#uchouten

ケラ

Mimete in U-Chouten’s disguise

LYRICS TRANSLATION of the theme song of Yuugen Romantica Uchouten series.

Translated name: Twilight Kaleidoscope

Singer: 佐々木恵梨 ( Sasaki Eri )

All translations are belongs to me, make sure to credit properly if you plans on sharing this! Enjoy reading!

Listen along • google doc • twitter post

DISCLAIMER & COMMENT

im planning to do the other yuugen cds at some point but im starting with merry for a friend! hes just too cute not to. i don’t have saikouchou yet so i’ll do the others and then come back if it falls into my hands! enjoy !

i do not own merry or the rights to the cd!

I didn’t sleep well last night, a mosquito was using me as a blood bag >;(... So thanks to that I was wide awake and had time to listen to another drama CD.

Character #2 in the Yuugen Romantica series, Utashiro (cv. Kimura Ryouhei), is a baku: a mythical creature that survives by eating dreams and helps people get rid of their nightmares that way. It’s too bad he doesn’t eat unwanted insects in my room as well.

‘Sorry dude that’s not part of my regular diet.’

Anyway, going back to Nanagiri High School. This time there is a rumour about the only stairway that leads to Heaven the rooftop. Usually there are only 12 steps, but if you get to the 13th step, that means that you are on your way down into Utashiro’s nightmare territory...

After you try (unsuccessfully ofc) to escape, Utashiro takes possession of your body and makes you solve some hard maths problem in 5 seconds, threatening to eat you if you fail. Thankfully he stops possessing you, and you grab a mop nearby to defend yourself. With the mop handle you push him into a row of lockers, and he is forced to end the nightmare to prevent them from falling on him - which allows you to escape.

Gotta admit that’s pretty badass for an otome heroine. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ“ﾌｧｲﾃｨﾝｸﾞ!!

The next day he seeks you out disguised as a human boy so you don’t recognise him. He’s been looking everywhere for you for revenge for your counterattack yesterday. He throws you back into the nightmare high school world but you still don’t recognise him Orz. So he changes back into his demon form. And this time he got rid of the cleaning equipment so you can’t attack him lolol.

Instead, he has prepared a bed, where he lulls you to sleep. He plans to frighten you with monsters hiding under the bed, but... his brilliant plan backfires because you fall asleep sooo soundly that even demons screaming in Hell can’t wake you up. XD

Turns out you have been sleep-deprived lately because of a mosquito recurring nightmares. In fact that’s why you went to the stairwell in the first place - to investigate if it is related to the Seven Supernatural Wonders of the School. After some further failed attempts to intimidate you, Utashiro finally gives up and gently rocks you to sleep, swearing that he will get you next time. Lmao.

Next day you go and thank him for helping you sleep and he is still feeling salty. After school you stay to prepare for the bunka-sai (cultural festival) exhibition, and he tags along. You class is planning to make a haunted house, and he warns you that it might attract unwanted spirits,... but you cheerfully invite him to come and visit too ^_~.

Utashiro tells you that the state of the Seven Supernaturals has been changing due to the fickleness of humans. E.g., the Youkai with the Flowers in the Toilets [*voiced by Midorikawa Hikaru... I haven’t listened to his discs but I have a hard time taking this character seriously...] has disappeared, and he himself has emerged (since the original series). There is also a strange rumour going round that the nightmare on the 13th step is killing people in their sleep, and he’s offended that people think he’s that kind of demon.

You stupidly agree with him. To show you that he’s not all nice, he possesses you and touches and kisses you, knowing that you can’t fight back/react since you are in public and he is in invisible mode. So you run off to hide in a dark corner, secretly hoping that he will rip your clothes off and have his way with you. (ฅωฅ`)ﾃﾚﾙｰ♥

But alas Rejet is trying to keep it safe for the kids here so nothing happened calm your tits woman!! He ends up walking you home and carrying your bag for you (how sweet is this guy seriously). As he’s leaving he senses a... supernatural energy from you. So at night he sneaks into your house and, sure enough, you are having night terrors.

He consumes your nightmare, and is about to leave when you wake up. To hide his identity, he changes into his chibi-baku form. But you know it’s him anyway. You are scared to be left alone, so he becomes your reluctant dakimakura ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ). As he watches your sleeping face, he realises how he used to live for people’s happiness, before he became this yakuza demon from the ‘hood who terrorises people for fun.

Ok yeah Utashiro is that Moomin-looking thing from the Hifumi picture.

One day you bring him lunch on the rooftop as a token of your gratitude, but he seems to be having... indigestion pains from eating your nightmares every night. #youkaiproblems. He tells you that he used to do this for people regularly and they would come and visit him, but now times have changed and they don’t need him anymore, and all his friends are dead, but for some reason he’s still alive. He has remained in Nanagiri High School because of rumours that there might be another fellow baku lurking around.

At night you tell him not to eat anymore. He wants to insist, but his body is almost at its limit. He tells you there’s another way to end your nightmares - which is to confront the demon behind them directly. To protect you, he enters your dream along with you.

The demon uses the same haunted school grounds as his backdrop. However, there is an abandoned dried-up well in the courtyard which doesn’t exist in reality. As you approach, a baku emerges from the well and tries to kill you both despite your goodwill.

Turns out this thing is a youkai-kuzure, the remnant form of a demon that has been neglected, but still maintains a strong will to survive and holds a lot of resentment towards humans. Utashiro thinks he will end up the same way and sinks into a bout of “look kids, this is me in 20 years’ time” nihilism.

He begs you to run away but you refuse. You want to let the youkai-kuzure baku use your body and regain its energy so that Utashiro can restore his faith in humanity. In the end Utashiro ends up possessing you, and diplomatically talks the youkai-kuzure into exorcising itself. Basically what he says can be summarised as follows:

‘You are not alone. Me and this human girl are here for you... Now fuck off R.I.P.’

And so fuck off R.I.P. it did.

Then both of you wake up from your nightmare. Utashiro is about to leave but you stop him. So then he asks you if he can stay with you forever, because he has nowhere to go now anyway, and he doesn’t want to become that troll that lives under the bridge and throws rocks at people’s shins and glances at porno magazines through the konbini window.

*

[Thoughts] Very important update: The mosquito that was biting me is now dead now, too. And I killed it by force instead of using diplomatic exorcism.

This disc was really entertaining, I actually laughed out loud several times throughout. Kimura Ryouhei has a way of drawing out your emotions, idk, I mean most otome games/dramas are meant to do that, but his voice is just more... vivid to me in some way, I guess.

Utashiro is a totally adorable character. The way how he acts all tough and threatening but immediately panics and surrenders when the heroine is upset. Kimura-sensei calls him a ‘cute clumsy tsudere’ and thinks that he could be a good sleeping aid/pillow for people who... need that I guess.

[Reminds me of Tsuda Kenjirou’s commentary on Yomei Kareshi (a series where your guy has a terminal illness), where he’s wondering if we actually listen to it before we go to sleep. YES TSUDA-SENSEI WE DO I use drama CDs to help me sleep. With Vol.1 I was new to the series and cried buckets when the boyfriend was dying, but by Vol.7 I had got used to it and was already numb to all the tragedy. Yeah sorry.]

Actually I really enjoy listening to the Free Talks because they give you a glimpse into the cast’s personalities. I got the feeling that Kimura-sensei doesn’t really think through his replies and just blurts things out, and the spontaneity gave me a kind of a Mukami Kou vibe (in a good way though, I don’t think/hope he has Kou’s split personality lolol). I also get the feeling that he and Tsuda-sensei have similar temperaments and would get along great...

But anyway, back to the main story. Utashiro is really pretty tsun and he didn’t reveal very much romantic feelings until the very end, where it felt almost like he suddenly went from zero to sixty. It’s really different from Hifumi’s original story, which had romantic moments steadily throughout, like the date and the star-making/gazing event at night. But I think Kimura-sensei makes up for it with his very 色気のある voice.

I also liked the heroine’s personality better in this one. Hope she keeps up the epic-level KYness in the later stories.

LONG VACATION BABY GO ROUND

formed by off-beat subculture juggernaut Keralino “Kera” Sandrovich (of the important Nagomu label, uniformed weirdos Uchōten, also a writer/director, etc. etc.), 1986-1988-era P-MODEL bassist/keyboardist Teruo Nakano, and stage actor/KING-SHOW drummer Minosuke, cult band LONG VACATION were basically Flipper’s Guitar via P-MODEL, early shibuya-kei guitar pop detouring through messy Nagomu new wave. it might be the most “typical” thing Kera’s done, which isn’t saying much.

side note: Nakano, during his time with P-MODEL, penned three songs (Monsters a Go Go*, Cruel Sea, Call Up Here) that were meant for the shelved album MONSTER; they’re all great, even without official studio release; lots of live recordings of them and other MONSTER songs are on youtube, though. Nakano later recorded Call Up Here for his really good 1996 album USER UNKNOWN as well.

*not to be confused with the Hirasawa-written MONSTER-era “Monster a Go Go”)

Japanese new wave/post punk band active from 1982 to 1991. Reunited in 2015. The band was led by KERA but changed members regularly, one of them was Shunichi Miura (credited as Mue ( ミュー )) who was a keyboarder from 1986 to 1988.