#46 – Shiori

In case you missed it, my English cover of Shiori, by MyGO!!!!! References here.

In an unexpected turn, I’m covering Bang Dream again after over 4 years (and my first ever bandori solo cover). My channel’s last bandori video was of Kiseki, one of Roselia’s songs, so you know how far removed I am from the fandom now. That said, despite me being away, I have always loved and still love it. Unfortunately, I simply don’t have so much time to consume media from multiple franchises. However, since Superstar s3 isn’t coming until later, I had some extra time and here I am!

I think it’s fair to say that Tomori has a lot of characteristics of an autistic individual and so I decided to include the word “typical” in my adaptation of the first verse.

For the chorus, where a lot of the heavy lifting happens, I struggled really hard with this section:

ぜんぶ　ぜんぶ　僕だから うじうじ　しくしく　僕だから ぜんぶ　ぜんぶ　抱きしめて 少し眠ろう

All of it, all of it, they are all part of me Feeling down, crying, because all of them are part of me Embrace everything, everything, tightly Let’s take a little nap

Especially with line 2, “uji uji shishiku” has a certain ring to it and it wasn’t clear to me how to preserve that in English. I opted to go for “weeping/wailing” due to the repetition of the “w” sound and present continuous tense ending. Actually… this entire half of the chorus has a lot of repetition (zenbu x4, uji x2 shiku x2, boku dakara x2) which gives the lyrics a ton of character.

Trigger Warning: suicide

One thing that leapt out at me is the mention of sleeping/resting multiple times throughout the song in addition to the lyrics “pain, pain, go away”. I wondered if this was a reference to suicide. Statistically, the rate of suicide is higher in individuals with autism. Of course, it’s also possibly that this is literally just… permission to rest. I kept it slightly ambiguous in my own adaptation, with it interpretable in both ways.

This song was definitely a pleasure to work on. I was quite emotional multiple times – it really reflects the emotions of the Lost Girls. If you haven’t had the chance, I do highly recommend It’s MyGO. If you enjoy the melodrama that is Love Live but want something a bit more serious/heavier, this is definitely a good one to watch.