↑Last time
From today's entry in my series about the lyrics I wrote for the NEEDY anime.
The Karamazov unit song was probably the biggest hurdle in realizing one of the anime's hidden concepts: "What if a girls' anime aired in the middle of the night?" I even asked Kimura directly during the livestream, "Please upload just the concert scene to YouTube!"
This song was actually completed first. Once we heard how incredible the cast's singing was, we realized that if we wanted to capture that authentic Sunday-morning anime feeling, the group number really ought to come after each character had received their own image song. So we hastily added three solo songs afterward. Quite a luxurious production, wasn't it? Thank you, Kimura-san.
As a result, if you listen to them back-to-back, my own lyrical habits become painfully obvious.
I'll destroy those outdated morals for you.
I'll forgive even your shattered sense of right and wrong.
(It has to be you.) No.
(The moonlit night is only beginning.) No.
(Kiss me.) No.
(Reject me.)
No.
No.
Lunacy
Paranoia
Sugar Drug Lover Dance
poison Dance
Break it!
Thirty pieces of silver
Put a price on our memories.
This is where we part.
Ah... my poisonous radio waves.
(Your finger brushed mine.)
Since tonight is our last night together
It's not because I love you.
It's not because I like you.
(Your hair swayed.)
The moon is still watching us.
It's already over.
So don't kiss me.
（poison Dance）
I really do end an awful lot of lyrics with "...ta" (the past tense), don't I? And whenever I have two empty beats to fill, I always end up throwing in a "saa" ("come on").
Lyrically, the entire song is built around A Hurried Appeal—his retelling of Judas.
How many songs are there where Judas is the central motif?
Across the entire series, I finally managed to put into words the strange web of associations inside my head: anti-social ideals, rock 'n' roll, Marilyn Manson, Judas... For me, this was the culmination of all of that.
I didn't know she could make a face like that...
Silver on my lips, tonight
Thirty coins my price
I'm afraid... afraid of the cold.（sinful Desire）
Secrets whispered, Judas
Kiss me, traitor, gently
LaLa our secret words.
Eli, Eli, lema...
I worked incredibly hard on making the English lines sound natural. The opening song was the same—I keep practicing so I can write lyrics in English. The voice cast also spent a lot of time rehearsing these lines so they wouldn't sound awkward. KAngel even sat in on the recording sessions. Since she'd already been speaking multiple languages in the original game, she ended up coaching everyone on the English pronunciation. Thanks, KAngel.
Bowser in the final stretch of Super Mario 64 shakes the whole stage around like this, doesn't he?
I'll tear apart your broken mind.
I'll love your gentle sins.
I'll keep you waiting through this maddening punishment.
So you can finally sleep — take me under.
I'll pour burning poison into you.
I'll set you free as I bite the silver coins.
I'll kill you—time itself, stand still.
Kiss of betrayal――the traitor's kiss
（Loli pop Dance）
The final chorus is one of my favorite things I've written. It's simply cool. Karamazov was always imagined as the stylish black-clad villains of the series, so it felt wonderful being able to write aggressively "evil" lyrics without holding back. I wanted it to feel like those seductive, dangerous ending themes sung by the enemy generals in old super robot anime—something like the ending to Might Gaine—a song that gives the whole show just a little more danger and allure.
Ecstasy... ran-ran-rara... stairway to heaven.
Bad Fantasy... little by little, the two of us lose our minds.
Purple Memory... ran-ran-rara... the Last Supper.
Jacob. John. Thomas
My beloved.
It's probably not every day that all twelve apostles start showing up in someone's lyrics.
One of my bad habits as a lyricist is using "la-la" whenever I can't think of a better phrase to fill the melody. Honestly, it's prettier than forcing words that don't belong there. You can hear it all over Karamazov's three songs. Actually, I've been doing that since Ui Kousen.
Now you'll notice it everywhere.
One thing that made me especially happy was seeing overseas viewers describe the A Hurried Appeal sequence as "Japan's own Biblical fanfiction." Because that's exactly what it is.
It's Dazai Osamu writing his own interpretation of Jesus and Judas.
A piece of Biblical fanfiction penned by one of Japan's greatest literary figures back in the Showa era.
A truly wonderful short story.
That was Karamazov.
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