More nano.RIPE, Just Because I Can…

Posted by thaerinzero on

I know you were looking for more nano.RIPE translations, and this one got done in the course of other things, so…

Enjoy リップシンク (Lip Sync)!

Incidentally, this song shows up as an insert during the first episode of Hanasaku Iroha. It starts playing when she’s riding the Herman Cain Train. >_> Don’t do it Ohana, he’s crazy!

- Thaerin

nano.RIPE Now in Lyrics with a Trio of Songs!

Posted by thaerinzero on

This is a newer band that has gotten a strong boost recently from their work being featured in the anime “Hanasaku Iroha”. They’ve grown on me a bit as I listen to them more, and I have some of the translations sitting around anyway from my work with Doki; would be a shame not to share the full versions with you here! Enjoy, and let’s all look forward to how this group continues to develop!

- Thaerin

Apologies and Many Projects to Come

Posted by thaerinzero on

Sorry I’ve been scarce lately, to anyone who’s reading this. I do however have a new artist coming up that I plan to introduce with a 3-song-combo.

In other news, all of the other work that I have been doing has been with Doki Fansubs; we have a lyric related project coming up that will consist of a whole album TL’ed by moi, so I’ll be posting here as things progress. Look forward to it!

- Thaerin

NICO Touches the Walls is Now in Lyrics, With Their Song “Leo”

Posted by thaerinzero on

I’m proud to announce the addition of NICO Touches the Walls to the Lyrics section. This band is really very wordy and uses a unique lyrical style. “Leo”, incidentally, is probably one of their most abstract and difficult songs lyrically; there are some parts that don’t come out coherently in either language, but I hope that the translation makes things fluid enough to ponder the meanings.

Enjoy! More to come,

Thaerin

Info on Hanasaku Iroha, Now in Fansubbing!

Posted by thaerinzero on

I’m a bit late on getting this up, but here it is, as promised. My desktop is out of commission for the moment, so I’m finding it difficult to post and lyricise on a 10-inch screen and two cores. :(

I had a wonderful weekend with my good friend Amarok, who’s come back from Japan shortly to visit friends and family. It had been around a year and a half since I’d last seen him, and we really lived it up! All this time, he’s been too busy enjoying the modest exchange rate and the excellent music that Japan has to offer.

More soon,

Thaerin

FLAC: Passing Observations

Posted by thaerinzero on

Been distracting myself from Lyric Translations for the last few days, so I apologize for the lack of releases. On the other hand, I’m taking on the home stretch of fansubbing Hanasaku Iroha for Doki.co; I’ll have a page up for it over in the “Fansubbing” section soon.

The other thing that’s been sucking up a lot of my time is having to reconvert my music library. For reasons that I’ll leave for another time, most of my music has been in WAV format, rather than FLAC. I assumed that the extra space that the PCM audio WAV files were taking up wasn’t that important of a difference from using a compression method. What I neglected to consider is just how much music I have. Therefore, I am now on a compression mission, trying to regain what turned out to be hundreds of gigs of wasted space (not entirely wasted, but like I said, different topic).

Of special note to those who use FLAC for storage, I started out compressing to FLAC level 8 with the intention of saving space. However, as I converted more albums, I tested the level 5 setting based on a recommendation. Eventually, I decided to compare the same album with the different compression levels to see how much space was actually being saved for the longer encoding time. After doing this with a couple of albums, it was apparent that even albums taking up as much as 400mb had the difference of a mere 1 to 5 MB between compression level 5 and 8. The lesson here? Just go default (level 5). Level 8 takes much longer and offers almost no space economy for the time lost encoding it. The difference between 0 and 5, however, is significant at approximately 30mb per album. I’m just learning recently how much that all adds up.

Hope this helps and happy music filing!
Will be back with some lyrics when things calm down and my fansubbing is settled in.

Thaerin

STRAIGHTENER’s “蝶の夢 (Butterfly Dream)” Now in Lyrics!

Posted by thaerinzero on

Horie Atsushi has made a bit of an allusion to Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream in this song; I’ve taken the liberty of rendering the butterfly dream here for you to enjoy [taken from en.wikipedia.org],


Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. (2, tr. Burton Watson 1968:49)


I think that understanding the song in this context makes it even more powerful once you’ve heard it. It’s an artfully made reference, so it doesn’t come off as nauseating.

Though the reason should be obvious, I went with “Butterfly Dream” over the possessive alternative for the English title since, in the end, who’s dream is it really?


Thaerin

the HIATUS’s “ベテルギウスの灯り (Betelgeuse’s Light)” is in Lyrics!

Posted by thaerinzero on

One more of the very few songs in Japanese from Hosomi Takeshi’s “the HIATUS”. This is from their second album “ANOMALY”. Songs like this, with very simple, sparing lyrics are a challenge to translate sometimes when trying to match lines and effect. An interesting experience in itself!