Juuyon-sai no NAIFU

There are a ridiculous number of notes for this song, and some of them are really long – but they’re worth it, I promise. Bear in mind the subject matter of the song (child murder) if you’re easily triggered.

1. This song is about the Kobe child murders. You really should read it before reading the translation/notes or things won’t make a lot of sense. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, there’s a synopsis below.
   
   TL;DR/TW: Basically, between March and May of 1997, a 14-year-old boy (using the alias Sakakibara Seito) killed two classmates and attacked several others. He cut off the head of the final victim, an 11-year-old boy named Hase Jun, and left it on the ground outside the school for students to find when they arrived to school in the morning. He taunted police via letters, saying that it was a game he was playing, and that the broken education system created him, an “invisible” boy that was only free from his hatred when he killed, and that he’d continue to kill until they caught him. He was apprehended and arrested, where he confessed to the attacks and killings. At the time, the age of criminal responsibility in Japan was 16, but following this case the age was lowered to 14.
2. I think this is a weird way of writing マンネリ化 MANNERIka “getting stuck in a rut/becoming stereotyped.”
3. This whole line is really involved, with a couple meanings, one physical/literal, and one that’s more intangible/emotional. First off, the changes from written vs. sung:
   • 悲鳴 himei “shout, scream” is written, while 悲境 hikyou “adversity, sad circumstances” is sung.
   • 断切 dansetsu “cutting off, severing,” is written, as in the physical sense of cutting the head off the boy, but it sounds like he sings the slightly different 断絶 danzetsu “discontinuation, interruption; cease to exist; sever, break off, divide,” which isn’t like a literal/physical sense, but more of an emotional/intangible one.
   
   So again, another double meaning – the way it’s translated is the literal/physical sense: “I can hear the sounds of the attack – the screams, the sound of knife on bone, the blows – and it’s like a song to me,” because he’s really fucked up and still excited/riding the high of what he did.
   
   Then there is the emotional reading, which is something like, “the tragic song of innocence destroyed” – which could refer not only to his victims, but also his own.
   
   (The killer actually published his memoirs in a book after being released entitled 絶歌 zekka, whose title can be translated very similarly: “a song of desperation/a song of destruction.” In the book, he described the murders in graphic detail and supposedly took responsibility for what he did. I’m betting Ruki picked the words he did to allude to that as well, without actually saying it. The book was extremely controversial, because the killer didn’t have to disclose his identity due to his age at the time of the crime – though tabloids supposedly went against the privacy laws and put his name out there anyway – but also because he’s profiting off his crime and he had it sent to the families of his victims as an ‘apology.’ The father of Hase Jun was less than pleased, and I can’t blame him. More on Zekka.)
   
   Anyway, Japanese is such a cool language, man, and Ruki wields it like a weapon. He can say so much in so few words by carefully picking and choosing what he writes and with what characters, and add a second layer based on what he sings. Gah.
4. 監獄 kangoku “prison” is written, while 場所 basho “place” is sung. From what I’ve read, he spent time in a medical juvenile reformatory as opposed to a regular prison because of his age.
5. Written in the lyrics but not sung. The numbers, however, do not actually amount to the time served by Sakakibara. He was imprisoned in 1997, provisionally released in 2004 (put on probation), and fully released in 2005. All in all, it seems he only served 7-8 years for his crimes.
6. これ以上俺を殺さないで呉れ kore ijou ore wo korosanaide kure translated literally would be something along the lines of “don’t kill me any more than you already are,” but it sounds kind of weird in English. I consider it basically the equivalent of “God you’re killing me here.”
7. He’s so negative and “woe is me” that he’s basically saying, “Nobody ever notices me; even the sun doesn’t want to shine on me. I’m invisible.” He’s saying goodbye to his ‘invisible’ self, and letting his aggressive impulses take over as his new alter-ego, Sakakibara Seito.
8. He’s handcuffed, but the lyrics specifically say 法的拘束 houteki kousoku “legal restraints/bindings,” so it’s not just “Oh, they put me in handcuffs,” it’s more like, “I’m just in this situation because of their stupid laws.”
9. 冷たく tsumetaku is “cold (to the touch), freezing” or “coldhearted, unfeeling, indifferent” – so this is probably referring both to the coldness of the metal of the handcuffs on his wrists, as well as potentially his coldhearted indifference just keeps spreading. He still doesn’t care and doesn’t think he did anything ‘wrong’ other than how it’s seen by the laws he considers to be beneath him.
10. The word used is モザイク MOZAIKU – literally when someone is pixelated during an interview to protect their privacy, their face obscured (and usually voice changed) when the interview airs so no one can tell who they are.