Key Music Interpretation

Key’s music often have deep meaning, which often resonates when combined with the series’ story or just by the music itself.

This topic here is for anyone who wishes to share any of his/her interpretation on any one of Key’s songs, with or without vocals. This interpretation can be personal, like what it means for you, or story line related. Those that have questions or difficulties in interpreting a song may also ask around under this topic.

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Just gonna repost a rundown of the LB! songs I did before. Refrain spoilers included.

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Even until now, I still have a hard time trying to interpret the lyrics written by Yuuto Tonokawa for Philosophyz. Like it’s possible that there are several metaphors going on in it that I’m not getting because I don’t Japanese, but I don’t know. T.T

Meanwhile, the lyrics for the rest of the songs in Rewrite are fairly straightforward for the most part:

  • Yami no Kanata e, written by Yuuichirou Tsukagoshi, is about two people who have chosen to be together despite everything coming to an end. This can be interpreted in many different ways, but in the context of Rewrite (Moon) the world eventually ends for the most part, so yeah.
  • Itsuwaranai Kimi e by Ryukishi07 is about the POV asking many questions to a person, described as the one “who never lies.” …okay, while I get that the last part involves the POV feeling undeserving of that person’s kindness, the lyrics look complicated too. I’ll get back to this later. (^^; ) It does feel vaguely more Lucia than Akane though, considering the writer.
  • Koibumi by Yuuto Tonokawa is most definitely Shizuru’s POV. It’s really easy to interpret, and also very beautiful too. :)) (Shizuru route) It’s about a person who have lost the person who have taught her the will to live, and so she lives on like that despite the tragedy.
  • Rewrite by Psychic Lover is easily Rewrite’s theme with its energy upped to that of a shounen manga. I love it. (Moon) It’s about the POV finding a new world even with the inevitable end.
  • Watari no Uta by Jun Maeda is something I’ve took note before, here in the forums. I wouldn’t get that conclusion without Takafumi’s post though.
  • CANOE (Jun Maeda and Romeo Tanaka) is quite similar to Rewrite’s lyrics theme-wise, but instead writes the story of (Terra) young people consuming Earth’s resources, and with only a small part of it left, they chose to go beyond Earth to advance to a future.
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Itsuwaranai Kimi e made an appearance in Lucia’s route as well, so it makes sense it’s more her than Akane.

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Found on some youtube comments, very unofficial lyrics here:

Fall of Rain You Me Far
li listen cross to me te les 遠く古い夢見Fa
lililu last to Remember were isn’t li esen listen melody li Le
ティロと月と目の色 を母 黒という陽の終わり
before stay for いつも fallin’ stair 兄を that sounds store
壊そう 朝も
Rosso Rosso lun tu tran’tta we listening to lun tan lin ti
li lo so lun lan tweet 君の唄

この li li listen for star along the lili missing love
so best of falling lili lamp turn and burst the fi di fo te le 凛と聞こえ出す
その歌が この法則を 超えなに来る もう遠い日々に きっと
you find in you said she’s in ly she’s dance may rapidly repeatly love

the this in see stay 怒り振るう blue fang din fon lon lan li blue last and to-le
the this in see on far lu 寂しく止まる linlinli li tu-la 夢のまにまに

la li ho lo 去った lu lo leading sky
to lo lo li lun ta first 轟く
映写はいつ? so dance for le
君なら入る who dance for le
意味は無い for distant le mi fa do fa mi les

あの li li listen for star moonの成る神ら
so festa falling lili la come back さあおいで僕へ 子方のほうにいる
この歌が 伸ばす遠く うえなに来る もう遠い君に問う
夢見は lasting anymore to back in for you ever
Restarting もう地球帰るッ!

But as you can see, it doesn’t make much sense and there might be errors.

My favorite track of the ost. It’s not supposed to make sense. This is (Rewrite Moon route spoiler) Kagari’s song, her slow learning of human language, before she has learned to differentiate them all. It’s her first real attempt at speaking in a way that relates to Kotarou. It’s her showing that she learned from him as much as he learned from her. That she didn’t just take his presence for granted. At least, that’s how I saw it.

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I like this interpretation! I’m listening to it right now, and now I noticed there are words in the song that seem to make a lot of sense in this context:

  • you be far
  • close to me
  • tooku (far)
  • last to remember
  • suki to (love?)
  • owari (end)
  • kowasou (scary)
  • answer more
  • sono ruta (that route, second word is Spanish in this case)
  • tomaru (stop)
  • transforme
  • tobe (fly)
    and many more.

I think the lyrics are actually conveying something, but it’s being intentionally cryptic about it. Damn, Maeda, how clever can you get.

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Watari no uta is said to be made from multi-languages. So I guess it’s once made in Japanese and translated using some translation too and the words are pronounced in Japanese way, which makes the decoding more difficult. It might be from Spanish,Chinese,Korean,Italian,French,Latin,Russian,German and so on. When you find any word in your language in this song, I would be grateful if you post about that here. I think this global community do it better.

I found some more trial to catch the lyrics of the song in KeyFansClub(in http://www.keyfc.net/bbs/showtopic-50095.aspx).

Folclore You be far
Lilith close to me Teles
遠く古い夢 Mi Fa

li li lu last to remember
ware isn’t li is wissen melody li le
di rotten 透きとおる目の色
子 母 苦労と勇気の終わり
before stay for いつも fallin’ stair
anny more that sounds store
壊そう answer more

Rosso Rosso luntu 土壌(tǔrǎng) 땅(タン)
Oui listening to lun tan lin ti
Re: lo so lun lan tweet 君の唄

この理に listen for star along di li li dissing love
so festo falling li li lamp turn
burst the fi di fo te le 凛と聴こえだす
sono il tara この法則を 超えなに来る
もう遠い evilit bit of sanden
lue said she’s in ly she’s dance may rapidly repeatly love

di this in see stay 怒り who ploof fang din
fon lon lan li blue last and to-le
the this in see on far lu 寂しく止まる
ling ding di li tu-la 夢の随に

la li ho lo 去った lu lo leading sky
toromory lun ta first 轟く
映写は its so dance for le
君なら FAIRUZ who dance for le
意味は無い for distant to-le
mi fa do fa mi les

あの li li listen for star moon の成る神ら
so festa falling li li la come back さあおいで僕へ 子方のほうにいる
sono il tara 伸ばす遠く うえなに来る もう遠い君に問う
夢見は li lasting anymore to back in for you ever
Restarting もう地球孵る/帰る

And for the purpose of this song, Takafumi’s interpretation seems great.

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Ignoring the English bits, this is what I know:

di rotten - the rotten (Italian + German / English)
Rosso - Red (Italian)
Oui - Yes (French)
sono - is / are (Italian) (Could it be “this” in Japanese?)
festa - party or festival (Catalan and Italian, probably Latin too)

Also, festo could be related to festa, but I’m not really sure

No Spanish found

I’m also intrigued by all the musical notes “mi fa do fa mi”. Could they be a chord progression in the melody?

Yanagi Nagi - Little Forest
Vocal arrangement of 「深層森林」 (Deep Forest) bgm-track from Rewrite VN.
It was released on the arrangement album titled “Branch” with 7 other wonderful tracks.
I am not sure if I’ll ever make loosy translations just like this one to other vocal tracks of Rewrite, but I do wish to do so.
As English is neither my mother tongue, nor the language I’m particularly good at… You are welcome to point out my grammar (or whatever else) mistakes.
Also, I know that there is already a TLed version of this song made by Shirane Hito. I am not going to judge his TL in any way, and I believe its well done. I do have to state that I did see that translation myself… So, yeah, there is a possibilty that some part of my own text was somewhat influenced by him.
Okay, so from now on to the part, that I belive is more interesting. To the song itself.
Fisrt of all, I’m not going to put the song itself into the spoiler tag, but I’ll do some for some of my comments and impressions of it down there.
I shall foremention it again, but this is just my own personal interpretation of a song and Rewrite’s VN.
And yes, the last one caution. I’ve never been good at translating lyrics, especially into English… If your eyes, ears, or imagination would bled from this TL, well, I did warned you. :stuck_out_tongue:


Yanagi Nagi - Little Forest

hitori de aruku
一人で歩く
I am walking alone
midori no juutan
緑の絨毯
Atop of a carpet of green…
kasuka ni sashita
かすかに差した
On a faint glimpse of light
hikari wo miageta
光を見上げた
I have raised up my glance.

onegai dokoka dokoka tsureteitte
お願い どこか どこか 連れていって
I am begging you, take me somewhere far far away…
tooku dare mo shiranu basho he
遠く 誰も知らぬ場所へ
There, to the place that no one knows of.
suberiochiru ishiki no kagi wa
滑り落ちる意識の鍵は
The key to my unsteady counsciousness
haiiro no machi he to kieteiku no
灰色の街へと消えていく
Disappers into the Town of Grey.

hitori de nemuru
一人で眠る
I am sleeping alone,
dare mo matazu ni
誰も待たずに
Waiting here for no one…
mou sugu owaru
もうすぐ終わる
All of it is going to end soon
sore dake nan dakara
それだけなんだから
As nothing else left to say.

onegai douka douka wasurenaide
お願い どうか どうか 忘れないで
I’m begging you, please, please! don’t forget about me…
namida nante kareteshimatta no
涙なんて枯れてしまったの
All of the tears have already dried up.
iki wo hisome odoru mori kara
息を潜め 踊る森から
Concealing breath, away from the dancing forest…
subete wo tachikirou mamore(ru/nu) nara
すべてを断ち切ろう守れ「る/ぬ」なら
If you can (not) protect, then cut everything apart.

hitori de aruku
一人で歩く
I am walking alone…
tsugi wa kono ashi de
次はこの足で
With my own strength this time.

Okay, everything from this point on would be (probably) full of spoilers on Rewrite routes.
There would be my reasoning behind the translation, my own feeling on it, and random comments… And everything of it would be hidden behind [spoiler] tag.

So, lets go from the very beginning…
And on the top of it all would be my own impression of this song. When I’ve heard this song for the first time I’ve connected it to Kotori, which wasn’t really hard to do.
The whole image of this song does fit her… But then, when I’ve listened it later I felt that Kotarou and Kagari may also have a place in it.
And they actually do have it there. Yes, this is a song about Kotori.
As I see and feel it, this is the song about Kotori from Kotori’s route and Kotori from Terra… This is Kotori’s song.
All of her anxious, pain, uncertainess are inside of it. Creeping its way into your heart with every single musical tone, with every single line.
It all starts from Kotori walking through the forest, on her own. She is (probably) a young girl there, as I see it referring to the time when she became a Druid, when she found an injured Kotarou.
So, she is there, going through this sea of green, and come upon an unsure light. She does look up at it… and I believe it to be Kagari, or, rather, Aurora.
I won’t comment on how this meeting ended, as we all already know it… But it deepened a rift inside of her already rather broken up heart and persona.
To me, Kotori stays as the most impressive and deep character of Rewrite. I do adore Chihaya, and I find Akane to be exceptionally interesting, but… Kotori have always been there with me, when I’ve read through the novel.
Where am I going with this? Oh, right.
She begs for a place to go… actually, she begs “someome” to take her far away, to snap her out from this reality, from this lunacy she is stucked in.
…And that someone does try to remove the shackles of her life away, he takes her and leads her away.
They go through the town, they continue their trip through an extremely transient world. Kotori is there, and yet somewhere else. She barely speaks, thoughts raging through her head… confusing her even more than she already is.
The 3rd couplet (as I see it) refers to two different things. First of all, I belive, that it refers to her state of mind. She doesn’t believe that Kotarou is a human, yet she don’t consider him to be a familiar as well. She is “alone”, and she is waiting for no one to come and actually help you. She don’t even care how it would all end.
And, Secondary, it may refer to Terra’s route… this one is a bit tricky. I see it as a representation of her and Kotarou relations, when they’ve both were connected with Kagari. Kotarou, who is doing what he can for Kagari, and Kotori, who is doing her job as a druid. She is all alone… She wasn’t waiting for anyone… Yet, Kotarou is there with her, and so.
Here comes the 4th part of the song. She begs not to forget about her as he (Kotarou) is the only one left there from here previous life. Yet, he is busy with his own stuff…
She somewhat tries to help him. No more tears left for her dead parents, as she uses them as any other familiars. No more tears. She even actually kills in Terra.
And here comes the 1st of two lines I had some troubles with…
Iki wo hisome odoru mori kara I TLed it as “Concealing breath, away from the dancing forest…”
I refer this line to the part of the story, where Gaia went on rampage and pretty much everything was going down to the Hell.
You can also translate this line as “Concealing my breath, I’m dancing out of the forest”, but I find it strange “to dance” while “concealing breath”. As well as “dancing forest” does look more appealing to me, as the forest was really… dancing. It was rampaging. It was changing, moving, crushing, and eating the town.
My translation may actually be wrong on this line, as I could not find a direct confirmation of “kara” used in this way. As some of you may know, its easy to interpret “mori kara” as “from the forest”, but to show an actual action of movign away from it, or running, you have to use a verb after it. For example, “mori kara nigeru” - Running from the forest. Still, well… I have a gut feeling that I’m right on this one. Yet, I can be wrong.
As for the second line… Thats more interesting.
Subete wo tachikirou mamore(ru/nu) nara which I’ve TLed as “If you can (not) protect, then cut everything apart”
So, why is there (ru/nu)? You see, Yanagi Nagi doesn’t pronounce there anything, yet gramatically there should be something.
The most common answer to it would be “ru”, which would make this sentence into “If you can protect smth, then cut everything apart”
And if you put there “nu”, then the meaning would change completely: “if you can not protect, then cut everything apart”
Personally, when I’ve heard this song for the 1st time, I thought that there should be “nu”.
As I understand it, these 2 lines refer to how Kotarou “kills” Kotori’s parents (familiars), and to how she then walks away from the forest on her own. He couldn’t protect her himself, so he had to make her go away and cut her ties with this side of the world, the side that has familiars, superhumans, and Kotarou in it.
But then again! She did cut this relations to save and protect her… So, yeah. It works either way. With one little difference… “nu” makes it feel more dark, cornered, and fleeting, while “ru” makes gave you an impression of another faint hope hidden behind the wall of darkness
And then, finally, there goes last couplet with only two lines…
Kotori is walking through the forest. Alone. On her own two legs. With her own strength. Away from it all…

And this marks the end of this post. Hope, you’ve enjoyed it at least a bit. Cheers.

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Well, this topic seems very interesting.
Okay, here is my interpretation of the song : Yami no kanata e
[Warning : This post contains serious Rewrite spoilers. If you haven’t read Rewrite yet, LEAVE NOW]

Yami no kanata e (Beyond the darkness) by Runa Mizutani :
Okay, let me start off by saying that this is so far one of my favourite songs ever. And although this is a common ending for three routes ( Kotori, Chihaya, and Lucia) I felt that the song suited Lucia’s route the most. So, instead of relating the song to the whole game itself, I decided to explain how it relates to Lucia’s route specifically.

mikazuki no tomoshibi mo matataku hoshi mo machi no akari mo kieteitta
yami ni tsutsumarete mo mienaku natte mo soba ni iru yo

The lamp of the crescent moon, the shining stars, and that lights of the town had all vanished
Even if I’m enveloped in darkness, even if I can no longer be seen, I am by your side

About this line, I felt that it was a mention about how Kazamatsuri (not the forum) became after Lucia spread her poison all over the city. Then “even if I can no longer be seen, I am by your side” , I felt was Koutarou’s thoughts and feelings during the incident since he could not see Lucia but promised to stay by her side forever.

owari yuku jidai ni mo tashika ni mebuku inochi ga aru no hora
hitomi wo tojita nara ima wa sono kodou ga yasashii

Even in this era coming to an end, surely there is a sprout of life, Look,
If you close you eyes, your heartbeat is gentle now

this, I felt was an obvious mention to the salvation but later I felt the phrase “era coming to an end” could be a mention about the experiments Lucia was put under since the project was supposed to make Lucia survive at a(an) world/era in which humanity could no longer survive in

nureta hoho wo naderu kaze ni yureru kusa no you ni
kimi to futari yorisoi mitodokete yuketara ii ne

Like the grass swaying in the wind brushes your wet cheeks
It would be nice if we could cuddle close and see it for ourselves

kurayami ni kakurete mo hana no kaori mo mushi no haoto mo soko ni aru no
wakariaeta no nara kanjitoretara te wo tsunagou

Even if they are hidden in darkness, there is still the fragrance of flowers and the buzzing of insects
If we understand each other, let’s hold hands when we feel each other

the fragrance of flowers and the buzzing of insects




yukkuri to ayumeba kimi no hohaba wa kokochi no ii RIZUMU
tenohira koshi ni tsutau ondo sae sorotta ki ga shita

When we walk slowly, your pace makes a comfortable rhythm
I felt like even the temperature following beyond the palms of our hands is the same

I wasn’t too clear as to how I can relate this one but I was reminded of the date scene while listening to this part of the song

sugiyuku keshiki no hate mukau saki ni nani mo nai toshite mo
kimi ga iru nara sore dakede ii to omoeru

Even if I am headed towards nothing beyond the passing scenery
I think it’s enough just that you are here

this line is actually really deep but I am just bad at explaining things. “headed towards nothing” would be a mention to Lucia’s will to find a meaning in life and “I think it’s enough just that you are here” would be a direct relation to the ending where she decides to live for and with Koutarou forever

natsukashii ano oka mo saegiru mori mo areta iwaba mo koete yukou
mayou koto naku tada futari no michi wo susunde yukou

Let’s cross over that nostalgic hill, the obstructing forest, the rough crag
Without any hesitation, lets go down this road together

mikazuki no tomoshibi mo matataku hoshi mo machi no akari mo kieteitta
yami ni tsutsumarete mo mienaku natte mo soba ni iru yo

The lamp of the crescent moon, the shining stars, and that lights of the town had all vanished
Even if I’m enveloped in darkness, even if I can no longer be seen, I am by your side

kurayami ni kakurete mo hana no kaori mo mushi no haoto mo soko ni aru no
wakariaeta no nara kanjitoretara te wo tsunagou

Even if they are hidden in darkness, there is still the fragrance of flowers and the buzzing of insects
If we understand each other, let’s hold hands when we feel each other

–lyrics from : http://www.animelyrics.com/game/rewrite/yaminokanatae.htm--
Well, that’s it for Yami no kanata e

Edit : If you have any other points for relating this song to Lucia’s route, please put it in your reply

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