Tuesday 9 May 2006

Pic of the day: "My feelings never reached you." Screenshot from the intro to Kage Kara Mamoru. Of course this is not autobiographic, I just want you to see what kind of songs I like...

"Million love"

Continuing the train of thought from yesterday, I'll write about another Japanese love song that I adore. "Million love" is the opening song to the anime Kage Kara Mamoru, a romantic comedy about a suburban ninja family that secretly watches over their neighbors, continuing a 400 years old promise. The ninja family's boy is a high school classmate of the artisan family's daughter. The daughter is pretty, friendly and cheerful. Sadly she is also mildly retarded, or at least very immature. There are also several other girls who are interested in the boy (although most of them know he is more than he pretends). The song is performed by the voice actress who does the girl next door, so it is presumably spoken in her name, but it might fit a lot of other people. Perhaps not only girls either, although what boy would admit to such feelings?

Even after a million "goodnight",
even after a million "good morning",
my feelings never reach you.
Why, why, why is it like this?
I love you.

Being so close,
every day,
being next to you,
yet you don't get it at all.
Who do you like?
No answer, as expected.
This sad feeling
locked in my desk.*
But if I am with you
any day is like a never ending movie.
Just being with you
all my worries fade away.

I am sure
after hoping a million times,
wishing on a star a million times,
you are the only one.
Meeting you,
I feel that this is destiny.
Showing courage a million times more,
I want to say good morning to you a million times,
knock on your door a million times.
Notice, notice, notice it please!
I love you.

*) The "desk" part is hard to understand, but may refer to the tradition of Japanese girls, having a personal diary locked in her desk. Yuuna, the girl in the song, has a photo of the boy next door in her desk and looks at it every night before going to bed. But the song is not written just for the anime, and it may be that it simply means "sitting by the desk" or some such. Japanese poetry is hard enough as is, especially for foreigners!

The song is actually extremely upbeat in performance, overcoming the sadness of the lyrics in the beginning and confirming the dedication in the end. Whether it is actually a good idea to never give up when someone seems not to notice your feelings... that's another matter. Although with a boy, I guess there is a good chance that he really is that blind. Whether knocking on his door a million more times is likely to change that, however, is another matter.

More generally, I feel like writing a romance novel of sorts about the borderland between friendship and love. It is a wilderness frontier in which I may be a rather experienced guide. Whether I could lead anyone to safety is another matter, but I am sure I could help someone get lost. And that has no small entertainment value either, right?