Guest
“Oboro“ means “haze,“ same as their song Kasumi. The performance is from THE FINAL DAYS OF STUDIO COAST. This song and performance were requested by Chantelle Lee, who correctly pointed out the connection between the two songs. In the annotations, I will be referencing Kasumi a lot. When it comes to interpretation, I believe we are dealing with the same mother as in Kasumi, narrating the death of her daughter by the hands of the father. Do share your own thoughts please! Translation by me. Annotations: “The sun melts“ - 日 hi can also be “day,” however I translated it as “sun” in my 2019 translation of Kasumi, and I’ll stick to it here since I think the melting of the sun refers to it setting. Feel free to make up your own mind, the word has both meanings. “That smiling child's pain“ - I chose the word “child“ because Kyo reads the kanji as “ko,“ (same as in Kasumi), however the meaning of the kanji is “daughter,“ for the first time specifying that the child in question is a girl, which was only heavily implied before. “Only washing away the fact that you lived“ - I first had this line as “Only spilling the fact […]” but then remembered the verb is also used to say something is “swept away” or “washed away” and thought maybe that’s closer to what’s meant here. “My nails claw out my heart“ - Debated whether to translate “nails” as “claws,” especially since it’s not certain that they are those of the narrator. However, since I understand them as the narrator’s own, signifying guilt, I went for “nails.” “With tears that turn everything hazy and distorted“ - Ah, the name drop. Kasumi means haze as a noun (and can be used as a girl's name), but it can also be a verb (“kasumu,“ to be/become hazy), and therefore connects nicely with “yugamu“ (to distort/warp). The connection to Kasumi could be made clearer by keeping it untranslated, but when hearing this line the words melt so nicely together, I feel it is more accurate to translate the sentence as a whole. Also, the word “everything” is technically added by me, but I believe the statement refers to something general (“everything”) and saying “it” felt too clumsy as the original sounds perfectly smooth. Just know that it isn’t actually specified what it is that becomes hazy and distorted. “It shall reach that child who seeps into the tatami mats“ - “Reach” as in (for the meaning of something) “to come across.” Probably the mother’s regret, guilt and grief. Also grammatically, this could just as well be “As if it reaches […]”, but it strikes me as more of a prayer or wish here, which utilizes the same grammar. “Give it back…” - I hear him say 返して “kaeshite“ here. I was tempted to translate it as “Give her back,” since the kanji earlier in the song tell us this is about a daughter, but since I took Kyo’s reading as “child” into consideration, I continued with the neutral “it” here. --------------- I do not own Dir En Grey or any of their music or performances. I translate for fun and wanted to share this translation. Thank you for watching!
