//beconfused

Warning: The video below consists of vulgarities and slight racism. A Malaysian man from Johor sings about the styles of being a Muar Chinese, gangster rap way.

麻坡的華語ž Muar Chinese

Just in case you can’t see the video.

Muar (also referred to as Bandar Maharani) is a town in northwestern Johor, Malaysia. The name “Muar” is also used for the name of its district, which is further sub-divided between the Town of Muar and the sub-district of Tangkak. Muar district borders Malacca on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. However, both administrative regions are still collectively called Muar by their residents. You can find out more information about Muar with Wikipedia.

I included a rough English translation for the Mandarin rap, I can only translate it roughly. There’re a few Mandarin words that I don’t understand. Only a portion of the rap has been translated. Please forgive any mistranslations and feel free to correct my translation. I don’t know what is “mangkali”, I heard the term before but I don’t know how to use it, perhaps someone can tell me what it means. (more…)

Known as “Go Go Mario”, the Super Mario Bros. theme was given Japanese lyrics. Check out the video for a performance of the song and the English translation of the lyrics. The video clip was taken from the “Mario and Zelda Big Band live” concert that was held on September 14th, 2003 at the Nihon Seinenkan Hall in Tokyo, Japan. The clip was part of a mini-DVD that came with a UK Gamecube magazine.

Nintendo Big Band - Super Mario Bros.

Well… The Mario song is great but… I think we all should all be thankful that we only get to hear the instrumental version. Scroll to the bottom to see the English translation. (more…)

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is not a great movie. It’s kinda Initial D like and Initial D seemed nicer anyway. I’m not into cars and their engines, can’t differentiate between two cars I can’t recall what they’re named. I watched the movie anyway. It’s nice cars with a bunch of hostile people.

But it has a nice song by Teriyaki Boys titled similarly to the film - Tokyo Drift. It’s very catchy and resides in my head for a month I think. Here is the music video for it. The person who posted the music video also include its lyrics.

(more…)

I won’t be posting Japanese music lyric translations for a while. I sort of ended my run too. I planned to post 10 of these. I post every Friday until the there are 10. The feedback has been quite positive so far, but last week, I posted number 10.

So this week, there’s nothing. I decide to post some credits instead.

I listen to some Japanese songs, some of which have rather strange lyrics, so I posted them. I never did translations, I do not understand Japanese. I took lyric translations from fan pages etc. Sometimes, the web fails me and I ended up typing the lyrics out by copying the subtitles from the video clip.

The songs come from different sources, I shan’t talk much about it, lol. Some came from video clips. I use m&g Software’s AVI to WAV extractor 3.5 to extract out the sound from the video. [The software is free by the way.]

For song cropping, normalizing of volumes and fading in and out, I use either Ahead Nero Wave Editor or Sonic Foundry Sound Forge. Both are good programs, I use the latter more though.

Songs are encoded in Windows Media Audio 9 for smaller downloads at a quality loss. I use Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9 Series to encode all my music. [This is a free software too.] Windows Media Audio sounds best at lower bit rates as compared to other formats.

Some posts include still image captures, these are captured by Microsoft Windows Media Player 9 Series. [This is another free software.] Images are later cropped or edited by Macromedia Fireworks. [Photoshop committed suicide, great..]

These are the past postings [Most of the music are removed already, sorry.]

# music//ichi [Ayumi Hamasaki - Real Me]
# music//ni [Yukino Satsuki - Densetsu no Onsen GAME (Legendary Hot-Springs Turtle)]
# music//san [NICEGUYJIN - Hai, Irasshai! (Hello, Welcome!)]
# music//shi [Funta - Wake Up Angel ~ Negaimashite wa Mugen Nari ~ (Wake Up Angel ~ Wishing for this is unlimited ~)]
# music//go [Aoi Tada - Wo Qui Non Coin]
# music//roku [Yuuichirou Sakuraba - Hitoribocchi no Haburashi (Lonely Toothbrush)]
# music//shichi [Gackt - To build a fire (To feel a fire)]
# music//hachi [Judy and Mary - Kujira 12 gou (Whale #12)]
# music//ku [Maki Goto - Genshoku GAL Hadeni Ikube! (An Authentic GAL Should Be Bold)]
# music//ju [MiniMoni - Okashi Tsukutte Okassui (Making Sweets: Strange)]

I enjoyed posting these. I’ll do these weekly posting thingy in future too.

Yesterday, I posted a quote that has been posted a day before. I forgotten to change it to a new one in my template. Opps.

This has got to be one of the silliest songs I heard. I especially like the bass of this track. It’s rather “rockish” in a childish way.

The song is called “Okashi Tsukette Okassui”. [I searched and found several similar Romanized names like "Okashi Tsukette Okkasi" and "Okashi Tsukette Okassi".] I can’t find the title translation for this song so I translated the title myself to be something like “Making Sweets: Strange” or something. I don’t learn Japanese so I may be wrong. Can someone tell me the correct translation of the title?

MiniMoni members - Mari Yaguchi, Nozomi Tsuji, Ai Kago and Mika Todd - starred in the movie - MoniMoni The Movie: The Great Cake Adventure a couple of years back. I first heard that song from this film.

The movie’s about MiniMoni members running a confectionery that does wonderful cakes. Just hours before their shop’s anniversary, an evil queen sought to destroy the cakes they made. Just when things go bad, their sizes got reduced. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

I have encoded 56sec sample in WMA file proprietary (Windows Media Audio 9; 48 kbps, 44 kHz, stereo 2-pass CBR) for you people. This is the best quality I have encoded again, at the expense of file sizes again.

Download the sample from here (355 KB). [In Internet Explorer, right click on the link and choose the option "Save Target As...". Download it quick, as I'll remove it on February 23.]

Okashi Tsukutte Okassui
[Making Sweets: Strange]
Oide yo! Oide yo! Oide yo! Oide yo!
[Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on!]
Oide yo! Oide yo! Oide yo! Oide yo!
[Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on!]

Issho ni okashi!
[Together: Sweets!]
Issho wa okassui~!
[Together: Strange~!]

Okashi wa itsudemo SHAI dakara
[Because sweets are always SHY]
Hotondo kaiwa mo nai keredo
[They don't really have very much to say]

Okashi fushigi!
[Sweets wondrous!]
Okashi fushigi!
[Sweets wondrous!]
Okashi fushigi!
[Sweets wondrous!]
Okassui~!
[So strange~!]

Okashi wa itsudemo mirokuteki!
[Sweets are always fascinating!]
Shotaimenna noni oishisou
[They look so good at just the first glance]

Okashi fushigi!
[Sweets wondrous!]
Okashi fushigi!
[Sweets wondrous!]
Okashi fushigi!
[Sweets wondrous!]
Okassui~!
[So strange~!]

Source: The movie itself

After I watched the film, the words “okashi fushigi” still rings in my mind. I watch it last time by the way. So it proofs how addictive this tune is to me. Okassui, isn’t it?

Here are some still shots from the movie itself. I used to host it in another location, but I have consolidated all the images into this host. [Updated: May 2007]

Looks strangely like Teletubby land.

Mari Yaguchi holding a cake or keiki as they call.

MiniMoni’s new Ai Takahashi.

The thing about this movie is that it seems to be a satire of the actual MiniMoni group. In the end of the movie, Yaguchi left the confectionery she started and appointed Mika Todd to be the manager. Takahashi then joined the lovely cake-making crew. Yaguchi left to take care of the 4 kids as part of the story.

Yaguchi indeed left MiniMoni. With the addition of Takahashi and a new leader, MiniMoni also changed their styles. Yaguchi went on to manage Hello! Project Kids.

I am a day late again. Maki Goto started her career in Morning Musume, now she has gone solo. [Still under same record company.] I featured Maki Goto before in one of my themes in the past.

I listen to her album PAINT IT GOLD some time back and really like this track -Genshoku GAL Hadeni Ikube!. Without knowing the meaning of this song, I went on to listen. It’s a good walking song ya’know, it’s fast so it kinda sets a pace for me to walk fast too.

I tried to find the translation of Genshoku GAL Hadeni Ikube! for some time. It was until a couple of days ago that I chance upon it on the very site I’m viewing. Even so, I have difficulty understanding which English translation belongs to which lines. If the translations are incorrect, it’s likely that I have pasted the lines wrongly.

The translations seems generally accurate but some phrases are rather strange..

I have encoded 1min 06sec sample in WMA file proprietary (Windows Media Audio 9; 40 kbps, 32 kHz, stereo 2-pass CBR) for you people. This is the best quality I have encoded, at the expense of file sizes.

Download the sample from here (343 KB). [In Internet Explorer, right click on the link and choose the option "Save Target As...". Download it quick, as I'll remove it on February 16.]

Genshoku GAL Hadeni Ikube!
[An Authentic GAL Should Be Bold)]
Lyrics & Music : Tsunku
Arrangement : Takahashi Yuichi

Hitori no shuumatsu tte shinnjirannai hodo; Maji yabaissu!
[A weekend alone is so bad that you won't believe it!]
Kedo kono toki to bakari onna wo sora migaki makutte (Maji yabaissu!)
[But in this time I polish the woman in me]
“Kareshi ga dekita toki” Sonna yume ga
["When I get a boyfriend" That's the dream I have]
Dome no gobaibun
[It's five times the size of the Tokyo Dome]
Kitto mawari ga hiichau kurai LOVE LOVE ni nacchau mon!
[We'll be in love so much that the people around will take a step away!]

Tomodachi ttara
[All my friends,]
Nuke kakeshite ikachii koi
[they all stole away to have romantic relationships]
“Watashi ga saigo no kareshi nashi!” kka
["I'm the last one without a boyfriend!"]
Iinda mon Naite nai!
[I don't care! I'm not crying!]
“Eeeeeen”
["Eeeeeen" *cries*]

Genshoku gyaru wa hade ni ikube!
[An authentic gal should be bold!]
Shumi wa ryouri de ika ga?
[Is it okay if my hobby is cooking?]
Genshoku gyaru wa hade ni ikube!
[An authentic gal should be bold!]
Otsuke mono mo hade yo!
[My pickles are also bold!]
Supootsu taipu mo hade ni ikube!
[The sporty type should go bold!]
Michibata taipu mo hade ni ikube!
[The side-of-the-road type should go bold too!]

It’s a rather kawaii [Japanese for "cute"] song, isn’t it? Goto singing about her not having a boyfriend. I guess I just have to sacrifice myself to be hers. I’m very noble.

I first saw Maki Goto is Morning Musume when they are performing Mr. Moonlight. She really stood out that time, partly because of her wardrobe. There is no wardrobe malfunction during her performance though, lol. [Tribute made to Janet Jackson's left breast. Justin wants to "get you naked by the end of the song".]

Some phrases are rather strange as I said (before the lyrics). I wonder what’s “my pickles are also bold”. In fact when “Genshoku GAL” is translated to be “Authentic GAL”, I don’t feel it’s right. Maybe it should be “Real GAL” or something. I can’t decide, I can’t read Japanese.

I captured from screens from the promotional video too:
Goto on stage view from afar
Goto gets the crowd ready
Goto smiles showing teeth
Goto looks pissed
Goto “Eeeeeen” [crying sounds]
Goto slight smile
Goto jumps with guitar
Goto looks scary [too scary that I removed, lol]

[removed after March 12]

She looks pretty, doesn’t she? This song reminds me of Ayaya [same record company]. My favorite picture? I like the pissed look, she looks best when she’s pissed, hahaa. Having said that, I wonder ifGoto will be pissed when she reads this.

Every time I post something, I always want to put a title for my post. Most of the time, the title is determined before I start typing. However, there are exceptional cases. Either way, it works. A title is given just to identify the post. Obviously, it should do well suggesting the content of the post.

The same thing for songs I guess. A title well chosen is just as important as producing a good track. Judy and Mary released their 11th single in 1997 titled “Kujira 12 Gou” which means “Whale #12″. It’s a nice song, with a strange title. I read the translated lyrics and still have no idea why’s it called “Whale #12″. In fact, “kujira” (whale) is only mentioned twice. There’s no mention of the number 12 too.
Well, at least there’s mention of dolphins. I can’t say it’s positive though.

Now to think of it, Judy and Mary is a name of a band that has 3 guys and a girl.

I have encoded 1min 40sec sample in WMA file proprietary (Windows Media Audio 9; 20 kbps, 16 kHz, stereo 2-pass CBR) for you people.

Download the sample from here (260 KB). [In Internet Explorer, right click on the link and choose the option "Save Target As...". Download it quick, as I'll remove it on February 09.]

Kujira 12 gou
[Whale #12]
kurakkaa to chiizu to wain de furu kaiten no sukuryuu wa guu
[crackers, cheese, and wine, the full revolution propeller screams]
suraidaa de jippaa wa hazumu hai bakkari no sora wo mite iru
[sliding undoes my zipper, and I see only ash in the sky]
kondo koso te ni iretai koboresou na yoru ga sameteku
[I have to really try this time, the falling night is coming]
imiteeshon no daiya de uso bakkari no koi ga shitari wa
[an imitation diamond of lies is the love I want]
koibito ga sarawarete akuma no shiro kara tasukedasou
[I'll save my lover who was abducted to the demon's castle]
dakishimete te ni iretai kirameku hoshi no aitemu wo
[hold me while I try to touch the twinkling stars]

ougon iro no tabibito ga matteru
[a golden traveler is waiting]
monogatari e isogou
[I'll hurry into the adventure]

taiyou ga mezametara ano fune de yukou
[when the sun opens its eyes we'll go by the ship]
yorisotte yukidoke wo oyogu kujira mitai na
[drawing close and swimming in the melted snow like a whale]
mada daremo shiranai ano sora no hate wa
[to the edge of that sky that no one knows]
kitto mabushisugiru garasu no tobira
[a dazzling door of glass]

dorufin kikku de shibirete mitai na
[I want to kick like a dolphin until I'm numb]

Source: Natsuki of Sweetusagi.com
I only include a portion of the lyrics, minor amendments have been made too.

I do not see the link in the lyrics. One moment it says “I’ll save my lover who was abducted to the demon’s castle”, then it’s followed by “hold(ing) me while I try to touch the twinkling stars”.

My favorite part of the lyrics - I want to kick like a dolphin until I’m numb. At first glance, I thought it’s “I want to kick a dolphin until I’m numb”, which is rather amusing.

This is a feel good song, I listened to it, I felt good. A peep at the translations once again verify the fact that a good song doesn’t need smart lyrics. Doesn’t need smart song titles too.