Gekkou Symphonia [Aquarion EVOL ED 1]

Aquarion EVOL 1st Ending Theme: Gekkou Symphonia
Composer: Yoko Kanno
Performed by Akino ft. bless4

Translation:

The wind blew away the meaning
A courageous one-way trip
We had to accept this disaster

There must be a hole here in my heart
I refuse to let it grow any larger
You and the future are what I must rescue

A way to protect that important person
There is not a single one that I possess
That’s the way you
Find yourself astray in the great wide sky

In the end you are the one that I cannot meet by chance

Resisting the moon’s long FLARE [Everyday waiting in this land]
It’s the beginning of a legend with no end
I was injured by the gentle melody that imprisoned me
Performing my extent, singing my extent, falling from the top of it

You are the one I’m longing for

The dream of the moon we rode upon
The sad song of love we sang
It all came to naught
Let’s return to the stillness of winter

I do not know the chafe of affection
I am lost in the fog of the deep forest
It goes on for a distance of one thousand years

The ash color of harmony
Is like the cause of this love
Why is it we are unable to have that chance encounter?
Someday the wasteland will become dew…

The weight of my heart
The weight of my love
I’ll listen the whole way through to
The sublime melancholy retreating

I’ll make sure that your dream never gets stolen away

Resisting the moon’s long FLARE
It’s the beginning of a legend with no end
The sky you left behind for the face of the earth
The incomplete symphony
Only you are
Only you my dear
Are the testament of the stars

It is you whom I wish to love

Notes:

I really probably shouldn't be trying this one with the sort of grammar that shows up (wow, double double subjects), but the point is I tried because I have not seen too many English translations out there.

To have a chance encounter or to meet by chance is a really tricky verb, I think, to translate in a way that makes sense
The final few lines use both "anata dake ni" and "kimi dake ni" which both mean "only you [are]". However, kimi is something used between two people that are super-duper close, which is why when I translated that second one it is "only you my dear."
Disaster uses the same kanji as tragedy
There are a lot of references just to the love of Silvia and Apollo in this who, if you aren't familiar with the series, are two lovers that are fated to never meet, no matter how often they return.
"The sublime melancholy retreating" was a hard line to wrap my head around. Because the last word in the sentence literally means "retreating thing" and there's only one verb. It's two nouns following one another which was quite a boggler to me, since I have not gotten to that sort of grammar.
It's also fun to note that most of the song is done in a casual speech, so it would be two friends or two equals communicating with one another.

"You are the one I'm longing for" and "You whom I wish to love" are also pretty similar lines if you translate them literally. The "longing" is actually "koi", a sort of romantic love. "Ai" is a "serious love" which is such a complex idea that it's pretty hard to express succinctly in English.

Chitter-Chattering in Sickly District [DaniwellP]

Notes: Uh...all of these lyrics are by ear, so there's no saying what it really is unless Daniwell releases them. And if he asks me to take down the lyrics I gladly will. If you have anything to fix also feel free to let me know, because Japanese is such a complex language that these could all just be non-sense lyrics. It seems a little dark if you go literally for a daniwell song too, so there's that.
Chomuka is slang for "very sickening" so I'm guessing sickly is a good guess. Chome is used for areas of a large district or town and usually has a number in front of it. Because "sick district" seems a bit weird I just left it vague.
Temuterararu is a string of nonsense really, but it could maybe be a form of temukau, to resist, so I left it in its potential form in translation.
It seems like just a fun song about chattering in towns, and since its usually paired with stop motion trips through cities, that's probably the real meaning for it.

Kana lyrics:

ざわつきでもびよういんびよういん
でもでさがちょむちょめぷ
ざわつきごとやめなん
てむてららるちょむちょめに
ぜんぶでざわざわたられる
ざわつきごとやみやめに
てむてららるちょむちょめぷ

Romanji lyrics:
zawatsuki demo biyouin biyouin
demode saga chomu chome pu
zawatsuki go to yamenan
temuterararu chomu chome ni
zenbu de zawa zawatarareru
zawatsuki go to yami yame ni
temuterararu chomu chome pu

Transliterated lyrics:

The chattering in the salon salon
When I start to go into the district
All the chitter-chatter pitter-pattering
I can resist the chatter in the area
Everyone has the chit-chat ability
Chit-chattering stops when the darkness comes
So I can resist my chit-chattering needs in this area

I've Den to DenDen Town!

Sugar Chocolate Waffle! That is what I'll eat!

A group of us took a trip to Nipponbashi, otherwise known as DenDen Town the other week. Why is this significant, you ask? Well DenDen Town is essentially Osaka's Akihabara, the DenDen being written with the characters for electricity twice. As you can imagine this is a pretty big deal. As a quick follow up to last post, however, I feel a need to show you two other foods (hopefully the last in the conbini series).

Another one of the many Miku items FamiMa [Family Mart] stocked during it's We Love Miku! campaign was a sugar chocolate waffle based on the song "Waffle." They really could have done something weird with it, but they luckily just left it at sugar and chocolate and it's a dessert I wish they continued to carry, even if it no longer had Miku on it.

If you can find it, drink it. NECTAR OF THE GODS.

The second is something nearly all conbini stock and some vending machines if you're lucky. The taste can only be described as liquid mahou shoujou. It's lichi water. It's probably one of the most delicious flavors of anything out there. It's sweet and refreshing, and probably because of that it seems an awful lot like mahou shoujo.

Back to the topic of DenDen Town. If you have ever been to a convention then you know about the massive amounts of anime goods there usually are. If you've been to a used electronics store than you know that feeling of being surrounded by silicon and wonder. If you combine the two into a city, then you have an idea of what it's like. Mind you, that's just a feeling. The place is so big that we were only able to explore a small portion of it, but that's largely because we grew so distracted by the arcade. It was a terrible idea to say "hey, let's meet up at the huge arcade with Space Invaders on top of it." A really. Really. Terrible idea.

Because we never wanted to leave.

The Arcade Gods would not let us.

What could be so interesting that it kept us there for two hours?

One game was a taiko rhythm game that we waited in line for, watching some really amazing people going at it. I'm still not sure how they read rhythm notes that fast. It was a little ridiculous. Meanwhile one of our other friends was taking several goes at the new game Gyrozetter which incidentally has me hooked as well. It's a pretty straightforward game on the outside. It looks like a driving game that also happens to have giant robots in it. When you sit down to play, though, you realize that you also control the giant robot. During a transformation sequence you lift the steering wheel to sit horizontal on the main console, at which point mech controls emerge from the machine. By pushing or pulling the trigger you control how strong the mech's attack is as well as select what type of attack you will get. They also had Music Gun Gun, a music game combined with a shooting game, where you have to fire in time to the music. It was only later I found out you can increase the volume of the music by using main controls next to the guns. To really understand these games I recommend checking them out on YouTube. Gyrozetter recently received an anime thanks to the popularity of the games, and has probably one of the best endings I've seen in a while (giant robots dancing? Yes please).

The sign reads "Dr. Pepper served cold."

Thanks to the popularity of Steins;Gate, Dr. Pepper is available is Japan, but its still very hard to get. It's my favorite soda so I really missed it as well as home, so imagine my surprise when I saw Christine advertising a store's stock of the stuff. Of course I immediately grabbed a can, as well as several others in the group. We were really confused by the store, though, as it appeared to be a military surplus store on the outside, but when we entered became a figure and gunpla store. When the clerk asked what I wanted, I pointed to the cans of Dr. Pepper that had just been brought down and asked for a normal one. It was super duper exciting and a great way to top off a trip to the doujin store.

I think the story about the doujin store is for another time, though.

For now know that if you ever need an Akihabara in the Kansai Area, you should check out Den Den town.

Until Next Time!
AAO

Conbini Madness

There are two big convenience store chains in Japan: Lawson and Family Mart (FamiMa). These two stores, from time to time, will run promotions for different movies or characters. Lawson recently teamed up with Evangelion to provide Eva themed snacks and clear files. I purchased a microwave yakisoba with a rather happy looking Shinji on it, backed by a berserk Eva.

A Berserk Eva? A happy Shinji? That doesn't make much sense.

After adding the flavoring, which was both sweet and punch to the mouth spicy, I understood.

However, happy Shinji, in his plug suit, on a clear file I do not. It's pretty awesome nonetheless.

What I was really excited for, however, was FamiMa's partnership with Crypton in celebration of Miku Hatsune's birthday. As a result products such as PoPiPo vegetable juice:

 Miku Hachune Steamed Meat Buns:

 And Daughter of Evil brioche:

There is also, apparently, Kaito themed ice cream, but as I don't often go to the freezer section it's not surprising I didn't see it. I did, however, catch some Tuna and Negi (Luka and Miku) onigiri. They really know how to market off of character items.

There are, of course, just general food items that show up in anime that may appear on this blog later...

Until Next Time!

~AAO~

I made it safely to Japan, which is awesome.
I will continue to do my reviews here, and will even start up a section called "This Wasn't in Anime!" It will probably repeat off my tumblr, but I will detail it a bit more on here.
If you're interested in my specific non-otaku experiences, then you can check out the blog Zenko Abroad.
For everything else just sit tight!

Until Next Time!
AAO

Going Abroad

Come next week I'll be in the land of the giant robots. That's right, I'll be in Macross City. I kid. I'll be in Japan, and you can bet I'm pretty gosh ddm excited but also pretty stressed. One of the neat things about the US is that I can like what I like and be labeled a nerd. Not too much social stigma there. In Japan, though, I have to worry about the otaku stigma. Its highly negative and can almost guarantee the loss of a friend or job. However, I'm not sure at what point the label applies, when too much anime is too much and you are labeled one. But I guess I'll find out.
'Til next time,
AAO

Otakon 2012

I did attend Otakon (again) this year. And it was pretty exciting stuff, I must say.
The only industry panel I attended was Satelight, an animation studio that's best known for Genesis of Aquarion and Aquarion EVOL [which, you know, I love] and Macross Frontier [which is in my backlog]. Outside of that, one of their more recent works is Bodacious Space Pirates!, which, as ridiculous as it sounds is really rather good. The plot and animation are excellent.

Shoji Kawamori, the original creator of Macross and a member of the company, had a video message to share with fans. In it he stated he's looking forward to working more with Macross and Aquarion both, and has ideas for future series (!). We were also shown two videos, which were full CG concerts of Ranka Lee and Sheryl performing for a crowd. They were meant to be commercials for the parent pachinko company, but due to the Tohouko Earthquake were unable to be aired and sat in their vaults. So we were the first people of the public to see it, which was really neat.

It was also announced, before Funimation even had their panel, that Funi would be in charge of licensing and releasing Aquarion EVOL.

The Touhou Panel, as always, was excellent. It was fun, there was quite a bit on various doujin works. For those that don't know, Tohou Project is a series of danmaku shooters created by ZUN and Team Shanghai Alice. But mostly ZUN and a lot of alcohol. It features over one hundred characters throughout fourteen games, and the fans are what support the entire series.

Two fan panels of interest was one on Tezuka and how he was influenced by Disney, but did not nearly touch enough on how the reverse also seemed to happen. Giant Robo also went a great deal into the history of giant robots throughout Japan all the way up to today. It was really well done, and the panelists really knew what they were doing, even when approached about Heroman.

While I was in an autograph line for the main illustrator for the latest Macross series and Aquarion, I became all to aware of demographics, as I was the only girl in line, and among the first twenty I was the only one under forty. It was kind of surprising, but we had an interesting conversation while we waited, and I found out that Gurren Lagaan started life as a parody of Redline, which is now in my backlog as well.

Oh, and before I forget.

Here is the most ridiculous giant robot anime you will ever see [which Satelight proudly admitted they loved working on]:

Basquash! [pr: Bas-cash] is about giant robots playing basketball

 Until Next Time!
AAO