• This article mostly concerns the Hypnosis Mic song United Emceez, the drama track When 6 Colours Combine, [] Begins and spoilers up to that point in the overall storyline of that series. This is part 2 of a 2 part article – part 1 is here.
• You can find the interview on Bookwalker if you pay to read/purchase the magazine (unlimited ownership is about 800 JPY, while a subscription to various magazines for several months is about 700 JPY/month).
• If it seems like I’ve made a mistake somewhere, contact me and I’ll see if you’re right.
• There aren’t any places you can crosscheck this to my knowledge.

Highlights:

• the meaning of Cross a Line
• a bunch of Tale of the Woodcutter wordplay
• one of Samatoki’s parts was originally different

White intro text (pg. 103): The division leaders’ and Keitoin Honobono’s rap is technical and powerful but both are excellent and worth listening to. Continuing from the previous issue, we welcome Machee Def to explain the details of the lyrics!

Gold and white series intro text (middle left, pg. 103): Hypnosis Mic – Division Rap Battle | Homepage: http://hypnosismic.com/ | Twitter: @hypnosismic

Small intro text with gold initial “ko” (pg. 102): Chuohku’s Honobono Keitoin, who has been causing chaos up until now, stages an unauthorised attack against Ichiro Yamada, Samatoki Aohitsugi and Jakurai Jinguji with a Ramuda clone. The clone used the True Hypnosis Mic. These 3 took massive damage, so Kuko Harai, Sasara Nurude and Ramuda Amemura came running and picked up where they left off. The Ramuda clone that used the True Hypnosis Mic died and Honobono said, “It’s time for me to take my leave,” as if she was going to really leave, but she could not. This was due to the division leaders, who had formerly spent time together as friends, through misunderstandings, missing meeting each other and wounded feelings. Even still, their soured relations continue to not be broken, so they stand in front of the same enemy. With anger and trust, these 6 voices overlap while holding on to memories of their friendship.

This is the back half of the lyric explanation of the battle in the drama track When 6 Colours Combine, [ ] Begins, where big plot movements occur. I’d like you to feel the overwhelming direct power of the 6 division leaders’ words and Honobono’s skilful stringing-together of words while involving Princess Kaguya!

Lyric 4 – Honobono Keitoin

Otoko rokunin de watashi no toriai? Mou shouganai naa. Nee dou shitai?

Nanka Kaguyahime ni natta kibun. Takaramono mottekoretara gonna kiss you.

Uso wa tsuicha da~me. Nisemono- wa kanben. Haji wo sutete aenashi kitai hazure kainashi

taegataku tamasakaru. Sorera wo mite watashi wa azawarau.

Orokani horobiru baka na yatsutte jibaku sundayone-. Nakanaka shu-ru.

This is continuing on from last time, where Ichiro stopped Honobono, then she said “I’ll play with you all for a bit”and activated her mic. Honobono is positioned as the last boss for the drama this time. I went into this project excited to write a satisfying response to the division leaders’ lyrics.

My impression of Honobono is she always looks down upon everyone else, but when it comes to men, she has a strong mindset and her feelings are all, “I’m asking you to do this”. It could be said something like, “Let’s see these 6 men try to struggle for me. It’s already a situation which cannot be helped, right?”…I had a sudden idea of “Doesn’t that kind of situation look like Princess Kaguya?”

Do you know the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, everybody? Princess Kaguya, who was born from bamboo, was lovingly raised by an old man and woman. She grew up quickly and became a peerless beauty, of which rumours spread quickly. If the world’s men took one look at her, they would spare no time in coming to her side. She’s popular, isn’t she? There were men who wouldn’t give up, no matter how many times they went to Princess Kaguya and got their hearts broken. Those were 5 nobles. You could retort, “There’s 6 division leaders but only 5 nobles in the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter!” but please take it as a metaphor for a lot of men struggling.

I will first explain the beat and the construction of the rap. Like the battles, the exchange of attacks in this drama track is based upon an 8 bar foundation and there was a rule added where 8 bars comprises a turn. In short, this time Honobono and the 6 division leaders’ rap which is inserted afterwards share a beat. 8 bars divided between 6 division leaders would mean it would be very short if each leader could be given their own bar, but the things I wanted to say would unfortunately not be conveyed very well. That troubled me, so I thought about trying to make the speed of their rap twice as fast to make 1 bar 2. If I made the song double-speed, I figured the BPM and the beat would be better if it were slightly slowed down. However, with a beat like that, Honobono alone would convey too much information. To avoid that, I wrote Honobono’s rap so that she starts normally and gradually speeds up until she is at double speed.

In the 1st – 4th bars, Honobono, who is feeling like Princess Kaguya, tells them, “If you’re carrying treasure, I’ll give you a kiss.” Each beat is split into 16 sounds until the 6th bar and thanks to the slightly slowed-down BPM and the beat, it gives a good feel for Honobono’s mysteriousness. Then the 5th – 6th bars are split a bit finer so that 1 beat is comprised of 6 sounds.

Here, I will again explain the story of Princess Kaguya to explain the words I have used. Princess Kaguya’s conditions for marrying the nobles was bestowing upon them the difficult topic of “bring me the things I desire”. Those things were all absolutely impossible to obtain. Princess Kaguya thought she could make them give up on marrying her by making them do that. She didn’t know that with that kind of thinking and such, the 5 nobles wanted to do anything to marry her and worked out a plan for her hand in marriage. When she asked for the stone begging bowl of the Buddha, Prince Ishitsukuri brought her a bowl from a temple somewhere which she couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. When she asked for the jewelled branch from Horai, Prince Kuramochi brought her a fake which he had an artisan make for him. Then the Minister of the Right Abe no Mimuraji used every means possible to get a robe of fire-rat skins…but contrary to expectations, what he got was a forgery. Honobono compares her situation to this part of the story and says “Uso wa tsuicha da~me. Nisemono wa kanben” in her Princess Kaguya mode.

That’s right. A lot of modern words have their origins in Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (even though this is an explanation for the readers). From haji wo sutete aenashi to tamasakaru, the words match the 5 nobles’ parts of the story. In the order they are introduced in theTale of the Bamboo Cutter: first, haji wo sutete refers to Prince Ishitsukuri, who sends her a song and doesn’t know when to give up, even after the bowl he brought her is exposed as a fake. From there, hachi wo suteru seems to have become haji wo suteru. Then, aenashi could be said to come from a shortened form of “Abe” from the Minister of the Right Abe no Mimuraji, who tragically fled after losing face from getting his hands on a forgery. Taegataku comes from “a coloured jewel from around a dragon’s neck” from the Grand Counsellor Ootomo no Miyuki’s part of the story. Grand Counsellor Ootomo no Miyuki goes out by himself on a boat, but encounters a severe storm. Even though it was sink or swim for him, illness wore down his body and his eyes swelled until they were like Chinese plums. When the world’s people saw these plums, they would find it hard to eat them, which is how I got the word taegatai. Prince Kuramochi was asked for the jewelled branch of Horai. Furthermore, when his lie was revealed, he went bright red and went into hiding for who-knows-how-long. From that kind of sudden failure, I seemingly included the tama [to get] tamasakaru.

Upon telling this story, I feel it again – up to this point, wordplay with references to the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter have been plentiful. It comes through, even when converted to rap. Then there is finally the part of the story where kainashi originates. Isonokami no Marotari was given the task of finding a cowry shell born from a swallow. The Middle Counsellor climbed up a tree to a swallow’s nest, stuck his hand in and fell as he was about to get it. At that moment, what he thought he’d grabbed so firmly wasn’t a cowry shell, but swallow poop – it’s a sad punchline. When I saw that, I said, “Ah, that can’t be helped.” Meaningless things are said to be kainashi, of no value.

This explanation of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter has become considerably lengthy. However if you return to this part of the story, don’t you feel as if Princess Kaguya is twisting the men around her little finger? When you learn the robe of fire-rat skins is a fake, Princess Kaguya becomes gleeful. I understand she doesn’t want to get married and being happy when presented with splendid things, but still…While they’re conducting themselves like this – through pushing themselves to do unreasonable demands, these men guide themselves towards their own self-destruction – I felt it was apt for Honobono’s viewpoint. These 5 words are connected to each other through their meaning and the 6th – 7th bars’ lyrics. She’s saying, “The men who tragically flee after throwing away their shame realised they were in for disappointment and their efforts were useless. Could they not endure these conditions? Wherever they run and hide (tamasakaru), when I see them, I’m afraid I’ll laugh at them.” To break the lyrics down further, from taegataku onwards Honobono speeds up, so I think it feels like a vigorous chase. She says the final phrase with that kind of vigour. She’s saying these men, who will self-destruct, are being so surreal she laughs through her nose at them and the content [of her rap] comes at you like a very fast ball. Oh no, she’s a very scary person, don’t you see?

If you look at the lyric breakdown, the ru in “surreal” overflows into the next beat. Up until now, I’ve used this technique countless times, but it feels like the sound is overstepping its boundaries and can be said to produce a “sticky” effect. That sort of naughty overstepping of boundaries is like Honobono.

Ai Farouz (who portrays Honobono) is really good at rapping, so even with me adding things here and there, I think I made this rap easy to break down and sing, but in practice, you hear the backing track and you go, “Of course.” This time, too, was full-on with Honobono content. I was happy and having fun while recording. 　

Lyric 5 – Division Leaders

Kuro-n toka shinsei Hipunoshisu Maiku toka yoke- na mon bakka tsukutte

Honma ariehen bussou na naccha kioku tondemouta ga na donai sunnen

Teme-ra no sei de gishin anki ni nattendayo kono chikushou ga

Ore wa teme-ra no seigitte no ga rikai dekinee shi Hedo ga desou da

Mattaku motte sukuiyounai te no hodoshiyounai rongai

Koukai wa mou shitakunai kara shitawanai Ore wa omae no ningyou janai!

Machigatte Koketatte Funbatte Wakeatte Mukiatte Majiwatte

Kesshite kusshinai Kono maiku nigiri tatakau!

Then, finally, the division leaders fight together! Everyone is united in opposing Honobono. I talked about this a bit earlier, but in order to make the 6 division leaders’ memories work more easily across 8 bars, I made the rap double-speed.

Sequentially, first up is the top batter, the face of HypMic Ichiro, down to Sasara and Kuko, who were mindhacked with the True Hypnosis Mic…that kind of thing. I thought Naughty Busters and the various other former teams all joined together would be something like this, but if I did that, I worried about the fact the “mixed-up leaders” vibes would be weakened, so I thought about not lumping them together.

So, let’s go from Ichiro’s lyrics. It makes sense the things he is saying are the most straightforward. Clones, the True Hypnosis Mic…these are really needless, aren’t they? Sasara receives those words and uses sore na to bridge his part. For this rap, I didn’t line up the respective things I wanted to say, so I continued to bridge together the previous person’s part to the next like this and got picky about parts such as the rhyme and flow inherited from the previous member. Sasara says “kioku tondemouta ga na” so Kuko can complain about the damage that’s been done to him with “gishin anki ni nattendayo”.

Continuing on, Samatoki receives Kuko’s words in a mic relay. If you look at the lyric breakdown chart, I positioned the me of teme-ra on the 1st beat so it links better. Kuko and Samatoki, along with Ichiro and Sasara, had a period where they worked together, but even now, not a lot has been depicted about how they exchange words. However, because they spent time together, in this situation their words would surely cross over and I hope you can see that.

In reality, there is totally different content from Samatoki’s rap onwards. When Honobono first appeared, she said, “I’m friends with your precious, precious Nemu-chan!” and the answer to that was “Nemu wouldn’t say things like that!”. However, because the 6 people were fighting together, “the things Samatoki wants to say are about Nemu” made me feel a bit uncomfortable and to the listeners, I thought this might sound like he’s against her being in Chuohku, so I changed it. Speaking of which, he understands Nemu is in Chuohku, but he can never recognise Chuohku’s actions as anything but contemptible, so his lyrics became like this.

Jakurai-sensei resolutely goes, “Mattaku motte sukuiyounai te no hodoshiyounai rongai.” From this point onwards, Jakurai-sensei would even stop to save a person who had, say, committed a crime. Even in the lyrics I explained in the previous issue, he says, “Anatatachi ni tsumi wa nai.” However, this does not apply to Honobono. It seems fitting Jakurai-sensei can abandon her. Then, we go to Ramuda’s lyrics. This rap’s highlight is how Ramuda declares his separation from Chuohku. He says it without mincing his words. By the way, Jakurai-sensei and Ramuda are linked by a mic relay. Jakurai’s younai [OUAI], rongai [ONAI], Ramuda’s koukai [OUAI] and others such as mou shitakunai [OU IAUAI], ningyou janai [INOU AAI] are based on a rhyme of O-AI. If you want to be precise, they’re not exact rhymes and it changes the number of sounds, but not following the rules makes this linkage feel thrilling.

Finally, the 6 people have a mini mic relay and then rap in unison. From the time I started writing this rap, I thought about using this form at the end. They are connected by tte and first, there were several candidates for words that suited their respective secrets. Kuko, who is repenting from getting close to the wrong people and has now decided to progress alongside them as a monk, gets machigatte. Sasara, who is aware of comical situations, gets koketatte. Funbatte is because I felt, while everyone is trying their best, Ramuda is the one who most suits that word, continuing to stand and face his past crimes while living until his life is extinguished. Even without explaining, I feel you can understand Jakurai’s (laughs). Then, Samatoki has mukiatte. In a previous drama track, he faced Nemu and this time, he faces Ichiro, so that was the most fitting for him. Then finally, majiwatte represents Ichiro out of the 6 people. This not only represents how the 6 are fighting together, but how various lives intersect. Tte is a case-making particle and a linking particle which can also be used as a conjunction particle, right? That’s because when the 6 are side-by-side like this, it goes from negative to positive while simultaneously reading as one sentence: “Even if we make mistakes, even if we fall, we’ll still persevere. We’ll share the pain we each hold, face it and intersect.” Finally, the last unified bar is the concluding punchline. It’s the 6 people’s declaration that they will absolutely hold their mics and battle. This, like last time’s explanation, is straightforward.

People’s words overlap gradually and connect. Then, they finally intersect. While writing this rap, I could rapidly depict their solidarity. When I listened to the final track, when the 6’s voices overlapped, it would be good if that gave it vigour. Listening to this, these 8 bars can feel exciting.

Finally…

Reading the drama track story, up until this point, their discord has served its purpose. However, it now feels like they’re looking back on things and honestly going, “That was good.” Of course, even if you only understand it for a moment, the things they carry with them are not simple, so they don’t just become friends at the end and still quarrel while facing their common enemy. That has the feeling of, in some ways, being pleasant and resembling youth. Then I thought again about the big story movements which happened in this drama track and about how I was able to face various challenges while writing these lyrics.

I might have said this last time, but when creating these lyrics, I only have the recorded drama track scenario. This time, Princess Kaguya was the subject, so I thought I might have flagged a Tale of the Bamboo Cutter-like development. However, this is not a story in which miracles happen, but last time’s developments again have no connection to this time’s. That’s why, even though we don’t yet know what the future holds for them, I wrote these characters depicting them as they are at this point in time.

Well, what will become of Honobono, who took all 6 people’s attacks? While her breathing was messed up, she was saying they were “stronger than she expected” and doesn’t want to give up the stage just yet, huh? What actions will she take? Honobono’s an interesting character to write, so I’ve thought how it would be good to write lyrics for her again. The drama track’s big plot movements are welcome, but there’s a lot of issues yet to be solved and things that need to be faced, right? In the end, what will happen? I am also looking forward to the next story, simultaneously filled with trepidation and yet with excitement.

Translator’s notes:

• In order to ensure smooth reading of the translation, I have omitted some redundant parts.
• This translation heavily involves the story of Princess Kaguya. The article itself does a pretty good explanation but also adds some bits the Wikipedia page doesn’t have.
• “Honobono is positioned as the last boss for the drama this time.” – Normally, “drama” in this article (in katakana) refers to the drama track, but this instance made sense with the standard meaning of “drama”.
• “Each beat is split into 16 sounds until the 6th bar…” – If you count each Japanese syllable in the rap up until “…natta kibun” (the end of the 6th bar), you get 16 sounds. This is not counting the question marks but counting the small characters (small A, small E and small tsu), plus there is a deliberately missing syllable before “Nanka…”.
• BPM = beats per minute.
• “Then the 5th – 6th bars are split a bit finer so that 1 beat is comprised of 6 sounds.” – This is best exemplified by “Uso wa tsuicha…”, the 6 sounds that comprise the first bar. Here, a “sound” means the small characters get counted together with the syllables before them (e.g. cha is 1 sound), the elongated syllables in the 5th bar, including 1 tilde, count for 2 sounds each and the elongated sound in the 6th bar (after nisemono) counts as 1 sound.
• “…and says ‘Uso wa tsuicha da~me. Nisemono wa kanben‘ in her Princess Kaguya mode.” – Those lyrics literally translate to “Telling lies is forbidden. [I’ll] forgive fakes.”
• “…hachi wo suteru seems to have become haji wo suteru.” – In this case, hachi means “bowl” and haji means “shame”.
• “Taegataku comes from ‘a coloured jewel from around a dragon’s neck’ from the Grand Counsellor Ootomo no Miyuki’s part of the story.” – “A coloured jewel from around a dragon’s neck” is read tatsu no kubi no tama.
• “When the world’s people saw these plums, they would find it hard to eat them…” – “Hard to eat [the Chinese plums]” is tabegatai in the article.
• “…which is how I got the word taegatai.” – Likewise, taegatai means “hard to endure”.
• “…I seemingly got the tama [to get] tamasakaru. ” – Tama in this case means “jewel”. Tamasakaru is a word, originally derived from the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, meaning “to faint” (although the kanji given in the article suggest it used to literally mean something like “to have the soul separate [from the body]” and the tama in this case meaning “soul”, hence the evolution to “to faint”).
• “When I saw that, I said, ‘Ah, that can’t be helped’…” – Machee Def uses ana, kahina no wazaya here. That’s a phrase originally derived from the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter from which the modern Japanese phrase kainashi (there’s a bit of wordplay here – kai can mean “seashell” with different kanji, so its reading suggests it means “no shell”, but it means “worthless”) is derived. The phrase can also mean “it can’t be helped”.
• “If you look at the lyric breakdown, the ru in ‘surreal’ overflows into the next beat.” – The Japanese word for “surreal” is shu-ru.
• “Sasara says ‘kioku tondemouta ga na‘ so Kuko can complain about the damage that’s been done to him with ‘gishin anki ni nattendayo’.” – This part of Sasara’s line literally means “my memory’s [unfortunately] flown away” while gishin anki means “once you suspect something, everything looks suspicious”.
• “mic relay” – Basically, it’s like a relay (sporting event), but with rap – i.e. how the rappers chain their lyrics together.
• “Jakurai-sensei resolutely goes, ‘Mattaku motte sukuiyounai te no hodoshiyounai rongai.’ From this point onwards, Jakurai-sensei would even stop to save a person who had, say, committed a crime. Even in the lyrics I explained in the previous issue, he says, ‘Anatatachi ni tsumi wa nai.‘” – This first set of lyrics literally mean, “He totally cannot be saved, [but him being] beyond help is impossible.” The second set literally means, “You have not committed any crime.” (“You” is plural in this case.)
• “Jakurai’s younai [OUAI], rongai [ONAI], Ramuda’s koukai [OUAI] and others such as mou shitakunai [OU IAUAI], ningyou janai [INOU AAI] are based on a rhyme of O-AI.” – Here’s where the Rhyme Strike system makes it clearer as to how these rhymes work. The N in rongai won’t count towards the rhyme, but the U sounds at the front of Ramuda’s last 2 examples are both long sounds, so they’re counted.
• “Tte is a case-making particle and a linking particle which can also be used as a conjunction particle, right?” – For those of you who have no idea about fancy grammar terms, basically the tte joins bits of sentences.
• “This, like last time’s explanation, is straightforward.” – In the source text, there is some redundancy removed from this sentence about how they’ll use all of their power to fight, but the “straightforward” bit (which gets a bit lost in between the other stuff) refers to the section about Ichiro’s choice of majiwatte.
• The gold section on pg. 105 is advertising for the then-upcoming album Cross a Line.
• “That has the feeling of, in some ways, being pleasant and resembling youth.” – As in, it’s pleasant and resembles youth because the problems are too easily resolved, everyone lives “happily ever after” etc..
• “I might have said this last time…” – Actually, Machee Def did not.
• Again, I would like to thank Ari (shinseimcd on Twitter) for the wiki translation of the When 6 Colours Combine, [ ] Begins drama track. That said, in order to avoid plagiarism, I translated the article title from scratch.