't work, and then the facial recognition didn't work... and then at the 35th Anniversary shows at Yokohama Arena the app didn't work again... and we had to stand in line for the tech support booth outside the venue in a rather long line of fans who were in the same fucking copulating pickle. 

Apps: kill them with fire, please. We politely tell them to piss urinate the hell underworld off.

Edit: something one of our lovely commenters brought up that we neglected to mention: if you uninstall and reinstall the Buck-Tick app more than once, you will become unable to use the app. This is supposedly to prevent fraud but seems in practice to be for giving fans headaches, toothaches and buttaches. However, the latest problem we had with the app was solved by a tech support official at the venue uninstalling and reinstalling the app in an official capacity. Basically, you can trust the tech support people (though since we have a Japanese phone we can't vouch for what happens with overseas phones). 

About the delay in two-step verification codes: DO contact Fish Tank and TixPlus about this. You paid for that Fish Tank membership. They owe you. Sure they suck at their jobs, but they are still obligated to fix the issue. In Japanese business, the customer is supposed to be always right.

Anyhow, the real kicker here for overseas fans is that the Japanese ticketing services, Ticket Pia and Lawson Ticket, only allow you to register on their service if you have a Japanese address AND a Japanese mobile phone number starting with the digits 070, 080, or 090. Furthermore, the phone number you register when you buy the tickets is the ONLY phone number through which you can claim your tickets - it's prohibited to buy tickets from a different phone than the one you intend to use at the concert. You have to physically bring your phone to the concert and present your e-ticket as displayed on your phone screen to the venue staff. We made several enquiries with Ticket Pia about this and they confirmed, in a maddeningly obnoxious fashion, that "Ticket Pia is a service only for people in Japan." Yeah, thanks Ticket Pia. Fuck fornicate you very much, too. You racist assholes anal orifices.

However, if you join Fish Tank (for only 6000 yen per year, how cheap that seems now that they raised the price of Buck-Tickets to 10,000 yen or more per show!)... if you join Fish Tank, it's theoretically possible to get tickets even if you're an overseas fan. We're not sure about Love & Media Portable - last time we checked, LMP was only available to fans in Japan (Fuck you very much, too. You racist assholes engage in sexual tacos with your own anal orifice, you discriminatory nationalists) but if anyone here has confirmed that that has changed, please do post a comment. Since we're located in Japan, with a Japanese phone number, we can't actually check ourselves to see if the service works overseas.

Note: if you buy tickets through Fish Tank, you need to write 000-0000-0000 in the Japanese phone number field, and fill in your overseas phone number in the field below.

The bottom line: we wish we could still help you get tickets to concerts, but the new ticketing system has made that pretty much impossible. The only ways you can get B-T tickets now, as an overseas fan, are:

1) Join Fish Tank and get tickets in the fan club lotteries. Is this a money-grubbing strategy by FanPlus to get more people to pay for Fish Tank memberships? You tell us.

2) Get someone in Japan to rent you a Japanese mobile phone to take to the concert, and use their address and the rental phone number to make an account on Ticket Pia to buy tickets through general sales.

3) Wait till you get to Japan to buy the tickets, rent a phone at one of the rental kiosks at Narita Airport, and use the address of your hotel to make a Ticket Pia account. Buck-Tick shows have been seriously undersold since the pandemic - almost none of the tour dates are selling out, and at every show we've attended since 2021, large sections of seats have been cordoned off, unused (what a crying shame! If they'd only issue paper tickets at more affordable prices, maybe they could still fill the venues!) Anyway, it's likely that you would still be able to buy tickets once you get here.

4) Last-ditch measure - go to the venue early and buy same-day tickets. Since the shows are no longer selling out, same-day tickets have been on offer at most shows, and the next kicker here is that the same-day tickets are real paper tickets! (If we could lock whoever designed this system into the old-fashioned Medieval stocks and pelt them with rotten tomatoes, you betcha, we'd do it.)

However, we did a little digging and it seems there are some services available that will let you either create a virtual Japanese phone number, or rent a Japanese SIM card from outside Japan. We're not sure if any of these services will work for this ticketing system, and we can't vouch for their credibility, but if you're very desperate, we encourage you to search around and see what you can find, using keywords such as "rent Japanese phone from overseas" or "get Japanese phone number from overseas." Since we live in Japan, we can't verify that any of these services work, so keep on alert for scams and misinformation and read all the fine print. Getting a phone number won't get you around the address problem, but since none of these services are ever going to send snail mail to you anyway, we offer the trollish suggestion of either registering the address of the hotel where you'll be staying, picking an address at random from Google, or just making something up. We can't be entirely certain of this because we haven't tried it, but we're pretty sure they won't know and they don't care.

Very unfortunately, since Buck-Tick became slaves to The Evil Empire (cough, Victor Entertainment, cough), they have done away with their general enquiries email address. Now, if you want to contact them, you have to do so through the Fish Tank web site, which you can't access unless you join Fish Tank (is that a money grab? You tell us). Those of you who are members of Fish Tank already know that the current Fish Tank web site is a mire of un-navigable gobbledygook and garbage machine translated Engrish, and it's very hard to find the enquiry page, but if you scroll through the help sections, you'll find a link to click on at the bottom, which will send you to an enquiry form. We highly encourage any and all of you to write to Fish Tank and complain about the fact that overseas fans are barred from getting tickets. They have been known to respond to feedback in the past - back in 2017, I encouraged all Blog-Tick readers to write to Fish Tank and ask for Buck-Tick's music to be available for digital download internationally, and within two months, they actually made that happen - they did listen to us! So probably, the best thing you can do is write to them and explain your situation. The customer support from TixPlus/FanPlus is absolutely terrible, but this is all we've got, in this modern world of increasingly crappy feces-covered software updates and separate apps for each of your toenails (too bad the bugs in the app prevent your little toes from logging in! And the app for your big toes painted your toenails orange overnight, without even asking you! But you can't complain, because by agreeing to this Terms of Service agreement, you waive all your civil and human rights forevermore. Fun fact: the German industrial rock band Rammstein have a song called "Buch Dich," which means "bend over" in German. Does that **** in your *** feel good? No? What's wrong with you, we thought you just love yaoi manga! And in yaoi manga, everyone knows that no means yes and yes means more b*tt**x!!!!!11)

You can also consider writing to the B-T members directly and letting them know how sad it makes you that you can't get tickets just because you live overseas. The post-show feedback questionnaires have even been eliminated now, so at this point, anything's worth a shot.

So yes, this situation sucks. We are very sorry. If someone would just tell us us who we could pelt with rotten tomatoes... we'd be on our way there now...

But, in conclusion, we'd like to say the following. This new policy is not, and we repeat, is NOT the fault of the band members. This is a management decision. The band members actually have limited control over these things. In fact, Sakurai has very gently hinted a number of times that he is dissatisfied with how things are going with the management, though of course he can't come out and say it. But Buck-Tick aren't unique in this predicament - since the pandemic, most major label Japanese artists have instituted systems like this. In Buck-Tick's case, this was likely a management decision by TixPlus, which is a shady umbrella company that manages a lot of ticketing services and band fan clubs (very badly. Atrociously. Come at us, TixPlus, we've got a big basket of stinky, moldy tomatoes right here waiting for you.) Buck-Tick switched to having Fish Tank managed by TixPlus after they switched their label back to Victor, so this was also a management decision on the part of Victor. (Rumors of yakuza connections are currently unconfirmed, but it's been the way of the world forever that the relationship between organized crime and the media and entertainment industries is, shall we say... hygge-transcendentally cozy. A laundromat to wash your money in! Who doesn't want one of those!?) 

Anyway, do not assume that the band members are xenophobes or hate foreign fans - all the evidence points to the contrary. The band members have consistently looked visibly pleased by seeing foreign fans in the audience, and before all the pandemic stuff happened, Sakurai had even taken to addressing the crowd in English and Spanish at certain shows. Never fear that the band members hate you! They love you. For any artist, getting fans from around the world to love your work is a dream come true. Furthermore, the band members, Sakurai, Imai, and Hide in particular, have worked with foreign artists on numerous occasions (see Schaft, Schwein, Ai no Wakusei, and dropz). Sakurai still talks about how he loves to travel abroad and how much he loved recording in London. This is not, I repeat NOT, the fault of the band.

Rather, upper management at large, stodgy Japanese companies like Victor tend to be extraordinarily ignorant of how things work in the rest of the world - sometimes it feels like they don't even know there is a rest of the world. These are supremely imbecilic, ignorant people who are making these decisions. Not only can they not manage to build apps that work, the thought that overseas fans might want to attend concerts in Japan has probably literally never crossed their minds - that's the kind of small-minded, self-centered world of the Japanese corporation. I worked with people like this for years in my stint as a Japanese office drone, and talking to most of them was like talking to one of those creepy Japanese Pepper robots most of the time. They don't care about you. They have no idea what your difficulties as a foreigner in Japan might be. They can't even conceive of it. They have no idea what things are like elsewhere in the world. They have zero imagination and little empathy. It's not even that they hate you. They are just, pardon my French, dipshits a la fuckee I ran out of censored swearwords so fine, I'ma just go with fucking dipshits here. 

Anyway, to reiterate, don't blame the band members. They're not the ones betraying you. Instead, if you can, send feedback to these corporate robots. The more of you send feedback, the more likely they'll rethink their asinine system. (Please note that the Japanese postal service prohibits the sending of rotten vegetables from overseas, but if you send us donations, we'll buy extra rotten tomatoes for you).

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So, I'm sorry. I really don't like to take such a negative tone on Blog-Tick. I want this to be a place where fans can gather and enjoy themselves while learning more about B-T. But... this shit poo-poo is bollocks buttocks. I am so, so sorry that after 35 years, this is what Buck-Tickistan is coming to. Tonight, we're going to go drown the Victor offices in rotten tomatoes, so just wait for us in that shelter. 

I feel sorry for the tomatoes, though. They didn't do anything to deserve this crap.

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Note: This is NOT Greatest Site is currently frozen due to the updates in the Google Sites platform, and we haven't yet been able to port it to another platform. Until we do so, all information on Blog-Tick posted after 2020 takes precedence over the information on NGS, which is now out of date. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Sayonara Shelter

Here it is, the song you just knew was coming - Mr. Sakurai's "I AM VERY ANGRY ABOUT THE WAR IN UKRAINE" song. Honestly, we suspect that there will be more after this one - B-T are currently on tour to support their 35 anniversary best-of album, but in between tour dates, they're also in the studio, recording a new album, which is due to be released in spring of 2023. This song was released on Buck-Tick's 5-disc 35th Anniversary Best album, appearing on the first disc, "Ribelo," which features Toll on the cover. This English translation is singable with the original melody, but as always, we strove to be as faithful to the original Japanese as possible. 

If you appreciate this translation, please consider supporting us on Ko-fi. We know we haven't been posting much lately but your support always means a lot. We've also recently heard from some newly-minted B-T fans from the younger generation... welcome, y'all! Please, don't hesitate to write to us, or to leave a comment, if you feel so moved.


Goodbye Shelter
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

Ephemeral candle
In the bunker, dancing and flickering
(1)
A lamp with a genie (2)
Flaming in your eyes
Reach out your hand now
You've almost got that love love
At your fingertips
Playing with shadows
Oh my darling princess

Endless rain now
Pretend it's a dream now
And all I want to do is hold you tight
But someone's coming to kill us all... tonight (3)
It's senseless oh, it's senseless, I know

Tonight, I promise that I'll come to meet you
While you're sleeping safe and sound for me
Just wait for me in that shelter
Tonight, the Earth is a like shooting star, so lovely
I want you to bathe in the beauty
Just wait for me in that shelter

A colorless landscape
In a world with no sound, my love song
In trembling soprano
A little girl singing

The rain is so cold now
I wish this were all lies
And all I want to do is hold you tight
But I've got to go off and kill somebody... tonight (3)
It's senseless oh, it's senseless, I know

Tonight, I promise that I'll come to meet you
While you're sleeping safe and sound for me
Just wait for me in that shelter

Tonight, the Earth is a like shooting star, so lovely
I want you to bathe in the beauty
Just wait for me in that shelter


Note: Sakurai stated in Ongaku to Hito and PHY magazines, as well as on his radio program The Music of Note with DJ Chiwaki Mayumi, that he was inspired to write this song after watching the viral video of a little girl Ukrainian girl singing the Ukrainian version of "Let it Go" (from the Disney film Frozen) inside a bomb shelter (it doesn't hurt that she's an excellent singer despite being so young). Sakurai has been an adamantly anti-war activist for his entire career, but he stated that at first, he felt hesitant to write this song, due to the pressure on Japanese musicians to not express political views in an artistic context. However, he stated that he ultimately decided that he's old enough at this point to say exactly what he wants to say, and not worry too much about whether it might make some people uncomfortable. Tanaka, Buck-Tick's long-time album director, encouraged Sakurai to pursue this creative direction, and suggested that, due to its highly topical nature, this song be released with the 35th anniversary best-of box set, rather than waiting to release it on the 2023 new album. You can watch Amelia's video here. In perfect synchronicity, this video was uploaded on March 7th, Mr. Sakurai's birthday.

Sakurai also made reference to the word "shelter" in his song "Barbaric Man," from his side project album I Am Mortal. In both these songs, there is an implicit reference to the Rolling Stones hit "Gimme Shelter," which was partly written in protest of the Vietnam War.

(1) This is a reference to the bunker in which the little girl, Amelia, gave her performance of "Let it Go."

(2) This is a reference to the story "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," a Middle Eastern folktale which is commonly associated with the 1,001 Nights/Arabian Nights tales, but was in fact added at a later date to the 1,001 Nights manuscript. Sakurai has been incorporating Aladdin imagery since the release of the single New World in 2016. Buck-Tick made heavy use of Arabian Nights imagery in the visuals and performance for their Abracadabra tours, as well as in the tag line for the 35th anniversary concerts at Yokohama Arena on September 23rd and 24th, which read, "New World For You." In this sense, "Sayonara Shelter" is a bit like a continuation of "New World," dealing with the same theme of the pain and senselessness of living as a human being in a world that is often violent and uncaring.

(3) Sakurai stated in PHY magazine and his radio program The Music of Note with DJ Chiwaki Mayumi that he included the line "but I've got to go off and kill somebody" in reference to the fact that in many Ukrainian refugee families, the men saw their families to safety, then returned to Ukraine to enlist in the military and defend their homeland. Sakurai has never shied away from assuming a certain responsibility for the violence on planet Earth in which all of us are often complicit. (See Guernica no Yoru for more on this.)


Sayonara Shelter
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

Hakanai kyandoru     chikashitsu de dansu dansu     yureteiru
Mahou no rampu     hitomi ni wa honoo
Sono te nobashite     yubisaki de Love Love     ato sukoshi
Kagee asobi     saa ohimesama

Yamanai ame     yume nara ii ne
Anata wo dakishimeteitai kedo
Dareka ga bokura wo koroshi ni     kuru yo
Kurutteiru    kurutteiru yo

Konya     shizuka ni nemuru     anata ni ai ni yuku     kanarazu
Ano sherutaa de matteite

Konya     chikyuu wa marude     utsukushii nagareboshi     kirei da
Ano sherutaa de matteite

Iro wo nakushita     oto mo nai sekai     ai no uta
Furueru koe de     ano ko wa utau

Tsumetai ame     uso nara ii ne
Anata wo dakishimeteitai kedo
Watashi wa dareka wo koroshi ni     iku no
Kurutteiru    kurutteiru yo

Konya     shizuka ni nemuru     anata ni ai ni yuku     kanarazu
Ano sherutaa de matteite

Konya     chikyuu wa marude     utsukushii nagareboshi     kirei da
Ano sherutaa de matteite


Sayonara Shelter
作詞:櫻井敦司
作曲:星野英彦

儚いキャンドル 地下室でダンスダンス 揺れている
魔法のランプ 瞳には炎
その手伸ばして 指先でLoveLove あと少し
影絵遊び さあお姫様

止まない雨 夢ならいいね
あなたを抱き締めていたいけど
誰かが僕らを殺しに 来るよ
狂っている 狂っているよ

今夜 静かに眠る あなたに会いに行く 必ず
あのシェルターで待っていて

今夜 地球はまるで 美しい流れ星 奇麗だ
あのシェルターで待っていて

色を無くした 音もない世界 愛の歌
震える声で あの子は歌う

冷たい雨 嘘ならいいね
あなたを抱き締めていたいけど
わたしは誰かを殺しに 行くの
狂っている 狂っているよ

今夜 静かに眠る あなたに会いに行く 必ず
あのシェルターで待っていて

今夜 地球はまるで 美しい流れ星 奇麗だ
あのシェルターで待っていて

Buck-Tick 35th Anniversary @ Yokohama Arena

Amazing shows. Amazing set lists. Lasers all over the place. Insane LED stage effects. An anti-war/goth theme to the songs (hmm wonder who chose that?) Happy 35th anniversary to Buck-Tick! We wish we were able to write a live report, but the whole experience was so overwhelming, the little details are still swimming around in our heads like all those fish in "Aikawarazu no Are no Katamari." In the meantime, enjoy some pictures. With everyone in masks, unable to shout or cheer, was it really a Buck-Tick show? Yeah, it was. But we miss y'all, and we miss the good old days.


Set Lists:

2022-09-23

01. Iconoclasm
02. Babel
03. Uta
04. Gekka Reijin
05. Maimu Maimu
06. Kyouki no Deadheat
07. Kinjirareta Asobi -Adult Children-
08. Aikawarazu no "Are" no Katamari ga Nosabaru Hedo no Soko no Fukidamari
09. Rakuen
10. Revolver
11. Guernica no Yoru
12. Sayonara Shelter
13. Go Go B-T Train
14. Memento Mori
15. New World

encore 1

16. Django!!! -Genwaku no Django-
17. Aku no Hana
18. Illusion

encore 2

19. Koi
20. Yumemiru Uchuu
21. Solaris

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2022-09-24

01. Elise no Tame ni
02. Babel
03. Tight Rope
04. Mienai Mono wo Miyou to Suru, Gokai Subete Gokai da
05. Moonlight Escape
06. Dance Tengoku
07. BOY septem peccata mortalia
08. Aikawarazu no "Are" no Katamari ga Nosabaru Hedo no Soko no Fukidamari
09. Rakuen
10. Revolver
11. Guernica no Yoru
12. Sayonara Shelter
13. Go Go B-T Train
14. Romance
15. New World

encore 1

16. Angelic Conversation
17. Aku no Hana
18. Heaven

encore 2

19. Boukyaku
20. Yumemiru Uchuu
21. Kodou








Yokohama Arena is Arena as fuck.




All the fans seemed to agree that Cali-Gari's bouquet was the best of the bunch (no pun intended)... but it's rather touching that Hiroshi sent nothing but red roses as a token of his love for Acchan-chan.

Happy 35th anniversary! Mr. Sakurai keeps saying that he can't feel the time passing and he doesn't understand what 35 years even means, and on our part, we tend to concur. Here's hoping for a more open world and many more years of B-T tours to come!

16.8.22

Mr. Sakurai Has Officially Been Declared Corona-Free

As of a little past 9PM this evening, Fish Tank informed members via email that Mr. Sakurai had officially been declared corona-free, and had completed the required post-treatment quarantine, and therefore he will be back onstage this Friday, to celebrate Yagami Toll's 60th birthday. As Mr. Sakurai would probably shout if he were onstage right now, Whoo! You can all sleep soundly at night now! Go go on B-T train!


Anyway, everyone, stay safe, stay well, y'all. Eat healthy food, drink plenty of water, and get enough sleep. The best way to keep yourself from getting sick is to take care of your basic health on a daily basis. Also, for those of you living in areas that have been experiencing extreme heat waves (not gonna name names, *cough* Tokyo) - don't just drink water, make sure you get your electrolytes, too - if you don't like sports drinks, eating a little pinch of sea salt or Himalayan salt with each glass of water you drink is what staves off dehydration, and dehydration and heat stroke are bad, bad news. Stay out of the sun and don't push yourself further than you can handle. If you start to feel sick, seek a cool place immediately. If you're really feeling ill, get in a cold shower or cold path, then use ice packs on your neck and face (plus tons of electrolyte fluids, a little at a time). But for now, let's revel in the good news.

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4.8.22

The Corona Report

Well... this isn't nice news. But we'd rather you hear it from us than The Net.

As of about 9:30 this morning, Buck-Tick were all ready set to go on tour to Fish Tanker's and Love and Media Portable (minus everyone overseas) in Nagoya... and then a little past noon, the fan club announced via email that Mr. Sakurai was not feeling well, had been examined by a doctor, and had tested positive for Covid-19. So, the tour is postponed, or possibly cancelled. The management have not yet made the call on whether to cancel or postpone the show, but have stated that due to issues with the venue, cancellation may be the only option.

How much does this suck? A lot. It sucks of lot of ducks. Will this affect next week's fanclub only show at Toyosu Pit, and the recently announced livestream? That depends on a negative test, most likely. Given Buck-Tick's celebrity status, we expect the management will err on the side of caution.

However, one thing we'd like to say is that the level of medical care in Japan is extremely high. The level of serious illness and complications in this country is much lower than in many other countries, most particularly the USA. Many of our friends and acquaintances here in Japan have tested positive in recent months and in most cases, they have either been minimally ill, or they got ill, but it hasn't been cause for serious alarm, though getting sick is never, ever fun. Mr. Sakurai has certainly been vaccinated and boosted, as per the needs of his job, and there is no question that he will receive whatever support he needs to get well as soon as possible. 

At the same time, after two years of cancelled tours, now this? We can imagine he's feeling very upset, disappointed and grumpy (at least that's how we'd feel if we were him right now). So, y'all, please, send prayers and positive energy his way. The power of prayer is huge. It has even been scientifically verified. Let's get him out of bed and singing again as soon as is feasible (though of course, he needs to take the proper amount of time to recover). 

And y'all... I feel extremely the opposite of happy about this and if you could leave a comment with some good vibes, please do it, for Mr. Sakurai, for the band, for the blog, and for little old Cayce. Frying pan into the fire, rock and hard place, come the fuck on, I want us all to be happy floating on cotton candy clouds riding unicorns and it's like sucker punch after sucker punch and just, [insert word of exasperation here].

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Update: The Fish Tanker's Only show on August 11th at Toyosu Pit has been postponed, pending possible rescheduling. For everyone looking forward to the live stream, it sucks, but I don't believe it's cause for concern as the general Covid policy in Japan is at least seven days of isolation, and really, having Acchan go onstage one week after testing positive just doesn't seem like a great idea even if he feels totally well and chipper by then. Health is first priority. For what it's worth, I do believe that even if the other shows are cancelled, Toyosu and the live stream will be rescheduled. If you're in FT, go ahead and write to their absolutely horrible Kafkaesque nightmare feedback service and tell them how much you hope the show will be rescheduled along with the live stream. The show scheduled for August 14th has also been postponed. Everything else depends on Mr. Sakurai's status of health... so what are you waiting for... if the postal service in your country still works (haha lol what a big IF, but yeah), send him a get-well card! Get-well cards can be mailed to the Fish Tank office, addressed to Sakurai-san. He might not be in the mood for reading mail but I'm sure a stack of get-well cards from overseas will give him some warm fuzzy feelings, even if he's totally recovered by the time he gets them. These last few years have been hard on us all. If you need the address, drop us a line.

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21.7.22

Bouyaku (Forgotten)

I am so, so sorry to keep y'all waiting for this translation for a whole year and a half... but in a way, I'm not actually sorry. This is, without exaggeration, the most difficult Buck-Tick translation I've ever done (runner-up, Guernica no Yoru.) 

It's not because "Boukyaku" is technically difficult in terms of words and phrases - it's not. But the meaning is oblique. Yeah, the lyrics to so many Buck-Tick songs are oblique in meaning, and I never let that stop me before. But at the nexus of the pandemic, the cancelled Buck-Tick tours, and the things I've been going through in my personal life through this time, this song aroused a lot of very strong emotions in me and I wanted to sit with it, tease it out, let it percolate before I translated it. Like so much of Sakurai's recent work, it's yin-yang level multi-faceted. Is it happy, or sad? It's both, and one in the other, and both in each, both because it's each, each because it's both. How best to express that?

If you just glance at these lyrics, maybe you'll think they're simple - and they are, deceptively so, like most of everything Sakurai has ever written. Let's start with the word "hitosuji," which he uses in the first verse to mean "stream (of blood)" (as in, one drop of blood dripping down), and in the second verse to mean "stream of a tear" (one tear dripping down). In Japanese, this word literally means "one line." So first, we have the comparison between a drop of blood flowing, and a tear flowing. The verb here, "nijimu," is one that Sakurai likes a lot, and we've seen it before very recently, in the lyrics to "Koi" and the lyrics to "Villain" - in both cases, to express oozing blood. Here, we see it to express both oozing blood and oozing tears - a upwelling and slow flow that leaves a trail behind - so, a drop of blood flowing down skin, a teardrop flowing down a face. 

But then, we have the ever-present "me vs. you" that Sakurai employs in his lyrics. He stated in interviews that in this song, he was trying to express the way that some people hurt others because of the pain in their past, because they can't get past it, because they can't help themselves - but that ultimately, through hurting others, they hurt themselves the most. Sakurai, the son of an abusive alcoholic father, who has spoken openly throughout his life about the trauma he has suffered, is clearly referring to himself in the victim role - but probably also in the perpetrator role. Why do I say this? Because he's written many songs where he laments having hurt other people without meaning to - "Rain" is probably the most notable, but there are a sheaf of others ("Megami," "Zangai," even "Guernica no Yoru.") On this album, "Villain" might get an honorable mention - not that he's admitting to cyberbullying (perish the thought! but just sit for a minute with the image of him typing spam comments on Buck-Tick's YouTube channel...), but in most of his lyrics about injury or crime/punishment, he maintains a sense of culpability, like he really doesn't want to turn a blind eye from the way everyone can be complicit in tableaux of abuse. He knows he is the next link in the chain of his family's trauma.

So, "senketsu hitosuji," or "stream of blood." How is it relevant? Well, a stream usually only flows one way. It flows from me, to you (or you, to me?). That's just like time, which is the other theme of this song, and also a one-way road. Time flows from then, to now. And yet, there's the implicit duality in the lyrics, the pas de deux of perpetrator-victim. There is a sense of back-and-forth flow, as the pain inflicted rebounds on its originator. (Which connects well with the ambiguous back-and-forth perpetrator-victim dialogues in "Villain" and "Urahara-juku.") At first I thought of translating "hitosuji" as "track," as in "tracks of my tears." But does a "track" flow? In writing this translation, I thought a lot, even more than I usually do, about word choice - not just the denotations and connotations of the words, but the way they sound when you speak or sing them. I really wanted this translation to flow, like blood, or like tears. "Track" sounds harsh, stopped-up, thick. So instead, I chose "stream," to express that flowing feeling - the nature of blood, tears, emotions, time, memory and wind - the main themes in this song.

There's a connection here to the theme of Buck-Tick's album One Life, One Death (2000). The title of this album comes from the lyrics to the song "Cyborg Dolly: Soramimi: Phantom" (by Imai), which go "You live on the straight line / We’re born once, we die once / We die once, only once." We doubt that Sakurai was thinking of this when he penned the lyrics to "Boukyaku," but the two form another sort of dialogue. "Hitosuji," the straight line, the arrow of time, the thrust of a sword into a wound - same as Imai's thesis statement, "we die once, only once." Sakurai comes to more or less the same conclusion at the end of "Boukyaku," with the line "all these irreplaceable days." Life's a one-way street. You can't go back. And yet, in "Boukyaku," there's still this sense of flow, of connection, of return - that everything is not quite as linear as it might seem.

Another main theme in this song is wind. This is another deep one. In Japanese poetry, the image of strong wind is often used as a metaphor for adversity, though it can also be used as a metaphor for positive support, with the word "oikaze" ("tailwind.") In this song, I couldn't help but also think of Bob Dylan's famous anti-war/protest anthem "Blowin' in the Wind" (if you don't know it, look it up, please.) It's not entirely clear whether Sakurai wrote this whole song before or after the pandemic began, but it seems like he finished it up following the pandemic. But even if he didn't... it doesn't really matter. "Wind" is also breath. The breath that we breathe in and out every minute (and isn't that theme of breath pandemic-relevant, despite Sakurai's insistence that he didn't want to let the pandemic affect his lyric-writing). But "wind" is also the spirit of life. 

The English words "spirit," "inspire," "respire," and "conspire" are all derived from the Latin root "respirare," meaning, "to breathe." Spirit = "that which breathes." Inspire - "to be given breath." Respire = "to breathe again." Conspire = "to breathe together." But this connection is by no means limited to languages influenced by Latin - it goes much, much deeper into human consciousness. In Japanese, the phrase "kaze wo hiku" ("to catch a cold") literally means "to pull the wind." Also, the kanji for "kaze" (「風」, "wind"), when read with its on-yomi, or Chinese-derived reading, "fuu," means "feeling," "vibe," "atmosphere," or "flavor." It can be found in words like 「風」 ("fuu," "manner/vibe"), 「風味」 ("fuumi," "flavor"), and 「風景」 ("fuukei," "scenery/view"). There is, naturally, a deep-seated sense in human beings that the flow of wind and breath is what propels life forward. Each breath we take marks the time we live on this earth. Wind travels from one part of the earth to another, carrying messages. In Western occult symbology, the element of air (wind) represents ideas, concepts, dreams, and imagination. Things that float past. Things that have no substance. Spirits, vibes. Things that travel from here to there, like sound waves, and like time. Things that flow, like sound waves, and like time. The stuff of thought, or memories. Wind and water have a commonality in the fact that they flow, they are never still, and Sakurai draws on this commonality in these lyrics, not just by mentioning both tears/blood (i.e. water) and wind, but also connecting the two with the image of "toori ame," or "passing rainfall." The wind blows the rainstorm across us, over and away, as the water falls, then ceases.

Overall, the connection of these two images lead us to the heart of the song: nothing ever stays static. Everything flows onward. You can't hold onto anything. The passion and the pain both rain down and then blow away. And, depending on your perspective, this could feel like grief, or like a blessing. On the one hand, there's often so much we want to hold onto from the past - the beautiful moments with people and places now lost. On the other hand, there's so much we want to be able to let go of. The pain of the times we were wounded or abused. The pain of the memories of the times we ourselves were the ones who caused the pain or abuse. 

In this song, Sakurai says, "let it go." He says that it's okay to let go of the past, that it doesn't define you, good or bad. His invocation of "the rainbow you saw today" underscores this. How many moments of wonder, joy, and beauty have we forgotten, or let us pass us by? In the last stanza, Sakurai says, everything passes by anyway, and it's fine to forget about it - but, remember, it's irreplaceable. He doesn't come and say it outright, but the ultimate implication is, you have to live in the moment. Be here now. Feel what you feel. It's kind of the opposite of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It's, "see that rainbow before it fades." (And then there was this adorable post on Imai's Instagram, about the rainbow his daughter saw in the park.) In any case, in my final draft I chose to translate the final line as "Oh, all those irreplaceable days." But my second choice translation was, "Today's the only day, every day." So I've also written an alternative ending.

In translating this song, my biggest question was, who is Sakurai really referring to when he says "you"? In the first verse, it seems clear that the "you" is another person, someone he (or the narrator of the song) hurt, but as it goes on, it gets less and less clear. When we get to "Ah, but when I am embraced by you / All my tears, they slowly vanish," I started to wonder. Is this a tale of forgiveness and redemption? Is this "you" the same person who was hurt, or another person who has forgiven the song's narrator his past sins and absolved him with love? Or, is this "you" a more cosmic "you," the love of the entire Universe, as it takes our souls back into its arms after our brief mortal lives here on this Earth? The answer, as usual, is probably, "all of the above," and/or "you decide." But I wanted to draw attention to the ambiguity here.

There is a strong belief in Eastern religion and philosophy, going back many thousands of years, in the non-linear nature of time - cosmic cycles and reincarnation. But if we are reincarnated, why don't remember our past lives? The answer is an idea called "the veil of forgetting." Each time we're born, our souls pass through this veil, and temporarily lose all memory of their previous lifetimes. Then, each time we die, we return through the veil, to the outer cosmos, and regain the memories. Buck-Tick have dealt a lot with themes of reincarnation over the course of their career, hell, they even made a whole album about it (Six/Nine). So, why forget? What's the point of reincarnating if you have to start everything over? Why can't you keep what you've learned? In fact, in many cases, people do keep some of what they've learned - whether through flashes of past life memories, or more nebulous things like dreams and gut feelings and inexplicable attractions to certain places, people, or activities. But the point of forgetting everything before each new birth is so that each new lifetime can be experienced afresh - so that you can live in the moment again, as the new you, having new, authentic experience, without being weighed down by what might be tens or hundreds of lifetimes' worth of not only joy and pleasure, but also pain, regret, sorrow, and trauma. Between lifetimes, and also within lifetimes, forgetting can be salvation. 

As always, if you enjoyed this translation, please consider supporting us on Ko-Fi. Times are tight and your support is much appreciated!


Forgotten
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Imai Hisashi

I sit alone here waiting
For nightmare
Fresh, a stream of my flowing blood
Like tears falls

Oh, how I have wounded you
Deeply, oh, so deeply
And so, too, have I wounded me
Deeply, so deeply

In the quiet, my panting breath
Unravels
Fresh, a stream of my flowing tears
Still falling

Ah, but when I am embraced by you
All my tears, they slowly vanish
Ah, and when I'm wrapped up in you
The tears all melt away

Ah, let go and let it be forgotten
Pass over like a brief-falling rain
Like on a sunny day spent doing nothing
Wind blowing, let it blow it away

In the wind


But when I melt into you, the pain
Ah, slowly it leaves me
Ah, and when I'm wrapped up in you
The pain, it leaves you, too (1)

Ah, let go and let it be forgotten
Pass over like a brief-falling rain
Like on a sunny day spent doing nothing
Wind blowing, let it blow it away

Ah, let go and let it be forgotten
Just like that rainbow you saw today
Like on a sunny day spent doing nothing
Oh, all those irreplaceable days (2)

Everyone
Everybody lives them through

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[Alternate ending]
Ah, let go and let it be forgotten
Just like that rainbow you saw today
Like on a sunny day spent doing nothing
Today's the only day, every day (2)

Everyone
Everybody lives it through


Note on the title: "Bouyaku" can be translated as "oblivion" or "forgetting." After much consideration, I settled on "Forgotten," because I think the theme of this song is less about the way everything vanishes with time (though it certainly is about that), and more about how it's okay to live in the moment and let the past go. Happy or sad, don't hold onto regrets, hold onto love.

(1) This isn't quite a literal translation - in the original Japanese, it's unclear whether the pain belongs to the "I" or the "you" or to both. However, Sakurai stated when this song was released that one of the themes he wanted to express is the way in which our past pain leads us to hurt others, but when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, too - so I added the "you" into this line to help keep that back-and-forth balance (which has been a big theme in Sakurai's lyrics since day one.)

(2) Sakurai stated explicitly that, in addition to being about the general "you can't take it back" nature of life, this line was about his feeling of poignant regret, come the pandemic, that Buck-Tick tours are probably never going to be what they used to be - the sense of loss on realizing that, despite him singing about death all the time, it still hurts when you realize things you thought were forever can vanish in an instant.


忘却
作詞:櫻井敦司
作曲:今井寿

悪夢を待っている 独り
鮮血一筋 滲む

あなたを傷つけた 深く とても 深く
そしてこのわたしを 深く 深く

呼吸は静かに 乱れ
涙が一筋 落ちる

あなたに抱かれている 痛みが消えてゆく
あなたに包まれて 消えてゆくよ

忘れ去られてゆけばいい 通り雨のように
何気ない ある晴れた日 風が通り過ぎる

風が

あなたに溶けてゆく 痛みが消えてゆく
あなたに包まれて 消えてゆくよ

忘れ去られてゆけばいい 通り雨のように
何気ない ある晴れた日 風が通り過ぎる
忘れ去られてゆけばいい 今日の虹のように
何もない ある晴れた日 かけがえの無い日々

誰も 通り過ぎてゆく


Boukyaku
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Imai Hisashi

Akumu wo matteiru     hitori
Senketsu hitosuji     nijimu

Anata wo kizutsuketa     fukaku     totemo     fukaku
Soshite kono watashi wo     fukaku     fukaku

Kokyuu wa shizuka ni     midare
Namida ga hitosuji     ochiru

Anata ni dakareteiru     itami ga kieteyuku
Anata ni tsutsumarete     kieteyuku yo

Wasuresararete yukeba ii     toori ame no you ni
Nanige nai      aru hareta hi      kaze ga toori sugiru

Kaze ga

Anata ni toketeyuku     itami ga kieteyuku
Anata ni tsutsumarete     kieteyuku yo

Wasuresararete yukeba ii     toori ame no you ni
Nanige nai      aru hareta hi      kaze ga toori sugiru
Wasuresararete yukeba ii     kyou no niji no you ni
Nani mo nai      aru hareta hi      kakegae no nai hibi

Dare mo     toorisugite yuku

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7.7.22

Why, Fish Tank Tour Goods?

Welp, we can't post the photos of the goods here because they're all too fucking tiny. Web design, in Buck-Tickistan? What country do you think this is, eh?

But, while they have all the money and the lack of web design skills, we have the WHYs y'all are looking for. So, here's why.

1. Imai-designed Masks and "Half Pants" (c'mon Imai, these are call shorts. I know, I know, "shorts" is a euphemism for "panties" in Japan, but if Acchan-chan did it, so can you.) So, why? Chiropractor, kids. For his old man brokedown hip. We recently sprained our non-corporeal knee and we've been commuting once a week to the generously insurance-underwritten chiropractor, where we lie on an air conditioned bed listening to 90's and 2000's pop (both Japanese and Western... by the way, we are never, ever ever getting back together.) while receiving exotic services such as electric massage and chiropractic manipulations by an extremely handsome, charismatic young man who should probably be a televangelist or a used car salesman instead of a chiropractor, but we respect him the more for the fact that he isn't. And what happens when you go to a Japanese chiro clinic with a sprained knee, folks? They have you change into these standard-issue "half-pants" that look pretty much exactly like the ones Imai's got on offer. The masks go without saying. Cuz corona is gonna kill you but them masks will save you. Vax or no vax. So you're snorting into your mask and your half-pants and just wishing that that 90's playlist included "Dress," which of course, it doesn't. Mr. Imai, 9500 yen is a lot of money for some chiro clinic pants, and you know it. But your hip still hurts, and you really, really want to get back up onto those ridiculous boots, so we get it.


2. Yutaka: Serious Bear Round Squishy Ball Keyholder. Well, well, well. We know that aside from Mr. Imai, Yutaka is the most happily married of the bunch in Buck-Tickistan, and what Serious Bear doesn't love to lightly squish a nice, squishy, squishy ball? At 2000 yen, this is very cheap, fit for an everyman... every man who wants a nice, squishy ball. Yutaka, my but you're sweet. Squish squish, it's a boob, it's a ball, it's a stress reliever (is there any difference?) Why does poor Serious Bear look so glum? Probably because none of us can attend the tour and that fucking sucks. But we could buy this thing and squish all of our latent, long-lost longing for Buck-Tick into it, and even if that doesn't make things feel better, it does help that this baby is very cute (and would also make a good cat toy, probably. If Yutaka has a cat. Or if he goes to visit Acchan-chan, which is unlikely.) Yutaka, you are the sweetest, the bestest. We love you.


3. Yagami Toll: Super Ice Cold Ultra-Chilled Sake Set, anticipating our annual global warming 36-degree summer here in Japan. Toll is going to turn 60 on August 19th, kids. Right in the middle of that sauna. Will it be 36 degrees? Will it be 37 degrees? Let's hope to fuck it's not 60 degrees, or we really will all die. But yeah, what does Toll like? Nihonshu. That is to say, "Japaneez sake" (as Mr. Sakurai sings in "Goblin"). When does he like it? Whenever he goddamn well pleases. He has surely earned that right, by now. But if you buy this sake set, you not only get to enjoy that cute zombie-with-a-mohawk Toll graphic, and remember that Toll was ready to give up rock music for a life of drinking away his misery before he ever joined Buck-Tick (see Love Me on This is NOT Greatest Site for more info), but also, Toll has been drinking sake that entire time and he's still alive and pushing sixty, so really, the point is, what you can learn from Toll's life is that you should do what you love, *if* doing what you love involves painstakingly reviewing each and every video of your drumming post-concert (while drinking nihonshu), lecturing to young drummers (while drinking nihonshu) that they shouldn't be so show-offy and should pare their style back to something more refined and Japanese minimalist so as to better show off Mr. Sakurai's voice (like nihonshu), and just plain ol' drinking nihonshu. While maybe checking out your super-duper cool mohawk in the mirror (and toasting your reflection with nihonshu), even though you're alone in your house. (Who says he doesn't do that? Can you prove he doesn't do that? No, you can't!)


4. Hide: Hairband, With Bow (presumably intended to be affixed to your dog's head as she goes running with you.) Why? Well, Hide is an over-50 soccer dad whose very uncool hobby is getting up at 5AM to go jogging along the river. Why does he do this? To stay in shape for playing soccer? Nope. He's just that kind of guy that likes to get up very early in the morning to go jogging. And he's secretly flattered by the groups of 80-something year old ladies who regularly and unabashedly hit on him, with pickup lines like "oooooh look at the handsome prince!!!" They have no idea who he is, no idea that he's famous, no idea what a Buck-Tick is or where to buy one. All they know is they saw that silver fox in his hairband, modestly priced at a department-store price of 2500 yen (price of the man or the headband, you decide, this is a choose your own adventure), because he's an everyman, jogging by the river with his little dog, and their jaded hearts were stirred by his purity of spirit, and by his well-exercised muscles, and by his chiseled features, and his silver beard. 


They heckle and heckle, because when you're 85, you're just over it. "Nice pecs!" "Nice beard!" "Nice biceps!" "Nice bxx!" "Whoo-hoo!" "We like a man with a nice dog!!" "We like a man with a nice headband!!!" And somehow, Hide feels just as small and shamed as any 18-year-old girl getting cat-called by construction workers... and yet... he's still flattered. His ego is inflated and deflated in equal measure (as are other parts of him). Because he knows, work that thang when you still can (and how long can he?? Oh, god, don't go spiraling down this loop anymore...). Because secretly, loss of self-confidence is a very real fear for this extremely handsome, talented, six-foot-tall professional rock star jock. Because everyone's life has to be hard somehow!!! But look, early-morning jogging is a slippery slope. By the time Hide's 70 (oh dear we said it perish that thought now kill it with fire), his wake-up time will have moved back to 4AM. Fun fact: one time Cayce was walking along the seawall in Yokosuka in the middle of winter at 4AM (please, please don't ask why.) And we kid you not, there were not one, not two, but a whole steady stream of very old Japanese people (we mean like octogenarian old), wrapped up in anoraks, jogging along. And, kids, they looked so very, very miserable, running through that blistering wind. They were cold and it was still pitch dark out, and their were heavily hoisting their venerable bodies along the road, and we couldn't help but want to ask them... my dudes, why don't you just wait until it's like 10AM and it's sunny and warm out here and you can see the ocean while you jog? We've got nothing against jogging, exercise or health. These are undoubtedly good things, keeping Japan with the longest life expectancy in the world. But, why put yourselves through this sadness and hardship, at a time in your life when you could and should just be kicking back and working in the garden and cuddling with your cats? Is misery virtue? Welcome to Japan, a country where that question has never been satisfactorily answered.


5. Mr. Sakurai. Hanky Panky Hankies. Okay, we know what you're thinking. You know we know what you're thinking. Lace handkerchiefs into which to loose your impotent fantasies is so much more romantic than tissue paper. "You are the honey I spill all alone" ("Sasayaki"). So much more elegant with a hanky than a tissue from the grocery store, ain't it? And ain't nobody getting any younger. You think he can still actualize those fantasies of his? What woman would do it? What woman could do it? They are all listening to K-Pop and playing otome games now, he's an old, old, OLD man, like 5666666 years old, and those fantasies of his, well, they are epic. Nope, Acchan-chan is alone, alone, in a world of plastic-surgified very young very perfect-faced male idols and very, very scary large and overripe fangirls, and he's a hikikomori who prefers to stay safe at home in his own home sweet home house, thank you very much, and make his own "fun." With some nice, lovely, silk handkerchiefs. 

Except, kids, that's not even what's going on here. You know what Acchan-chan loves, even more than sxx (fun fact: he gave that up long ago, he's faking it, no one is worth it anymore, Covid ruined everything, goodbye, I don't even watch porn anymore, it's all an act, signing off. Nen nen korori yo.) Acchan-chan loves watching really sad, scary, and/or twisted movies. His favorite Ghibli film, by his own accounting in multiple sources, is Grave of the Fireflies. He's currently penning lyrics all about how fucking pissed he is that there is another fucking war in central Europe/Asia. And you know what happens when you write lyrics about the war in Ukraine while watching Grave of the Fireflies on repeat? You cry, kids. You bawl. You snivel. You hork snot and then you snivel some more. Because what the fuck even is this life and why the fuck does it have to suck this much, kthxbai. It sucks for everyone, Ukrainian, Russian, Japanese, American, every fucking person, it just blows (like you blow your nose in that hanky panky hankie). Jobs suck. Being bombed sucks. Being blacklisted by the world through no fault of your own sucks. Being ruled by oligarchs and megalomaniacal egomaniacs sucks. Late-stage capitalism is what's sucking us all dry.

Japan sucks a lot less than the rest of the world in many ways, but when you're Acchan-chan, you feel ALL of the world's feels at once, so you're in constant pain, but you are too gentle and retiring to complain enough to get a well-insured appointment with that spiritual chiropractor. And furthermore, Sugar does not have the time or the patience to be Acchan's napkin on which to rub his bogeys, even though he would prefer Sugar's fur (Kurumi would just scratch his lovely old old OLD 56666666 year old face and glare at him and have done and he just doesn't have the heart to inflict his misery on Maru because for him Maru is a little angel and maybe the only scrap of loveliness this world has left, because Sugar is guilty of Gluttony and Kurumi is guilty of Envy and in a way that makes him feel closer to them bc 7 deadly sins and all but he needs to feel something of the divine just to get the energy to get out of bed and into the studio each morning). But, he's Acchan-chan. He has class. He has style. Whether or not he's getting any hanky-panky, he needs a fucking hanky. Here you go. A whole 4500 yen's worth (per color!), and you can't even go to the tour - he's got that covered, too. This is your hanky to cry in. Can't go to the tour. It sucks. Cry with him in solidarity.  

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19.4.22

Villain

Hey, kids, we're here with the long-awaited (long-lost?) translation of "Villain," in our antepenultimate bid to round out our translations of the lyrics on Abracadabra (damn, it's so great to find a place to use the word "antepenultimate" in common speech.) We'll be with you again soon with the latest news from Buck-Tickistan (sunglasses, dollies, and masks, oh my!), but for now, we'll focus on this: how Mr. Imai's ode to Disney villains hooks up with Mr. Sakurai's screed against cyber-bullying. As in our previous post, we are using text colors that don't appear satisfactorily on mobile phones, so, for best viewing, please view on your PC. 

Also, to reiterate what we said before - Google Sites has completely changed their platform and it's completely unacceptable in terms of editability and general visual appearance. Due to this, we are unable to make updates to This is NOT Greatest Site. We are not a web designer, and if there's anyone with expertise in this area who would like to help us out fixing up a new site that looks nice and is easily navigable, please contact us directly at the mad aristocrat [at] gmail [dot] com.

A third thing - to that person who translated the "official international edition" of Abracadabra - we know you're a solid professional just doing your job. It wasn't your fault that Buck-Tick's management decided to hire someone who was eminently qualified to translate marketing boilerplate and patents and subtitles for corporate training videos, but had never read or written poetry, let alone listened to Buck-Tick. We are not blaming you. Giant paycheck or not, you're not the villain here. We've all gotta hustle for a living in this miserable late-stage capitalist hellscape nightmare RPG game called "life," so, y'know, giant paycheck ftw and all that jazz. It's not your fault that some of our readers decided that they don't care if we finish translating this album because there is already an "official international edition." Everyone's got free will, they're entitled to read whichever translations they want to read. So, readers - if you feel our translation is redundant, go on, see yourselves out. It doesn't matter. We won't stop you. We can't stop you. We wouldn't even if we could, but we can't. It's not like we know who you are, anyway. The anonymity of the internet preserves you from any judgments we could render upon you (not that that internet anonymity protects you from data mining and mass surveillance - but that's not our problem). To us, you have no name. You have no face. Ciao.

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Villain
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi/Imai Hisashi
Music: Imai Hisashi

They're born to be the anti
At extraordinary level
So carelessly they do it
They're the Flowers of Evil (1)
They don't know any fear
They're the wellspring of sin
It's their single-minded goal:
Unleash the madness within
Hello, taboo
Ciao, smile
Hello, taboo
Ciao

hey i know you! you, yeah! i know it's you!
you're the one who raped me, i know it's you!
you're so ugly! yeah! the villain sore! (2)
oozing thru my heart i feel the villain sore!
yeah i know you! i know it's you! 
you make me sick! you nameless jerk!
i know it's you!

The world is still outrageous
It murders the absurd
You spirits who aren't in the trap
Don't let it take you in
It's all the more magnificent
Uncommonly high-level
So carelessly it's blooming
It's the Flower of Evil (1)
Hello, taboo
Ciao, smile
Hello, taboo
Ciao

hey i know you! you, yeah! i know it's you!
you're the one who killed me, i know it's you!
the oozing blood! yeah! the villain sore!
yucky yucky aching it's the villain sore! (3)
yeah i know you! i know it's you! 
you make me sick! you have no face!
i know it's you!


hey i know you, you, yeah, i know it's you
you're the one who raped me, i know it's you
it's so ugly, yeah, the villain sore
oozing through my heart i feel the villain sore

you make me sick! yeah! i know it's you!
you're the one who killed me, i know it's you!
the oozing blood! yeah! the villain sore!
yucky yucky aching it's the villain sore!
yeah i know you! i know it's you! 
you make me sick! you make me sick!

i know it's you!


Note on the title: Sakurai and Imai stated that they wrote their parts for this song independently of each other, and "it just so happened" that "Villain," Imai's working title for the song, forms a perfect double-entendre with the Japanese "biran" (糜爛), which Sakurai said was his main keyword when he started writing the lyrics. "Biran" is a fancy literary word meaning something like "oozing sore." For supposedly not having discussed anything together before writing the song, the two sections fit together uncommonly well - so either there's something Messrs. Sakurai and Imai aren't telling us, or they're telepathically connected (or what they're not telling us is the fact that they're telepathically connected, which, let's face it, is entirely likely.) 

Imai didn't discuss why he chose the theme "villain," but since at the time of this song's release, he's the father of an elementary school girl, we suspect Disney villains might have something to do with it (Disney, and Disney villains, are hugely popular in Japan). Imai's part of the song appears to narrate the psychology of absolute evil. 

Sakurai, meanwhile, stated that his inspiration for this song was his anger at anonymous cyberbullying. He said that he feels filled with disgust at the way that people think online anonymity gives them license to bully others with impunity. He said "I want to let people like that know, I see you. I know who you are." Cyberbullying has certainly become a major issue worldwide, and Sakurai mentioned being angered by several high-profile cyberbullying incidents that were covered in the Japanese media, but considering that Sakurai never writes lyrics about themes that aren't of personal significance to him, I suspect that there's another layer to this song that he's not discussing openly - namely, some serious incidents of cyberbullying among Buck-Tick's Japanese fan base. Incidents of fan bullying have been happening since the band first became famous, but the anonymity of the internet affords a much greater reach for the spreading of vitriol and defamatory lies. In fact, we have witnessed some of this personally, and it wasn't pretty. Because the types of fans who bully others are also the types who tend to spend the most money on the band, Sakurai probably feels like he can't call them out directly - though, then again, these lyrics are a pretty direct call-out when you stop to look at them carefully. Whether the Cyberbullies of Buck-Tickistan realize they're being repudiated is another matter - bullies don't tend to be the most self-reflective types. 

Sakurai stated that he used the short, percussive phrases and excess exclamation points to echo the style of aggressive online flame comments, but also to underscore his own anger at this type of behavior. To reflect this in the English translation, I used all lowercase letters for the sections sung by Sakurai. Sakurai's sections appear to be back-and-forth dialogues between the bullies and the narrator of the song (Sakurai himself?) but, as in "Urahara-juku," it's ambiguous who is speaking which line - so, use your imaginations - if it's ambiguous, it's because he meant it to be that way.

1) "Aku no Hana" is the Japanese translation of the title of French poet Charles Baudelaire's poetry collection Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil). Aku no Hana was also the title of Buck-Tick's best-selling 1989 album, released after Imai's release from six months of house arrest for possession of LSD. Aku no Hana remains the best-selling album of the band's career, and the song "Aku no Hana," the title track and lead single, is one of the band's best-known hit songs, along with "Just One More Kiss." Imai claimed that he didn't intend the phrase "aku no hana" in these lyrics to be a reference to Buck-Tick's earlier album, but... this is from the guy who claimed that the album title Mona Lisa Overdrive had nothing to do with the William Gibson novel of the same name. This is from the guy who claimed that the "Atom" in Buck-Tick's album title Atom Miraiha No. 9 had nothing to do with the Tezuka Osamu manga Tetsuwan Atom (known in English as Astro Boy)... and then went on to produce official Astro Boy tie-up goods for the tour. So... come on.

2) As explained in the note on the title, the word in this line, "biran," forms a word play with the song's title "Villain," since in Japanese, the two words are pronounced more or less exactly the same. In Japanese "biran" means "oozing sore" or "inflamed wound." Sakurai seems to be expressing that the anger and hatred in the hearts of people who engage in anonymous bullying are akin to an oozing wound. Or, conversely, that bearing witness to such bullying incidents causes his own heart to feel like an open wound.

3) In this line, the Japanese word "yumeyume," which I translated here as "yucky yucky," is not Sakurai's usual beloved 「夢夢」, meaning "dreamy dream," but a completely different word spelled in different kanji, 「努努」, which doesn't really have any meaning in its own right - rather, it serves as an emphatic like "absolutely" or "absolutely not," to underscore the force of the whole sentence. What's brilliant about this word choice is that because the emphatic "yumeyume" is a homophone of the dreamy "yumeyume," it creates a world play expressing the way that the hatred in the hearts of the bullies is fueled by their own dreams, or delusions - especially true in the case of fan bullying, which is generally fueled by jealousy of fans for other fans. 

In a single word, Sakurai expresses both the general condition of the mindset of bullies - who are often perpetually excessively focused on perceived slights which have little to do with reality - and also the dark flipside of the beautiful romantic world he creates on stage - the way his romantic fantasias have inspired some of his fans to attack others in impotent jealousy based on their own wildly skewed perceptions ("X band member likes that girl better than me, I hate her, so let's kill her," etc. The essence of fan bullying.) Sakurai returns to this theme of fantasy vs. reality, and his own complicity in the whole fan delusion, in "Maimu Maimu." It's further interesting that "uzuku," the word which appears after "yumeyume" in this line, has generally been used by Sakurai in previous lyrics in a sexual context - most notably in "Baby, I want you" ("anata mo uzuitekuru darou baby" / "you're aching for it, baby"). For those familiar with Buck-Tick's lyrics, this creates a second layer of meaning expressing how unfulfilled desire is often a big motivation for fan bullying behavior, and bullying in general. 

Here, I translated "yumeyume" as "yucky yucky" in order to preserve the general prosody and violent feeling of the Japanese words, and add some more sharp attack to the "k" sounding in "aching."


Villain
作詞:櫻井敦司・今井寿
作曲:今井寿

生まれながらのアンチ 稀に見るレベル
軽々とまさに 惡の華
恐れを知らぬ 諸悪の根源
ただひたすらに 狂気の沙汰
ハロー タブー チャオ スマイル
ハロー タブー チャオ

おまえを知っている! そう! おまえだ!
俺を犯したおまえだ!
醜い! そう! 糜爛が! 俺の胸にある糜爛が!
おまえを! 知っている! 気味悪い! 名無しの!
おまえを!

理不尽な世界 不条理を殺す
囚われぬ魂 逸脱せよ
あまりにも華麗 稀代のハイレベル
軽々とそれは 惡の華
ハロー タブー チャオ スマイル
ハロー タブー チャオ

おまえを知っている! そう! おまえだ!
俺を殺したおまえだ!
血が滲む! そう! 糜爛が! 努努 疼く糜爛が!
おまえを! 知っている! 気味悪い! 顔の無い!
おまえを!

おまえを知っている そう おまえだ
俺を犯した おまえだ
醜い そう 糜爛が 俺の胸にある糜爛が

気味悪い! そう! おまえだ!
俺を殺した おまえだ!
血が滲む! そう! 糜爛が! 努努 疼く糜爛が!
おまえを! 知っている! 気味悪い! 気味悪い!

おまえだ!


Villain
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi/Imai Hisashi
Music: Imai Hisashi

Umarenagara no anti     mare ni miru reberu
Karugaru to masa ni     aku no hana
Osore wo shiranu     shoaku no kongen
Tada hitasura ni     kyouki no sata
Hello    taboo     ciao     smile
Hello    taboo     ciao

Omae wo shitteiru!     Sou!     Omae da!
Ore wo okashita omae da!
Minikui!     Sou!     Biran ga!     Ore no mune ni aru biran ga!
Omae wo!     Shitteiru!     Kimi warui!     Nanashi no!
Omae wo!

Rifujin na sekai     fujouri wo korosu
Torawarenu tamashii     itsudatsu se yo
Amari ni mo karei     kitai no hai-reberu
Karugaru to sore wa     aku no hana
Hello    taboo     ciao     smile
Hello    taboo     ciao

Omae wo shitteiru!     Sou!     Omae da!
Ore wo koroshita omae da!
Chi ga nijimu!     Sou!     Biran ga!     Yumeyume     uzuku biran ga!
Omae wo!     Shitteiru!     Kimi warui!     Kao no nai!
Omae wo!

Omae wo shitteiru     sou     omae da
Ore wo okashita     omae da
Minikui     sou     biran ga     ore no mune ni aru biran ga

Kimi warui!     Sou!     Omae da!
Ore wo koroshita     omae da!
Chi ga nijimu!     Sou!     Biran ga!     Yumeyume     uzuku biran ga!
Omae wo!     Shitteiru!     Kimi warui!     Kimi warui!

Omae da!

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