Kirito from Angelo talks about the concept behind the new album FAUST (Translation)

As some of you may know, the Japanese rock band Angelo released their 11th full length album this past November 6th of 2019, the new production is called “FAUST” and it contains 10 songs, it also comes in 2 different editions. The band’s leader and vocalist Kirito transmitted a very important live broadcast back in November 2nd through his official Youtube channel, where he talks about various topics, including the concept and story behind the new album, and he also explains about past experiences in his life that influenced the ideas behind one of the songs included in the album.

Since I have decided to dedicate time to this website again, I would like to share the translation of this video, so everyone can enjoy the world view of FAUST and Kirito’s different views about life. I apologize in advance for any errors you may encounter, but overall this should help give a very good idea of the concepts described during this wonderful and moving broadcast that made me cry as well, which I think any Angelo and Kirito fan should be aware of.

 

(Kirito opens the broadcast and gives his greetings; he also fixes the echo in the sound).

“Well, we went to Taiwan, and returned to Japan already. This hoodie jacket that I’m wearing has nothing to do with Taiwan, I personally created it. One way or another, to use as a house coat, or when my biking friends come, I’ve been doing this for like 10 years. So, as a way to create a bond with my biking friends, I’ve been designing and creating things like this and distributing it with them very often. Also, when it comes to work, I’ve done matching designs for the concert staff to wear and such, I’ve been doing this a lot since a long time ago, and I enjoy doing it.

Since I was in junior high school, and was maybe around 15 or 16 years old, I’ve been the type of person who likes to do that kind of thing. And well, I wasn’t really serious at the time when I was a teenager, I was part of a group who rode motorcycles, but I still liked to create this kind of thing. I created various things such as clothes, embroidery, stickers, etc. And then, I would share those creations with my friends for them to wear, it was like a kind of sense of solidarity or maybe self-satisfaction, and in that sense, as that prolonged, I ended up creating my own indies band. I created that band, and created it again, so I’ve been doing all kinds of designs since then. Actually, in the past, compared to nowadays, it was very difficult, you needed to go to the printing shop, order a huge amount of materials and get the lotto stickers printed there, and from there, you needed to split them, maybe I would get an amount to work on, and it went on like that. Nowadays it’s very easy to do all this thanks to the power of the network, so for this I just looked up “hoodie jacket creation” and then attached the file in Illustrator myself, and then just placed the order, I was really surprised by the speed it all went through, and that’s how I created this “暴君/boukun” (tyrant) hoodie jacket.

So, this is not in the level of an official “Kirito Household (キリト一家)” product yet, I would feel bad if I use the company expenses to create such product, even if I am the company president, I would not do such thing. Therefore, by doing things in my own way, I thought about creating around 10 of these, and see the reaction, from there, if there’s demand for it I can do a full-scale production. Until I can see some potential in the sale of the good, I prefer to give it a try using my own money.  And since then, I’ve done the same for various other things on my own too, like lighters and some t-shirts (laughs). So, that’s how I ended up doing this myself with these characters of “暴君/boukun” (tyrant) on it, and it’s not like I am trying to be a masochist. Well, actually I made quite a lot of these, I made around 10 by myself, it’s a lot. I wonder what would be the demand for it? Well, I think it’s still too early to making it into a product officially, so.. What should I do?  Oh, and you know those tags, when we make official products, we put the tag for either “Kirito Household (キリト一家)” or Angelo products, you know the tag that goes here in the back (referring to the tag that goes in the inner part of the jacket behind the neck). However, in this case, since I ordered these by myself, used Google for the hoodie jacket creation etc., the tags on them are the ones of that printing company (laughs). But regardless, I think this is a pretty rare product, these 10 jackets were just piling up in my room. Do you guys want this product? If you want it, then later on during this program, um, how should we do this? What method should we use to distribute these gifts? Oh, maybe I can put my signature around this area too (pointing to the area where the kanji letters are).

Well, let’s think about it later, um, recently Twitter has been used often for this kind of thing, to give away gifts and such, however I also have this bad perception about it, because for example, there have been some strongly criticized cases recently about suspicious projects of gifts being given out via Twitter like 1 hundred million yen gifts, or 100,000 yen for 100 people gift and such. And I’ve always thought as a rule for myself, no matter what happens, is that I would never do a project of fun gifts just for the sake of increasing Youtube subscribers or increasing views of my videos. But these are just my very personal “暴君/boukun” (tyrant) hoodie jackets I made, and there are only 10 of them, I am wearing one of them, and I will also keep one for spare. So, about the distribution, later I would like to do it as a gift in conjunction with Twittter, let’s use it in a safe way, for real-time comments using the Angelo official Twitter account, in order to give away the gifts, however if you feel it’s too dangerous, please feel free to refuse and let me know, because after all, we’re going to be dealing with personal information, if we decide to do that, I will make sure to do it properly. So, I think we can plan for gifts giveaway if you’re okay with using comments in real time, in a safe form, and well, it was just a nuisance to put those remaining ones in a bag to put them away in my room. When the program ends, let’s think about it properly.

So, we returned from Taiwan. Each time I’ve done these live broadcast, this is the 3rd one, well actually I did a “0” one so this is really the 4th one, and each time I’ve ended up flying from one topic to another when talking, so as a professional musician I think I have to do this properly, therefore I am doing a script now, because I talk a lot, so it’s in blocks and in a very simple way, I wrote it just in case, because if I don’t, I may end up drifting to different subjects again while talking for an hour. After I watched the archived videos, I noticed about this, so I am sorry about the quality of it.

About Taiwan, we did the Fan Club trip, we actually went for work, for about 3 or 4 nights I think, um, it was 4 nights. Actually, we made a round trip between the hotel and the convenience store, after that, we did the event with the fans, and since it was for work, we did a live performance. And well, I shot a very nice video in Taiwan, but I haven’t finished working on it, because the tour is approaching so it’s being hectic with the rehearsals and everything, so I haven’t had time to work on the video edition. Maybe after this broadcast is over, and I spend the entire night working on it, maybe it will be ready by Sunday evening, but perhaps it will be impossible, so please wait for it. Until the very end, I am a musician, and although I also want to do Youtube in a serious way, I have to give priority to my other job too, because I have my job with a music band, so I hope you can please understand this.

Taiwan was very fun. Right now, it’s a bit warmer than Japan. Oh, this is Wonder (Kirito shows off his can coffee of the brand “Wonder”), I am devoted to it (smiles). “Please get some sleep” (Kirito reads the comments from the audience who tell him “Please get some sleep”, Kirito smiles) you are all so kind, why are you guys so kind to me? (smiles).  Ah yes, later let’s do serial number for the hoodie jackets, so it will be for the first 8 people, from 1 to 8. ”

 

Kirito talks about company management and taxes:

Referring to the white hoodie jacket with the letters “暴君” (tyrant):

“This is a very personal thing that I wanted to do, although there’s the company, this is kind of selfish thing I wanted to do. I don’t want to cause trouble for the company, because I had this idea that is not very business-like.  When it comes to the company, the staff will be worried about doing this or that in order to make profit. Even if I decide without listening to the staff, then it would have a very bad meaning and be seen as me doing things on my own, and it becomes a company managed by a dictator, so I always avoid that.

Conversely, recently there is a lot of focus to company expenses, tax saving measures, etc. and there have been cases of performers who have violated the rules and have been given penalties because of that. This behavior is something I really don’t understand.

I manage a company, and tax reduction strategies can have a good meaning, in a sense of wisdom for living, it’s something needed, as hard-working citizens who work earnestly to receive money, taxes are a way to pay tributes… What am I talking about now? (laughs). Well, in summary it’s tough. Being at the head of managing the company, my selfishness, like if I say there’s this expense and this other expense, although I could do that, I don’t do it because but that would cause inconvenience to the company, and this would eventually reach to the tax office, so I am always very sensitive toward that kind of thing, because I don’t want that to happen, I’m really scared about that.  So, if you go too far in trying to avoid taxes, you receive a lot criticism and that is why I would rather pay things with my own money sometimes, and don’t submit the expense to the company. And this is how I would continuously spend my own money in order to protect the company and its employees… Sorry about my reckless talking (laughs).

And well, when it comes to companies, even if it’s the company of an individual and regardless of how small the company is, every year we perform the financial settlement and provide the final tax declaration to the tax office, this is very strict specially when it comes to companies that are just starting. That’s why in the case of my office, I never let not even 1 yen discrepancy within such a strict surveillance, and this is why due to my personality, I’m not interested in walking that thin line, I don’t need that, so I pay for my own things and I avoid that type of difficult situation.

Actually, I didn’t plan to talk about this, and well that’s it.”

 

Kirito talks about the Angelo Taiwan FC trip and their methods.

“About the Taiwan travel, it was interesting. I think those who participated in the Fanclub trip understand the characteristics of Angelo FC trip. All the information was posted in the webpage intentionally, for Angelo in Taiwan, Angelo in Guam etc., and it’s always very clear, the customers know exactly what they need to do in order to participate, other ordinary artists include a lot of advertisement in their FC trips, they would even go into the customer’s rooms to promote things, it seems they come up with a lot of strategies, but in the case of Angelo, this is my own judgement, I try my best not to do that kind of thing.  Because I think this is something that lowers the price in terms of branding, because doing such things makes it look desperate like saying “please pay this if you want to participate”, and that is kind of cold in my opinion, it lowers the level of service, so for me this is a very bad thing.

So actually, for me, promotional things that are valuable are more like doing a welcome party, photo sessions and doing acoustic live at the very minimum. As a promotional line, it’s more like “if you participate…”. I didn’t say it like that this time, like ‘come this way to be with Angelo and Kirito’ it’s not written in the promotion, if I had done it that way, maybe the customers would invite more friends to spend time with Kirito, why don’t I say “with Kirito” this time?  Well, each time we do it that way, but this time in Taiwan, I had an idea I wanted to try, like having the customers being able to take pictures with their own smartphones, also an idea from Karyu was having customers leave comments about the video from their smartphones, this is the kind of thing we did this time, I think the collaboration was amazing.

When you do events like this with a huge number of people, even if you tell them not to, things like unauthorized pictures getting spread in Twitter etc. can happen. However, Angelo fans are amazing, they never do that kind of thing, I’m not sure if it’s because we do these events with a limited amount of people, but I am always impressed and grateful by the common sense that Angelo fans have.   I’m not saying that’s a completely a bad thing to do, but the Angelo fans don’t do it, this was true this time in Taiwan, and you know, although we live now in a network/internet society, they still don’t do such thing, definitely Angelo fans are amazing, I’m filled with pride about this, the Angelo fans have very high internet literacy, definitely great fans. And well, the FC trip was very fun.

We’ve been doing this since Angelo started about 13 years ago, and we will do it next year too, there’s a lot of things to consider, we’ve done Taiwan two times already I think, we did Guam too, we’ve done a lot of places, about what place to do next, I will think about it properly next year, maybe Okinawa would be a good idea, because in the end for some fans it can be troublesome, so if we can meet their expectations and avoid circumstances like problems with the fee, or problems related to the passport, maybe they would be happy if we do a domestic trip next time. Although I understand the emphasis of this, going to Okinawa, Hakone, Karuizawa, etc. I don’t really feel like it’s a good idea. If we could also consider places like Europe, France, Italia or America, I know the price would be higher and the considerations for this would probably be more difficult, but well, I will think about it again. In the end, what I want is to be able to have fun in the trip and create good memories together with the members, so I will think about this together with the members and the staff. Next year we will do the announcement too, but maybe the content will pretend to be relatively cool, so please read between the lines, because there will probably be a Kirito fan-service (laughs), I think you will be satisfied. ”

 

Kirito talks about the new album “FAUST” upcoming release and CDs releases in the digital era.

“And then, the new album release is finally getting close, the release is in November 6th, at last (laughs), it’s within 3 days now, on Wednesday of next week. Those who reserved the album will be able to listen to it by Tuesday, this time the album became filled with true feelings. Here I have the samples, there is a standard edition and the limited edition, both covers are Kirito designs (shows the cover of the limited edition and how the obi looks when case is closed)  you can see the world view of the lyrics in each page, while reading with these designs you can feel the world of each song.

Even in this era of downloading, I still make a strong effort in creating a nice package. As expected, there is a strong emotion at the moment of having an album in your hands (laughs) and yes, of course there’s the Obi included too, no way it is not (laughs). And well, I’ve shown it to you up to this point, but since it’s almost released, I guess it’s okay.  After all, in this era of Mp3 files , the transmission of data has become very advanced and fast,  it’s the era where there are even talks about 5G coming etc., and within all this, we are still releasing physical CDs, although there are music services like iTunes, Spotify and many other streaming services, one would think that CDs won’t sell, however the reality is that if you really like an artist, having the physical disk in your hand when you want to listen to it, there are deep emotions while taking out the booklet after opening the CD box, you can’t do that in an iPhone; opening the booklet and reading while listening the music, at that point you can even feel the ideas of the creator, I think that really is a good thing, because it is a kind of experience, right?  Because of that, we have no choice but to make it available and that is part of our job, so we do it with all our heart. ”

 

Kirito talks about the new album “FAUST” concept.

“About the concept of FAUST, this became a conceptual album (shows the cover of the standard edition)  and I think there’s many people who know about this concept, it’s about apocrypha (non-canon biblical texts) from long time ago by Goethe’s, the famous “Faust” play,  so this time the title is about this play from Goethe. Relatively, for example from the actual work of the writer, the song name and the title became the motif.  Although, this time it is that way, regardless of the foundation being the existing work of Faust, this actually became a complete Kirito concept, it became a completely original work.  Well, actually Faust has been included a lot in many works before, in Osamu Tezuka’s mangas for example, and there have been many interpretations released, so it’s a bit hard to understand.  To put it simply, in my own way, when you think about humans, what do you see? It becomes exhausting. And well, I was just 26 years old when I started my own band and did my debut, but I actually started be involved in bands since I was around 18 maybe.  Since that time, I always had this base concept, ‘what does it mean to be human’ kind of thought.  In that line of thought from Faust, the music video of “A monologue by Mephisto” was released. In regards to Mephisto, an easy way to see it, is as a demon, who pretends to be a god.

And well, let’s say humans are like what god created, they are beautiful living beings who usually have a lot of burdens, in contrast to that, there’s Mephisto the devil, who has a lot of appetite for that.  The human beings are always full of contradictions, it’s the so-called game, and in order to succeed, Faust for example, received a lot of benefits (from Mephisto), but like usually in novels, it’s like alchemy, you have to give something in exchange for these benefits, like a fortuneteller; that although it seems suspicious he continues along with it, it’s a like giving up on life a little bit, well, there are many ways to describe this, I may be wrong, but this is my point of view.  So, those humans that get tired in the way, end up falling for Mephisto’s traps, he can grant them all their desires, and give them all the knowledge they thrive for, but in exchange of that, they have to give up their souls to Mephisto. So, what do you do when you are offered to have all your wishes granted?

So in the case of Faust, and from my point of view, he is the representation of humans, so he accepts the proposal and a contract is established, and therefore all the things he wanted to know, like what is home, or what is earth and what are the circumstances around the creation of the universe, in summary all the things he want to know, and then things like going back in time to when he was young also become possible, so all these desires can be granted, and also getting love and having all kinds of encounters, in general, all the things that are wanted in a lifetime. And then, Mephisto waits for such contract, and gives you all the things you want, like “oh you want to be younger, okay I’ll grant you time”, but then at the end, when your soul is going to be snatched away, you realize that your promise with God cannot be retracted as you thought, you want time to be stopped. It becomes that the humans have so many contradictions to the point that they want to destroy the contract they made. In that manner, Faust desires are granted.  For me, this kind of depicts human history, fulfilling many desires and curiosity, satisfying the thirst of knowledge, and then in the end they don’t want to die, they want to stop time to prevent it and say things to their own convenience. But from the start, they said ‘do as you want with my soul’, they offered it since the start and were okay with giving it away, and although they thought like this at the beginning, at the very end, they don’t want to return that wonderful time, they want to stop time.

After that, what kind of decision does Mephisto make?  And then, the people around Faust, what kind of thing they will do? in regards to all this, there are many theories and among the many conclusions, there’s Kirito’s conclusion in this album “FAUST”, it’s in the last song called “STOP THE TIME, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL”.  This song contains these words that represent the ending of Faust’s story, but this is also when according to the expectations of the devil Mephisto, you wonder if it has the disastrous conclusion of Faust’s soul being snatched away or what happens next.  And well, this is the kind of story it is. In my mind, this answers the question about “what are humans?”  they carry a lot of contradictions, for example, things like “oh let’s protect the nature and the earth, we must not destroy nature” but they ride cars,  or when it comes to animals, “oh we have to protect animals like they were our friends” but then they eat meat, humans have so many contradictions like this. There are also the energy related problems, how do we create energy? to protect the lifestyle that humans have, then while trying to do good things then they end up using full electric power.  However, even if you try to eliminate all the contradictions, the humans are somewhat biased in an ideological way, they end up creating good and evil pointlessly, and as one would expect, there’s a lot of humans polarized to the extremes of good and evil.

And this is the question I have, because if I say I am raising this as a huge problem, I may be exaggerating, and I don’t think this is a big deal, because in the end this is just the work of a rock band.  Having said that, it’s impossible to explain the entire album during this broadcast. The next broadcast will be about the release, and we begin the tour next Saturday, so I won’t be able to do live stream that day, instead it will be on Sunday and I want to start earlier around 9 AM, and I will probably do an explanation of each song, or maybe not going that far, or maybe we can try something like listening to the songs together with Kirito.

 

Kirito talks about “止まない雪” song from FAUST

So, from here on, I am going to notify you in advance, so I am going to pick up a song composition from the album, the song called “止まない雪/yamanai yuki” (the snow that doesn’t stop), I want you all to listen to this song. Basically, until now my lyrics are always filled with various kinds of emotions and carry messages.  When you listen to my thoughts, it’s about my attitude toward life, so you might be “oh what’s up with Kirito…” but please take my thoughts into consideration. So, the idea is that while you read the lyrics and listen to the songs, you will be like “oh I see!”  I wonder what will be everyone’s thoughts, and I would like to receive your thoughts, without me doing the explanations if possible, this is what it has come to be now.  In the past, when I had my debut with PIERROT, there’s been many news coverage of this in magazines etc., asking things such as “oh what is the meaning of this?” or “What’s the meaning of the lyrics of this new song?” there were a lot of questions like that.  If I were to say that now, then I think the song would end up having no meaning.

For me it was quite painful to be asked so many explanations. Actually, if you read the lyrics while listening to the song, then when you think about it, many interpretations would come out, complete opposite interpretations can happen too, so I’ve come to avoid explanations, up to this day I still think the same way about it; if the creator explains too much, then when you listen just a bit, that idea will end up hardening in your mind, and this is why now I omit giving out explanations.  However, this time in this Youtube live streaming, I thought “why not?” maybe it’s okay to do it once in a while.  So, from now on, while listening to the story of the song, I prepared an exclusive screen to display the lyrics, because displaying the lyrics card from the booklet is impossible, so I made it from scratch. So please read the lyrics while listening to the song “止まない雪/yamanai yuki”, it’s a ballad, and it’s the 7th song in the FAUST album. Basically, it follows along the concept of the world view of FAUST.  Therefore, in my view, FAUST is a human, and for creatures such as humans, when they establish a contract with the devil, they have a lot of desires and curiosities, and while they hold so many things in their hands, at the same time, they wonder about “what is living?” “why I was born?” “where am I heading to once I die?” so the timing when they start to think about all these things, it’s what “止まない雪/yamanai yuki” is about.

And about the title, perhaps I can imagine some of you might have guessed already that this is a very Kirito idea, after all, this song contains a lot of my personal experiences and sense of values.  So, in this one scene of FAUST concept album, as expected, was built with my own thoughts and experiences. I said it before in my video where I was riding the Harley bike, about this song, after creating it and when I finished singing it in my private studio, by the time it was completed,  when I listened to it again while looking at the lyrics, I ended up crying a bit (laughs).  It was a great experience that my own work could make me cry like that. The fact that I created and sharpened its view, the truth is that I am not making this just to sell by the piece to a bunch of people, because creating work like this is very painful and demanding, however when I’m putting the words on top of the song and while I think that there may be obstacles, I also feel passionate about it. In conclusion, that means I am a happy man (laughs). So, the fact that I am able to feel moved by the work I’ve done myself, it means I’ve worked hard to impress myself, and I think I’m very happy to be able to say this.

So, about the world view of “止まない雪/yamanai yuki” oh maybe I’ve exceeded the time a little bit (smiles), sorry about that. The keyword is “雪/yuki” (snow). Inside the works of Kirito, those who know me since a long time ago surely understand this, this is a keyword that has come out before. For example, there was an old song from Angelo that has the snow theme (Kirito doesn’t mention the name, but he refers to “Dark Snow”), and also in PIERROT there was “Powder Snow” for example.  So, in my personal experience (formative experience from one’s youth. Kirito explains that this word uses the kanji of 源 found in words like 原因 together with the word 体験 which means experience, it becomes an experience from the origin), when I became old enough to understand what’s happening around myself, a close image I remember is always the landscape of snow. At nights,  there was this snow scene, with the snow falling strongly and then it was a completely dark at midnight, where there was absolutely nothing, just a spread pure white view, where the snow will reach up to my knees, I probably had around 4 years and half at the time,  um maybe it was 4 yes, so the landscape I remember when I was becoming aware of my surroundings, and that up until today, still remains in my mind even years later, in my case was the snow.

And this is why the “snow” is a word that appears a lot in my works. With this image of pure snow, my thoughts are completed and it became a keyword for me. At the same time, the other word that has become predominant in my work is “光/hikari”(light) (Kirito realizes there’s echo in the sound from the comments in the chat).  So, as I was saying, “光/hikari” is also a very important keyword in my works. Oh, there is still howling? Just when the video is getting good (Kirito tries to fix echo/howling).   Is it okay now?  Is there still echo?  Well it’s okay, the time is not settled (laughs).  Is echo still not fixed?  I’m sorry about this during a live broadcast. Microphone, please do your best! Well, let’s rush this a little bit, maybe it got overheated (laughs).

(After echo is fixed). Are you ready to continue?  If something strange happens again please let me know.  In regards to what I was talking about before, there are Keywords of “雪/yuki” and also “光/hikari”. My intention was not for you to hear about the story of Kirito when he was little, what this is about is that within the story of FAUST there are signs of this, because to be honest, at the same time, this also contains Kirito’s sense of values, my formative experience is in it. Within that, the snow, the never-ending snow, is what was in front of me when I became aware of my surroundings, and even more painful, at night. And well, it was a time when I was somewhat immature, and it was not like I was bragging about my own misfortune, because I know there are others more unfortunate than me, so I had to endure it, so by the time someone like me was able to overcome such circumstances, there was an heroic feeling. Up to this point, it’s a hypothetical situation, and, well, don’t repeat this (laughs). So, let’s assume that me as a child when I became aware of my surroundings, around 4 years old, where I had to escape to a place where my knees became totally submerged in snow, this happened a lot. And I was carrying a baby, holding a baby and needing to escape from my house, that kind of image.

I will talk a bit about this, it was Christmas, and there was my birthday, and I hated it, well actually not to that extend, I just didn’t like my birthday at the time, I wondered what’s so good about it?   And then in Christmas, my parents would put a lot of decorations and give congratulations, so then my birthday is in February, and after all I lived in Hokkaido, and that is a season where there is a lot of snow. So, there was Christmas and my birthday, and let’s say my parents would try to enforce this (laughs), so I had no choice but to escape from there, holding the baby in my arms who was covered in a towel, I had to run away, this happened a lot. And the landscape at that time, was the one of the countryside in Sapporo, Hokkaido where there is nothing when you go outside and the snow is piled up, and at midnight the snow was pouring without stopping, and I would gaze at it, and wondered what was beyond that point. If I looked behind, my footprints had already disappeared because of the snow piling up.  So, what was in front of my eyes, I wonder what kind of path it was?  The footsteps of others had also vanished because of the snow, and that point I had to think toward which direction I was going to proceed to, so at that time I realized there was no road. In front of my eyes, there was no visible route, so I had no choice but to advance further in the snow, in my 4-year-old self. So, in Christmas (laughs) and birthday, I did that kind of thing without thinking of consequences.

This was somewhat traumatic for a child’s heart, therefore because of this I didn’t like Christmas nor my birthday. At the present time, I don’t feel like that, it’s okay now. Now every year in February 24 we do a concert and I receive a lot of congratulations, and I’m happy with those but, after all, those traumatic memories about it from my upbringing come out sometimes, ah, I let that out. Nonetheless, for a child’s heart for example, um and could you please think of this as a character, this is not about me (laughs).  Think of it as a character, and this character is a child who has no one to save him, who by not having any power of his own is unable to be independent. When you’re a child, you are unable to choose what you eat nor your future, there is nothing but powerlessness. Being so small and having such a young mind, in order to find where should you head towards to, you decide to live on.  You have a vast amount of time ahead, to figure what would be a good thing to pursue, so this character has to think about these things.  But the answer doesn’t come out, and from here it’s a hallucination, and I think maybe this can apply to some people.  It’s probably not really a hallucination, it’s more like when you lose your way and you put a lot of emotional effort, and suddenly that devil whisper appears, and you feel like “why not? I’ve had enough of this”, because you come to a point where you slowly start to think that living with this kind of hardship has no meaning, and this is the hallucination where the devil’s whisper is waiting in reality, well this is a dangerous illness (laughs). This is for example; the sensation is more like the voice is coming from your own heart.  When painful things happen, and you become desperate and before long, you start to think “well maybe it’s okay to become like that”, you end up giving birth to this supporting voice that you can hear and sense, and when that is assembled, it’s when you feel like you are going to succumb to temptation, but it’s a bit different, because you’re still going forward toward what’s in front of you, and I think this happens to everybody at some point.

And this is when humans think about what they should do, it’s when they encounter powerlessness. For example, in my case, when I had the choice of entering senior high school, I did not want to go, because I wanted to go out into the society. It was not really a problem with the grades, I was diligent but I was also a bit of a delinquent.  This teacher for example, when I said that I was not going to go to high school, and considering the grades, he told me not to give up and give it a try, he was my homeroom teacher, he was a good person since he told me that, to give it a try since I have nothing to lose, but in the end, I ended up quitting. Oh, I talked about it again.

So, I think right now there are many people who are troubled. There’s still a lot of desperate people who have no academic background or no emotional power, and people who carry traumas on their shoulder, that kind of humans, they are still trying to live.  When I think about it, in my case… well, no, this is not about me (laughs). Well, that’s enough! (laughs).  So, the only salvation that this character has is his vision, within the world in his fantasies, he paints the light when he is completely surrounded by darkness. But you don’t want to end it in this way, this is not the way you want it to end. When you are young, you don’t want your life story to end in such a miserable way.  When you hold that kind of expectation, is when you think about such things, because there are young children who dream of this. So, when you don’t want to betray those feelings from when you were young, this is when you create that fantasy world, and the symbol is the light, the light that confronts the darkness.

When we refer to light, this is composed of various aspects, like a bright future, being in the spotlight, receiving recognition, etc. And for the kind of humans who are happy that such thing was born from them, in the end, the most important thing for them is for their existence to be noticed from the crowd of people. So there is always a period in life where you yearn after something like that, and you want to become a human who can say to oneself that you are okay with your own existence, and this is the world you create in your imagination.  And, that kind of humans somehow think they don’t have any luck nor talent. And if there is a time when you are blessed with luck and friends, then it means you hold the light. So, the people who are part of that shining world, during that moment of clamor, from their point of view, they are not scared, and you end up becoming a dictator, right?! You definitely become a dictator. You fall into this delusion, and you get hold of your many desires, without being grateful for anything, and you head toward self-destruction. And, this is not about me ok…? (laughs), this is a character. And when you’re in the world of self-satisfaction, you want to destroy everything. All the kingdom you’ve built so far, you destroy it with your own hands. When this kind of destructive mindset comes in, then really end up losing everything. At that time, well up to know I think my explanation has been a bit weird and complicated, sorry about that (laughs).  As expected, when you are young, having destructive thinking seems cool, you know?  Well I guess it’s okay if I’m brief. When you are maybe 30 at most, even if you live your life to the fullest, when you perfectly build your own ideal story, then it suddenly disappears in a flash, because of your youth, I had some of that too.

It’s really like a world of self-complacency, with the ultimate egoism and self-absorption to the point where if someone is sad or someone is crying, it has nothing to do with you, because you’re doing things for yourself, and that just pushes your way toward destruction, and everything really ends up being ruined. When it becomes like that, what do you do?   When you are about to die, do you make a decision?  You are already fed up with everything, and even if you don’t come in contact with the public gaze, the fans are still there, and you feel that it has nothing to do with you, that’s when you vanish. Probably that’s also the kind of choice I made. And then, um what am I saying, maybe a bit heavy, but it’s okay (laughs) and therefore, what I think about this character.. it’s very long, please relax (laughs).

I became aware of this character, maybe for my own sake, I had been living without taking into consideration if I made someone sad or hurt someone, but then my attitude toward life changed. The story that I had built for myself, the story that I built with self-sufficiency, as a matter of fact, many people was watching it. And many people that I don’t know were saved by the means of the story I built. And then, within that story, all the things that had been established once, they all collapse. Those humans that become worn-out,  and wonder what to do next, have to hold their breath. This is how I noticed the protagonist of the story. The fact is you have to throw away your vanity and the useless pride. Until then, you are like a king or dictator, with lots of money and a lot of vanity, it may look like a very nice world, maybe driving a Mercedes Benz (laughs), but you just have to throw away that worthless pride, or you become worn-out.  And this is what I really have to convey to those who are watching attentively to this story. What working people like me have to protect is not a useless pride. It’s earning money, being in the correct path, being able to sell, becoming popular, etc. but not riding trains (laughs), the truth is that I am a bit stupid when it comes to riding trains (laughs) so I prefer to drive myself (laughs), with all those green cars, fast cars or whatever I really don’t understand it; well, as I was saying, I don’t need to protect any worthless pride, I don’t need that story.   What’s important is that even when you become worn-out and lose everything, that you are able to start again from the beginning, and that you never stop going forward, no matter how painful it is, that you are able to relieve the tension, and then step in once again. And this is why I think we must show the story of worn-out humans who were able to create something new from the beginning.

This doesn’t mean that I am sacrificing myself for other people nor for the fans, the fact that I am creating a story for myself has not changed, I just realized I am still creating it in that sense. What I am writing this story for? Well, that it’s for the sake of those who have lost their ways due to the different numbers of ways of life, for the sake of those who are troubled to the point of wanting to die, for those that have lost everything they’ve built up until now and don’t know how to deal with it. If you are bullied at school, you have no hope for your future, there is only despair. There are many people in these different circumstances who are watching my story. And above all, my most important audience was my young self who had snow covering up to his knees when becoming aware of his surroundings. And for the sake of that audience, I could not stop going forward,  therefore, if the story that was created for the sake of that audience doesn’t go well, you shouldn’t feel like wanting to die. And for this purpose, the story I worked with all my effort to create ended up saving me, and in that sense, as long as there is life left, I have to create something. This is the kind of thought I had.

Of course you still want to try to look good, until this day I still have the pride to try to look good, but that’s just a trivial showing off, for example to want to be seen as a rich person, or to seem like a popular figure, that’s not really the worthless pride I was referring to. As a professional, there’s a great number of people who have a lot of expectations about my story and my way of life, and in front of those people, I must never waver.  There’s always various temptations and weaknesses swirling around, but still, that’s why without wavering, you must always show the strength to carry out the important things. And this is not about money either, and it has nothing to do with putting on a show. The really important thing is to be able to persist and do it.  Oh wait, I had wrote a lot in this paper.. But I guess I didn’t read at all in the end. So, in that sense, there is gradation of the heart, you understand that inside you from the beginning, the desire of the protagonist to finish the story earlier than expected appears, but in the middle of that, although his mind is set on that, his body is still trying to live. The life-force is still trying to live, although the mind is thinking something different than the body that still moves and wants to keep on living. This discrepancy is how you become aware of the contradiction, and that’s why you say “oh so this is what it is”. This is not about hurting someone, or making someone cry, what you really need to do is fulfill your role, and at the very last moment be able to save yourself, and that your story is able to save others but also yourself, and arrive to that point.

Actually, I think I’ve been on a rampage of talking, but I guess it’s okay, right? (smiles). So in that sense, I got derailed while I was telling the story (laughs). So, filled with these emotions, “止まない雪/yamanai yuki”. Sorry for making you wait, please listen to it, and about what I just said earlier, those are things that happened inside my head, but please try to remember a bit about it while listening to the song.

(The song “止まない雪/yamanai yuki” plays while showing the lyrics in the screen, I will post a translation of the lyrics in a different post).

So, that was “止まない雪/yamanai yuki”, thanks for listening to it. I talked about various things, and I think maybe I derailed a bit before, feels like I’ve been talking for 2 hours without stopping, maybe I’ve exceeded talking. And, actually this is the type of song it is. Well, there have been some of my songs in the past that have had these kind of emotions included in them, well I think there are many fans that have felt it that way, that there have been songs like that in the past. For example, sharing the same concept, there was the Angelo song “CRUELWORLD”, I think there have many songs like this maybe, with the feeling that someone is pushing your back to continue forward, there was also the PIERROT song “HUMAN GATE” in my early works that had this kind of feeling too. And well, the shared concept in those songs is that from my point of view, the world we live in is by no means sweet, but rather a very harsh world. And, inside this harsh world, the message that I want to convey as a singer and human being, is not that you should just have fun, your friends will save you and that life is a laughing matter, I can’t say irresponsible things like that, I’ve made that clear from the beginning.

There is cruelty in the world. There will be times when there is no one to save you, there will be no hand reached out for help to you when you are acting like a spoiled person, this kind of coldness exists. In my case, it’s just that it is absolutely necessary to have this realistic premise from the point of view of the story I created. Within that, how do you keep on living? How do you escape from that despair? The hint for this, or well maybe “hint” would be a bit presumptuous, but in this way of thinking, if you change your life, then unexpectedly you will find the exit. So in that way, although this is not a sweet world, if you don’t give up, and if you continue extending your hand, you will definitely earn something and see something, that’s what I think.

So, today you listened to “止まない雪/yamanai yuki” from the album. Within the songs of the album, there’s also the last song called “STOP THE TIME,YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL”, and for this song conveys the answer to the meaning of this album. In order to explain “what it means to be human?”, what did the non-human character Mephisto experienced at that time? That is included in this last song, and because this is the last song, I think you will get the answer. Therefore, that answer will never be sweet nor meant to pamper you, it will be harsh, but what is beyond that point? It’s very positive but also harsh. It’s a bit difficult to be able to express this in words. So, next time I will talk about this since it’s been more than an hour and maybe it’s boring at this point (laughs), I think I overdid it a bit.

Well, about the new album, please look forward to it,  since it will be released very soon. It will be available in many places like Amazon, and we will have in-store events, so please check the details in the official website, I look forward for you to listen the new album.”

(After this, Kirito talks about his promise from the beginning of the video to find a method to give away as present the white hoodie jacket he is wearing that has the letters of 暴君/boukun” (tyrant). The method Kirito decides on is to use the Angelo official Twitter, so the first 8 people who post a comment as re-tweet could win the jacket, and those who win will be contacted directly to arrange shipping, he mentions they are all M size and he puts his signature on them. Kirito thanks everyone, announces the next broadcast and the beginning of the FAUST Live tour).

 

I hope you enjoyed the translation!  I will be posting more translations of Kirito’s videos in the future, and maybe some lyrics translations as well. Thanks for reading.