Rikka – rebirthful – TOB English Cover

As I said I wanted to when I released my cover of “sleep mode,” I did a cover of the title song of the secret story of the holoroid Rikka. I wanted to release this in the month after the “sleep mode” cover to time it with his work anniversary, October 20, but some things held this production back, and I ended up deciding to time this with his birthday, April 15, which I suppose is a better fit, considering when “rebirthful” was first released, which was during last year’s birthday celebration. And I gotta say, my appreciation for Rikka grew even more over the past year, especially thanks to his chops as an event organizer, a fighting gamer, and, of course, an idol VTuber.

Anyway, working up the translyrics for this one was another freaking fun trip. While my early listens to the song had me feeling like it was such a swerve compared to “sleep mode,” watching Rikka’s associated 3D birthday celebration program and understanding the song’s lyrics had me appreciating the song on its own, as a part of a story arc, and as a part of the overall HOLOSTARS discography. As lighter as it sounds, it still holds quite the emotional weight, and it fits with what I call the Stars spirit.

At the same time, I think I underestimated the challenge this lightness would give, as I found the song’s rhythm trickier than I thought. Still, I found fun especially in being able to express emotions to the point of ad-libbing, which I didn’t really feel like doing in my “sleep mode” cover, as I felt like the original and my voice already expressed enough. I think I’m sync with both songs’ themes there, then!

As for audio engineering, Kururu is at it again, giving my voice a starkness that I think works well with this song! And as much as his work here got me realizing how much I underestimated the song’s rhythm, he made the emotions I expressed here further stand out with warmth especially! Listening to his work some more, I further feel the wisely relieving reflectiveness that got me appreciating this song so much. So again, thank you very much for your work, Kururu!

All that said, have a link to this cover’s mp3 and a link to this cover’s lyrics sheet. And again, honest constructive feedback is highly encouraged and will be highly appreciated!

Temma Kishido – Shooting Star – TOB English Cover

Got a new English cover of a Japanese HOLOSTARS solo original, and it’s the first and currently only solo original of the knight Temma Kishido, who will celebrate four years of work on December 14. This song is something I remember fascinating me greatly when I witnessed him perform it live, particularly during the HOLOSTARS 2nd Act concert, I think, because of how he put power into his vocals while the song, a brightly empowering and emotionally wide piece written by utaite and Vocaloid producer Takaaki Natsushiro and arranged by neyu and Kaise-P, felt tailor-made for his voice that has me thinking of a determined dork.

And I think the simplicity of this track was a part of how this production went up my priority list. As far as I understood it, it’s a “Be yourself” song that also considers how we humans are inherently social creatures, an easily taken for granted thing that ups the knightliness of this song a lot and makes the sword mention in the second chorus a good accent. And speaking of swords, the verses and pre-choruses are mostly filled with heavy swings, while the choruses mix those heavy swings up with quick swings (and speaking of mix-ups, I just remembered Temma’s Street Fighter 6 enthusiasm). And a part of my favorite part of writing these translyrics might be in the lyric that was originally written as “地球,” which is the kanji for Earth, and read as “hoshi,” which can refer to stars aside from the Sun and planets aside from the Earth. I translyricized the line “この地球” as “this blue star you are,” and I enjoy how it treats the second person like they’re the first person’s world while acknowledging the second person’s overall individuality. That had been a part of a revision to make the translyrics more focused on the second person and more consistent with the shooting star theme, particularly through the first chorus that’s also the third and final chorus. Said revision had also been the hardest part of writing these lyrics, but hey, look at how I see it now! Special mention to “So I’m here, I’m wishing to ya, shooting star,” too!

As for doing the vocals, I had fun singing my heart out once I found the key my voice fits with. The most struggle I had there was in getting those quick swings in the choruses right and in working up the natural high harmony track. I think I also went a bit too hard with my passion when I sung “star” in “I don’t care if you’re a nameless star” in the final chorus. But man, did I feel like a hero improving!

And then there’s very experienced and very known Kururu engineering my vocals over that loud instrumental made crunchy by the key change. Unbelievably, what we have now feels like a such a good batch of cookies to me, it got me considering getting myself a hardware upgrade to make future orders I make to audio engineers more fun for them. I mean, sure, I guess the crunchiness does help the sweetness here, but I kinda wonder how it would’ve turned out if my raw recorded vocals sounded louder while maintaining audio cleanliness. So yeah, thank you very much for work, Kururu!

Also, it’s a small thing, but I feel like I’m getting a bit better at finely working up video effects thanks to my attempt to have the Glow effect on my subtitles for this cover match the brightness of the text in the original video.

Now, with all that said, here is an mp3 copy of this cover, and here is the lyrics sheet of this cover! And again, honest constructive feedback is highly encouraged and will be highly appreciated!

Kiara Takanashi – HINOTORI – TOB English Cover

After about two months of no music releases, I have returned with an English cover of “HINOTORI,” hololive English VTuber Kiara Takanashi’s Japanese and rocking first single, which also became a part of her popping and rocking first album Point of View. The translyrics for this one have been mostly done for a long while now, probably years already, though I held back on recording vocals for them because of simpier plans I had before. And to my surprise then and now, these translyrics are among my favorite works, which I think is why my desire to further materialize them with my voice persisted as much as it did.

The peak reason for this liking I have for these particular translyrics? “All my ends are just lives renewed.” The punning-up I came up with to melodically get across in English something I think sounds like “I’ll show you, I’ll survive, no matter how tough and many these trials get” in the original Japanese became not only the line I remember and appreciate the most from these translyrics but also made the whole piece and working on it another strong bunch of means for me to remember and appreciate this song. And the mountain that peak is on is my intent to make this song sound majestic in English, which I feel like I managed even more than I expected. I think I should thank all those Poetry classes I went through in university especially, then. Also, “Tell me, though to the worlds, it’s so unheard” is a very close runner-up favorite line of mine. It’s mouthier and more direct than the Japanese original that includes a term that literally means “voiceless voice,” but I think I managed to make it flow pretty well.

Of course, the translyrics are just one part of this production. Regarding my vocals, in contrast to Kiara being softer and more nasal with her feminine vocals, I went more booming and growling with my masculine vocals. I also added choral ad-libs for the majestic sound I wanted to have, and I think JRPG music, especially the music of NieR (which now reminds me about Kiara having streamed Automata before), also had quite the influence on that. Mixing and all that audio engineering stuff, meanwhile, I had those done by ruK, whom I worked with for the first time here. My favorite thing about their work on this is how they gave my vocals this ethereal smallness, paralleling how Kiara’s vocals have a fluffy largeness in the original.

And with all that said, have a link to the mp3, and have a link to the lyrics sheet! And of course, I ask again for honest constructive feedback, folks!

Rikka – sleep mode – TOB English Cover

As I slowly go through life some more, I’m back with a cover of a Japanese VTuber original song in English, and as usual, it’s a holo one. I also call this Stars’ edgiest original song so far, with recent EN release Dead World being tight competition (and if I were to sing that one, I think I’d rather do it with a softer arrange because I don’t think my voice is built like Tempus’s Metal Gang’s). This song is also a part of the rebirthful arc that accompanied Rikka’s latest birthday celebration, and yes, I also want to cover the arc’s warm title song.

But for now, about this particular cover I’m sharing here. Reading the original Japanese will get you noticing how “egoism” and “realism” stick out there with how they’re written in English, and as far as I’ve understood those lyrics, it’s also got bits of computer terminology, though there’s also this whole human-robot identity conflict going on, and the humanity within the android Rikka shines through his dark side’s angst here. And this song is mostly angst. Groovy and smooth-voiced, yeah, but still, mostly angst, which is something that the haunting visuals, especially the illustrations by unrefle, further drive home. And I feel like I made it more fragile with the angst I added in terms of both writing and singing. I might’ve sung like an android who already turned human and can’t believe he’s that, then.

And now, I’d like to send big thanks again to k. for the audio engineering work. I had her put in that robotic tinge to my vocals, too, and my favorite part of her work is her work on the middle of the song, from the second verse to the second chorus. Alongside those little and artful artificial skips especially, her work there got me considering that part my favorite part of this cover. Also, her work on the harmonies on the whole thing got me appreciating my lower range some more. And combining my recent realizations about my performance here, I’d say that I ended up sounding like an android only in body. So yeah, thanks very much again, k.!

With all that said, have a link to the mp3 and a link to the lyrics sheet! And again, honest constructive feedback is highly encouraged and will be highly appreciated!

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

This is late for August 15, but still, I’m back with posting stuff on this blog. And this post is about my English cover of a Kagerou Project song that was first released as a B-side in the Children Record single, with that IA original being rerecorded later on alongside the song it served as a B-side to for the Mekakucity Records album. It’s basically about the Shion Kozakura, the mom of Mary Kozakura, the girl you find in this song, Souzou/Kuusou Forest (Imagination/Fantasy Forest) which introduced me to Jin and KagePro on top of further getting me into VOCALOID and vocal synth music. And I consider it the song I practiced the guitar with the most, though I have to say that I haven’t been playing the guitar for quite the long while now.

As for writing translyrics for this, I think I further understood the the song’s rain themes especially as I worked on that. And while I struggle to imagine how well I can do as a dad, I feel like if I do well, I’d also be like Shion in the first half of her song. As for singing this song and not just in translyricized form, whether I like it or not, I think I’m likelier to end up crying in the middle of recording if I tried to sing this with more emotion than what I captured here. And again, the first half especially gets me teary.

Also, Shigeru and my sister Juanny Rese make a comeback on the audio engineering and on the illustrations respectively! In the audio engineering, I especially like the subtle distance in the vocals. Shig got me further feeling like I’m depicting someone struggling to wisely smile through the pain with that distance. And in the illustrations, the colorful simplicity is my favorite part. Also, yes, I had my sister draw Shion’s namesake flower, which is known as the Tartarian aster in English. Anyway, thank you so much again for your help, you two! And Sis, I hope you’re enjoying your gaming some more~

As for the video, working on it also got me learning the Scene Change effect, which I failed to notice earlier because I was one lazy doubter trying to show off. Also, I like that Preset Custom Flare I added at the second half of the first chorus and the way I worked up the outro.

Now, with all that commentary done, have this link to the mp3 and this link to the lyrics sheet! And again, honest constructive feedback is highly encouraged and will be highly appreciated!

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.