'Hikkikomori no Uta' by Jun Maeda - English Subtitles

Aspirety · April 1, 2015, 12:31pm

Earlier this week on the 10th of March, VisualArt's published a video with no prior warning, featuring a new song written, composed and even SUNG by Jun Maeda himself! It's been known for a long time that he's wanted to try his hand at singing his own songs, and now he is finally able to share his voice with the world. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share this with your fans, Maeda! The song is called 'Hikikomori no Uta', roughly translated as "The Shut-In's Song" or "Song of Withdrawal". Below, you can view an English subtitled version of the original video produced by me, Aspirety, with the help of @SANchipinchi's translations of the lyrics.

Lyrics/Composition/Vocals: Jun Maeda
Illustration: Mochisuke
Video Production: Kohei Nakajima
Arrangement: Hikarisyuyo
Translation: @SANchipinchi
Subtitles: @Aspirety

Feel free to use the discussion topic below to share what you think of the song, and discuss what you think it may mean.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://kazamatsuri.org/hikikomori-no-uta/

Aspirety · March 14, 2015, 1:54pm

I’m aware that Crunchyroll have already promoted this song as ‘An Angel Beats! Song’ purely because it has the advertisement at the beginning of the video, but I don’t believe we should be jumping to conclusions like that so easily. It could just as well be a simple song with no attached multimedia.

That said, the theory that the song might actually be Noda’s character song holds some merit. Though it would be a bit early to be making a song about him considering he won’t have a route in First beat. Others are speculating that the song is about Maeda himself, but I don’t believe we can jump to either conclusion so easily. For now, I’m going to be treating it as it is; a song by Maeda which conveys a short story of a Hikikomori struggling to hold onto his dreams.

Bowiie · March 14, 2015, 4:11pm

I have a really hard time believing that this song is about Maeda himself considering he’s talking about wanting to live of the dream of being a successful musician and being well known. Maeda has fans worldwide and I think it would be hard for him not to know that especially with the recent success of the Clannad kickstarter. Plus his music is pretty darn popular as well…

It is feasible that he does feel that way despite what I view as his success but I still have a hard to believing it.

Aspirety · March 14, 2015, 4:13pm

Well if it IS about Maeda, it’s definitely not the Maeda we know today. Perhaps a younger Maeda? That would make a lot of sense actually, boyhood Maeda was a hiki who wanted to chase his dreams of becoming a professional musician, but had to continue resisting the push and tug of society forcing him to find a more sustainable future.

Bowiie · March 14, 2015, 4:18pm

Ok that would make more sense for sure I was still viewing it through that one twitter posting where everyone was pitying him and saying he had to break out of his Key prison so he could live his life or whatever.

Aspirety · March 14, 2015, 4:23pm

That’s a very skewed interpretation lol.
But I do wonder what’s going through Maeda’s head while he’s doing all this work though. It seems like he’s genuinely regained a lot of inspiration, rather than being whipped into submission by VisualArt’s.

Bowiie · March 14, 2015, 4:25pm

Its cause he found us he knows he has an international community of fans around the world that hang on his every move and it has revitalized him to not let us down. Confirmed Maeda loves us.

Takafumi · March 14, 2015, 4:54pm

Or because he got a second chance at Angel Beats. He likes that thing.

sillylittlemelody · March 14, 2015, 5:40pm

It’s… Depressing. Really depressing. I don’t think the life of a hikkikomori is sad, (most people relate loneliness with sadness, but I don’t), but this video was like: I have a dream but I know this will NEVER happen, so I’m absolutely hopeless and I will stay like this for the rest of my life. It’s very sad.

Something I ask myself: what is Maeda’s religion? I assume he’s an atheist (a lot of japanese people are), but at the same time we know that he has some liking to the supernatural, so I can’t be certain…

Aspirety · March 14, 2015, 5:44pm

It’s interesting that this video is coming from a man who, for all intents and purposes achieved his wildest dreams, and so often writes stories with supernatural resolutions. It’s almost contradictory. But maybe there’s meaning in that contradiction.

What is Maeda’s religion? Now THAT is an interesting question. Possibly atheist, but with how he loves to write so much about the afterlife and miracles and stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did have a spiritual side to himself. In the end we can only speculate, but it’s an interesting thought nonetheless.

EisenKoubu · March 14, 2015, 8:31pm

This song is a work of art.

Perhaps it’s because I see a lot of myself in the lyrics, but I feel like this song calls out to people like me. This boy wants to fulfill his dream of becoming a professional musician, but he is weighed down by his antisocial behavior. He wants to reach out and find some sort of hope for himself, but he is then brought back down by what he views to be reality.

The art style is very rough and colorless, and it represents how this boy is struggling to find a name for himself, as well as how hopeless and unmotivated he feels himself to be. The outside, in contrast, is full of color, representing the hope and freedom he longs to achieve, but is unable to reach at the moment. The color yellow is a recurring motif in this video, and to me it seems that it represents the will to live and continue forward in life.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but I think Maeda is trying to tell me something with this song. Even though I’m a hopeless, introverted otaku with a passion to create wonderful things, there’s no reason I should let that be a reason to stay as I am. I need to move on and reach out to others for help, or I will never become what I want to be. I think that’s a major theme in all of Maeda’s works, especially this video.

Excuse me while I watch this again.

Kami_chan · March 14, 2015, 10:23pm

I’ve always really like Maeda’s use of electric guitars and he doesn’t disappoint in this song!

On a side note, if you ever need a hand with video production I’d be happy to help, it’s basically what I do for living so I’m sure I could help out somewhere.

Aspirety · March 15, 2015, 3:21am

I noticed the use of yellow as well. I’m inclined to agree with you.

What do guys think of the “How have you been lately?” section of the song? Seems pretty out of place. Is he trying to write a letter to someone?

Also. I know we’re all getting caught up in gushing over Maeda, but massive props to Hikarsyuyo for the amazing backing! That guitar sounds awesome.

sillylittlemelody · March 15, 2015, 3:23am

I thought the message was for him. I suppose his family hopes he is alright and tries to contact him, but he can’t reply, because he doesn’t want to make them sad. This is what I understood.

Bizkitdoh · March 15, 2015, 4:36pm

I viewed this as about him and his life, but I didn’t find it sad at all. I found it humbling.

Yes, life is painful- It’s impossible for it not to be unless you have a very unique perspective. A lot of viewpoints in the song are generalized viewpoints but with the end goal of always sticking to your dreams NOT in spite of that world, but in acceptance of it. You can be unhappy with the world laid out before you but the harsh reality remains that it’s where you are.

You’re living in a warped world where you may or may not live your exact wish, but you can always chase it for that one special moment. Maeda may always write stories or write for musicians- But his music passion sticks close to his desire to be a world-famous performer, where he can take this moment to put something entirely his out to the world despite everything else he does in place of sleep.

The message at the end I feel is a message to the listener. He wants you to believe in a dream no matter how impossible it may be or sound- Even if deep in your mind you think there’s no way it’ll ever happen- Still keep those dreams alive so you can feel that brush with greatness. The song is very motivating, actually. It’s like a more violent My Song. Less about just acceptance and the individual feeling and more about spreading that feeling to others. Shout!

Hirato · March 16, 2015, 2:13am

I do feel it’s a story about Maeda. From what I know, Maeda actually wanted to be a musician, not storywriter like what he’s famous about now. I remembered reading something like “he wanted to pursue his career on music but he couldn’t so he changed his job direction to writing scenario.”
I also read (iirc in Hibiki no Mahou afterwords) that he haven’t played game or watched anime much lately, and even he haven’t been buying CDs (even though in the previous volumes afterwords it was shown that he bought a mountain of music CDs on monthly basis). So when the second verse started, it immediately hit me, “Wow, Maeda is in a deep sh*t.”

As for the yellow color, I believe it’s a symbol of happiness. Actually there’s a lot of meaning of “yellow” but I think the most common one is happiness.
The guitar is always in yellow, which I believe it was the only source of happiness he had.
The color yellow also appeared in the medicine/drug, and we - as the lyricist as well - don’t know what’s actually in them. There’s a lot of medication too, so I’m sure he had been depressed as hell, and probably the yellow one is simply a drug to raise his serotonin level - or at least that’s what he thought.
Then we have a stage highlighted in yellow, and he failed to grasp that ray of yellow light.
And in the last part, the yellow butterfly is simply a symbolism for our protag. He finally got out, and he’s… well, happy, I guess?

Now, for Maeda’s beliefs. I’ve always thought he’s an agnostic atheist. The way he wrote his lyrics and story just told me so.
Like, in BOYS BE SMILE lyrics:

Not everyone can be happy
The gods just roll their dice and laugh

In Kakeru (KSLA-0019 Love Song - this song serves as Saya’s leitmotif sample)

For gods, giving salvation to anyone
Is just like switching on and off the starlights into white, red, black.
They’re just merrily laughing.

Also, quote from Little Busters! anime

“There’s no God here. All we’ve got in this world is us.”

The way I see it, there seems to be a bitter tone around gods, and in AngelBeats! he even made the character strike against god.
The lyrics in this song, too, felt like he is discontent with how reality is harsh, how we can’t choose our talent - just like how the people in SSS can’t choose their fate and ended up in afterlife.

Though in AB! there’s reincarnation, and a lot of magical things also reoccurs in Maeda’s works, so… yep, I have no clear guess.

Sorry I ended up writing more than I intended.

Kami_chan · March 16, 2015, 7:22am

This song has really grown on me!

But honestly I really don’t know what else I should expect from Jun Maeda, I eventually like everything he makes, he’s so incredibly consistent.

sillylittlemelody · March 16, 2015, 3:41pm

I don’t hope so. I don’t like to imagine Maeda in that situation. It’s sad…

From these examples, I don’t think you can conclude he doesn’t believe in God. It’s more like he doesn’t like God, or he thinks God doesn’t care about us.

Pepe · March 29, 2015, 10:21am

Well I feel pretty silly for only watching these subtitles now ^_^; It’s been two weeks already haha. The lyrics seem pretty straightforward, and the music is just sooooo Jun Maeda in its style. The message is pretty clear-cut, and, in a way, pretty depressing. It’s that sort of hopelessness that I feel drives people into becoming shut-ins =/

Woah, I did not know this. Where/when did he say that?

That was an interesting thing, yeah. Usually with monochrome scenes, they add in Red because of the stark contrast. But yellow was pretty… unique. The only things yellow in the video were the guitar, the pill, and the butterfly, and both of those did seem like the singer’s sort-of hope in life. The guitar to get famous, the pill to try to adjust into reality again, and the butterfly to, well, try and set himself free.

At first glance, many would think it would be about a friend or a lover. But, to me, it sounds like an ode to his mother. Most hikkikomori don’t actually live totally alone. They live with their parents, and their parents are the ones that continue to support their lifestyle. So I think he might be asking his mother if she is still alright, because he feels genuine guilt over the amount of stress he is asking her to do for him. Just a thought, though I also like @sillylittlemelody’s interpretation that it is meant for him, though I find, that for most cases of hikkikomori, the parents wouldn’t have to send a letter as they would be living with him

Aspirety · March 29, 2015, 1:27pm

No no no, that was just a suggestion of how you might interpret this