Rikka – Archive – TOB English Cover

Aside from being a step in my shallow quest to gather attention I’d struggle to handle, I guess this cover of this vulnerable HOLOSTARS solo original song is also an attempt of mine at connecting with the culture surrounding graduated VTubers, which often feels like a glorification of hyperreliance rather than an honoring of tenure to me. Still, much like most of the rest of my VTuber fanboy journey, I feel like I started off and stayed on the wrong foot for a long while there, especially with my lust for the girls, and with my hate for my fellow fans is my hate for myself. Now, with my renewed appreciation for VTubers especially thanks to HOLOSTARS, I find myself even gladder with my exploration of this reflectively honest song written by Rikka, the first VTuber I ever made a song cover of along with Calli.

What makes this exploration especially fun to me? I think one would be my attempts at writing subtly filtered expressions in English about graduated VTubers while keeping the translyrics in line with Rikka’s work as much as I can. I feel like I made something more unfiltered than the original, though, but trying to help make a humbly melancholic dedication to graduated VTubers is something I’m sure I’d love to do as part of my VTuber fanboying. Indeed, I hope this cover is something fellow Anglophone VTuber fans would turn to if they need something to help process their emotions about their graduated faves.

Another part of the fun here to me is getting my voice right. It was embarrassingly difficult, what with how I worked up the translyrics in the original key, only to find myself needing to lower it once I tried to sing it all in one go. But once I got myself on the lowered key, I found myself expressing the sadness I had to express more cleanly, which k. emphasized that very well with her audio engineering! And making it even better to me is how I feel like I managed to express such sadness with this lower voice of mine. Sure, all these key changes may mess up the instrumental audio quality, but as long as I can add variety that not just I but also others would enjoy, then I’d dare to learn and do my best for it. I feel like that’s kinda needless to say, especially after years doing this, but I also feel like it would be nice to put it into words like this from time to time. And again, thank you very much for your help, k.!

All that said, here are links: one for this cover’s mp3 and one for this cover’s lyrics sheet. Again, please credit and link me if you’d like to use my stuff, and I’d love to receive honest constructive feedback about me and my work from you peeps.

Kiara Takanashi – Heart Challenger – TOB English Cover

I’m pretty sure I wrote and sang these English translyrics for Kiara’s second solo original while trying to mask how I looked at her as a rival in love for Calli. You know those songs where the singers brag about treating their subjects better than the lover they have? You’ll find subtle marks of that here at least, especially with how I made the TakaMori shipping more obvious. And somewhere in my wait for the audio engineering to finish, I considered scrapping this production because it would be embarrassing, especially with how I was feeling the emptiness of my dumb desires and wanting to give up on those desires cold turkey. But after the holo boys renewed my interest in the girls and this work’s audio engineer yuri. sent me further progress on this cover, I decided to still release it, but now as a show of my progress, especially as a man and a fan, from very cringe and not so healthy to slightly less cringe and a bit healthier. And yeah, I released it today because it’s the closest Sunday to Valentine’s Day, the day when this song was released, and I like posting on this blog on Sundays. Really, I feel like this cover turned out better than I thought. Praise and thanks be to God Almighty very much again.

But hey, if you want more of an idea about why I still like this production, I’d say it would be how adorkable my singing is and how yuri. emphasized that well, so yeah, thank you so much for reminding me that I can do well and better as a person overall along with doing great work on my vocals here, yuri.! And even though I’m now looking at them without my way dumber original intent anymore, I like my attempt at putting more personality into the lyrics by adding some obviousness to the shipping. I mean, I like to think that I added a bit of bitter to make this sweet taste more beautiful, you know?

And I guess that’s all I have to say about this here. On the off-chance you wanna listen to this on the regular and maybe even sing it yourself in some way, here are a link to this cover’s mp3 and a link to this cover’s lyrics sheet. And of course, honest constructive feedback is highly encouraged and will be highly appreciated.

Roberu Yukoku – POP-TALK – TOB English Cover

Yet another HOLOSTARS song I thought I could sing in the original key. But again, at least my singing can still work with it somehow. But that’s not the trickiest thing to me here, especially with the way I worked up the English translyrics for this song titled POP-TALK, Roberu Yukoku’s first solo original. I mean, I had been struggling with the second verse so much, I had to rewrite a portion of it in the middle of the recording process, and I think my lyrics here overall have more heaviness, especially through self-deprecation and how I decided to keep the “complete” in “And complete your puzzle” as is rather than adding an “s” to the end of it for subject-verb agreement’s sake. I bet it makes the difference in my and Roberu’s social skill level pretty clear.

In more fun news, though, k. found this song a fun song! She even liked her audio engineering work on this cover, making me even more easily inclined to agree ’cause she’s keeping all this freaking awesome work freaking consistent so far! And this is kind of a rush order too! I mean, you hear how my vocals blend into the instrumental? Considering how my vocals were mixed in the Rise duet cover as well, I feel as if I’m being taught about how to value having my vocals blending into and standing out from the background at least a bit more. Thank you very much again for your work, k.!

Now, I feel like I should mention this especially because of how the POP-TALK MV prominently features rain alongside warmth and how I’ve been able to keep on making stuff like these music productions thanks to the increased convenience I’ve found in my grandparents’ residence, so yeah, I think I’d like to quietly dedicate this cover to my maternal grandpa, who had passed on recently. I don’t think I was that close to him, especially with how badly I took in some stories about his darker times he grew out of, and I might be more like myself as a quiet consoler, something these walls of text of mine expose my insecurity about, but as far as I’ve known the old man, he had been learning and doing his best a lot, especially for his family, and especially with how jolly he was. I think his Catholic faith also helped. So yeah, God Almighty grant him peace, and may my work here manage to build on the goodness God Almighty managed to help him make.

And now, the mp3 and the lyrics sheet. Please credit and link me if you’re going to use my stuff. And I’d like to ask again for honest constructive feedback.

Oga Aragami – Silent Night Requiem – TOB English Cover

So I faced what’s probably the greatest challenge for my lower range so far in this cover of Oga Aragami’s first original song. The way the gritty lore is combined with Christmas themes also helps. And yes, I decided to have two song covers this month (the other one is of holoCouncil’s Rise) because I also want to scratch my now stronger itch to cover more HOLOSTARS songs, especially in English.

Anyway, yeah, this cover was a challenge, especially in the verses and in the volume. I don’t think I can boom my lower register as well as Oga does, but at the very least, I think I made up for that with my expressiveness. And goodness, k. enhanced that freaking well with the rough vibes she gave the mix. It feels like something that you wouldn’t believe if you only knew the idea on paper. So thank you very much again for your help, k.!

Also, it’s been a while since I last made a song cover with my own translyrics, huh? With how I’m still writing translyrics and forming habits out of other translation stuff lately, I think it’s pretty much me being impulsive about things again. Hopefully, I’m learning and doing my best with it, and whatever the case, may God Almighty keep on challenging and guiding us all.

Now, here are the cover mp3 and the lyrics sheet. Again, please credit and link me if you’re going to use my stuff, and please give me honest constructive feedback.

Izuru Kanade – Monologue in a row – TOB English Cover

Long-winded thoughtful lyrics plus emotional vocals, so much that they sound too good to form an idol song, sounds like a combo I’d rock with real good, and what held me back from appreciating Izuru Kanade’s first original song along with the rest of holostars’ music earlier was, yet again, my lust for fame, among other things. And yes, holoPro cover again, and a holostars solo again! Still gonna be surprised if this blows up like my last holostars solo cover, too.

Also, yes, it was definitely tough working on this thanks to the length, and I felt it the hardest while recording the vocals with my usual insistence on the one-shotting recording method, where I record myself singing through the whole song as one sort of track (main or harmony or ad-libs or, in case of inevitable overlap, a mix of those) rather than line by line or stanza by stanza to be sorted later on. Even more so when I had to change up some lyrics after a recording session and submission, so yeah, big apologies along with the thanks to DarkHole, who I commissioned to do audio engineering for me again. Dude had to deal with stuff like my breath struggles in the choruses and in the bridge, too. And speaking of the bridge, to my surprise, it’s what I consider the favorite part of my cover overall, and that’s on top of the bridge being my favorite part of the song itself.

I’d also like to kinda vaguely point out the redundancy in a certain set of chorus lines, that one being the clearest evidence of how I wrote this translation to be more self-asserting than the original, as the limits of my brain felt like going more literal in parts like that would result in something a bit too pathetic for my localization-obsessed butt. As for the video, yeah, check out those long lines and them overlapping fades.

Now, if you want to squeeze more behind-the-scenes talk from me, do leave some honest constructive feedback at least, okay? Also, here’s the mp3 for this cover, and here’s the lyrics sheet. Don’t forget to credit and link me if you’re gonna use my stuff, too.

Jin (Shizen no Teki-P) ft. Lia – days – TOB English Cover

Late to the KagePro English cover bandwagon, late to finding out about the death of Ai Kamachi, yeah, nothing new to this slow guy. But it’s a weekend that’s the closest I can get to celebrating this year’s August 15, which is also the birthday of our little snake granny Azami, so yeah, I got this cover ready with what I consider my best right now.

And I did cover this song TV-sized with an acoustic arrange before. The difference in style and quality then and now may be different, especially with the number of years in between them, but either way, this song is very much within my abilities, though I’m sure Lia has the more heartrending performance, given how much she made me cry with her voice while I was watching sidu’s music video, especially past what the TV-sized version covers. As for the translyrics, I had fun whacking my pretentious sense of poetry into my more specific depiction of Azami’s character. And I gotta hand the credit for the audio engineering to Shig again, especially with those loud and clear vocals with the touching reverb.

Also, I don’t think I’ve actually watched anime for a long while now, clips and glimpses aside. Last I seriously watched was Ao-chan Can’t Study!, I think. More in the mood for manga and anime and music and video games and VTubers right now. Probably to a workaholic level, even. And I still haven’t totally read the KagePro light novels and manga. Anyway, if I were to watch anime again, I think I’d like to do it with a loved one, though my expectations for that are low, considering my taste and manners. Still thinking that I’ll have to watch anime again eventually, though, and I hope I help make sure that it’s truly worth everyone’s while.

Anyway, I digress. Here are the mp3 and the lyrics sheet now, and please remember to credit and link me if you want to use my stuff. Also, again, honest constructive feedback, please.

Miyabi Hanasaki – Kaika Sengen – TOB English Cover

Back to covering VTuber songs, and it’s still a holoPro one, but hey, it’s a holostars solo this time! And this upload kinda coincided with the announcement of what’s apparently holostars EN and its first group Tempus!

Anyway, this time, I got here an English cover of Miyabi Hanasaki’s first solo original, the title I translated as “Blooming Declaration” in English, and it was written and produced by 40mP. If you ask me about the quality of the song, it’s a pretty good combination of beauty, with Miyabi’s gracefully tough voice resonating with 40mP’s powerfully modest work, which reinforces not only Miyabi’s floral image but also holostars’ underdog image. As for how I interpreted it in the cover, I think I put emphasis on the feeling of slow but sure progress. Also, I think my vocals, which had to be accommodated by a downward key change, make the flower in the song sound more rained on than how Miyabi’s vocals make it sound in the original.

And now, I’d like to thank DarkHole very much again for helping out with the audio engineering, especially with his freaking amazing vocal tuning! I think I first remembered him for what I think are grainy mixes, honestly, so yeah, I’d say he definitely outdid himself with this production! And I think I just realized that so far, on top of a bunch of holoPro covers in English, I’ve been entrusting him with some of my more sentimental vocals, hahaha! X”D

Oh, and yes, I also did a bit of moving text in my subtitles for this cover ’cause damn, the video got so bustling during the first pre-chorus, and I felt like I had to make something that blended into that somewhat. And I’d have more color in the subtitles in general to be a bit more consistent with the original typography, but I found that trying to put in more yellow would make for way less visibility. And I kinda wish I translated the original credits in the MV of Jin’s “MERMAID” some more in the video of my English cover of that song.

Now, here’s the mp3 for this cover, and here’s the lyrics sheet. Please remember to credit and link me as well if you’re gonna use my stuff even in a mocking way, because hey, you would want me and not you seen as the weeby poser/piece of English dub trash who had the audacity to make this pathetic excuse for a cover, right? Also, again, I’d love to get honest constructive feedback.

Jin (Shizen no Teki-P) – ZIGI – TOB English Cover

Looking up what the title of this Jin song can mean, it appears that “mere child’s play” may be the most fitting, considering the song’s themes. But that doesn’t look and sound as cool as “ZIGI,” so yeah, I left it as is. Anyway, distinguishing this Allegories track further from the rest of Jin’s discography, especially considering “Yobanashi Deceive” and “Imaginary Reload” being similar to it, I’d say that, well, it’s the creepy one among Jin’s dark groovy tracks I’ve known so far. I think I’ll even call it my favorite among them thanks to how it depicts adulthood as childishness rather than just adulthood as the enemy of childhood. The video description hype line certainly helps, too, as it goes like “A child who deceives another child is called an ‘adult,'” which I certainly agree with, especially as a manchild. Still, I also tried to make the original’s English segments more understandable in my translyrics. You know they had to be fixed.

As for other fun things I had with the production of this cover, it also included my first vocal recording at my grandparents’ place. It went better than I thought, and/or Shigeru worked on my recordings better than I thought. However it went, the finished audio got me figuring out my sound better, and so I have big thanks to give. For one, funk might be more of an essential in my sound than I thought, you know? And yes, this cover also brings me back to my two attempts at covering “Yobanashi Deceive.” And I’m happy to have outdone the me that did those, alright.

Also, yes, I did include upside-down subtitles to match the original video’s. You like it?

Well, here’s the mp3 and the lyrics sheet of this cover if you liked it that much. Do remember to credit and link me if you’re using them, especially with honest constructive feedback to me.

Jin (Shizen no Teki-P) – MERMAID – TOB English Cover

Even while working on the subtitles for this cover, this song and its MV got me wanting to cry, and this is one of two Allegories tracks that I consider tearjerkers, the other being “FREAKS.” Like, dying’s already and always a pain (If it’s not you being in pain thanks to your dying, it’s someone who loves you who’s in pain there), but losing a loved one is arguably worse, and knowing that you’re in a situation where you’ll soon die after them doesn’t really help alleviate the pain that much. And making this song hit harder to me is how it’s about a couple, and I’m quite the sucker for romances. And now I’m further enjoying how Jin had his own vocals take center stage in the mini album, especially with how the songs and their themes better resonate with a mature human voice. I guess I can say that his discography ages and ages well with him every release, then!

As for the translyrics, yes, I also changed up the onomatopoeias. The original Japanese has “fuwa fuwa” and “hara hara,” while I bring you “ticking and tocking.” And basically, I think these translyrics feel lengthier and more sophisticated than the original Japanese, emphasizing the feeling of hammering the adultness of the persona onto your heads, while Jin is softer and more elegant about it with the help of what seems like simpler and more child-like writing to me, something I think is made easier to do by the Japanese language and its packing of a lot of meaning into a few syllables.

As for the audio engineering, which was done by Shigeru again, well, seems like we have another case where there’s a need to cut the bass on my main vocal. I guess I gotta keep that in mind for more delicate productions. Anyway, the lower range of my vocals here are more on the single harmony track here, something I’m glad to have worked up after listening closely to the original and knowing that I can handle something like this quite confidently now. Again, I love my higher range and how it’s improving, but lately, I’ve also been growing appreciation for my lower range and how it’s improving.

And I guess that’s it for this one. Here’s a link to this cover’s mp3, and here’s a link to this cover’s lyrics sheet. Please credit and link me if you’re using my stuff, okay? And I’d love it if you give me honest constructive feedback!

Jin (Shizen no Teki-P) – Erase – TOB English Cover

My appreciation for Jin’s Allegories mini album continues and grows, indeed. And this particular song, which also has a synthed vocal version utilizing KAFU, from said mini album has themes that are not so new to his discography, considering songs like “Toumei Answer” and “Lost Time Memory,” but I don’t think he’s ever gone this direct about it before. Still, I think he plays around with the dramatics as music wonderfully, connecting with lyrics depicting the familiar experience of trying to glorify self-loathing by imagining it as a story to be told, especially a cheap one posing as something holy for us fellow fools to vainly enjoy, something that Jin’s deceptively light instrumental work with Shota Horie, a.k.a. kemu, emphasizes as well.

As for stuff about the translyrics here, something I’d like to note in particular is my decision to have the final pre-chorus split the plural first-person in the original into singular first-person and singular second-person. I guess we can also call it my lazy butt’s copium thanks to how I think I started thinking about whether it’s an error or not after getting the fully engineered audio, but anyway, I feel like the outright plural would’ve made something unnatural both in the singing and in the storytelling in English.

As for the vocals, I could only have my lower range as the harmony here. Jin’s beautiful songwriting continues to push human vocals to their limits, and too much squeak would’ve invaded your ears if I tried to add a high harmony, so yeah. And I’d like to thank Shigeru very much again for yet another beautiful piece of work on the products of my wrung neck.

And now, this cover’s mp3 and this cover’s lyrics sheet. Please do credit and link me if you wanna use my stuff, okay? And please give me feedback, especially the honest constructive sort.