Title: kai
Album: GRACE (track 006)
Composer: 虎 (TORA) & 沙我 (Saga)
Lyrics: 将 (SHOU)
In a sense, this was the first single of the album, as an early arrangement of the song was debuted at the beauty;tricker fest in early 2022, its lyrics released by SHOU shortly after that through one of his written entries via their Official note. Given that the studio recording of the song did not come out until the album did in November 2022, for many 9kumis who could not attend lives this created the very interesting situation of reading a song’s lyrics before being able to listen to it!
歌詞 》
界
羯諦羯諦、波羅羯諦、波羅僧羯、諦菩提薩婆訶
ぎゃていぎゃてい、はらぎゃてい、はらそうぎゃてい、ぼじそわか
You can view a copy of the lyrics in their original Japanese online [ here ]. In addition, in this song, the mantra at the end of the Heart Sutra (般若心経) is repeated in Japanese a total of 6 times (4 times before the first verse and 2 more times after the 6th verse). I’ve provided it above in kanji and kana thanks to its Wikipedia page.
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Romaji 》
kai
English Translation 》
Boundary
★ (4 times)
gone, gone,
everyone gone
to the other shore,
awakening,
svaha
A flower of nirvana broken off from memory;
A distorted figure disconnected from view
Over the frontier
It crossed a silent sea,
burst open with an urge
In broad daylight, the stars don’t sleep;
Together, would dream of the end
Without knowing its destination
The ship of life crosses the sea of flame
The shape of you veered away from the world
Will we go on loving it until it is a memory?
A voice, the dusk that sinks,
hurried forth its testimony—
A church poem
In broad daylight, the stars don’t sleep;
Together, would dream of the end
In a vision sings a cradle—
Shall we play music for the moment in kind?
★ (2 times)
gone, gone,
everyone gone
to the other shore,
awakening,
svaha
I dig my grave
You’re still got hell
Tragedy turns black.
In a deep blue dream
The stars don’t sleep until together they are born anew;
A parade of destiny for a love without discrimination
Continues to make its way to you
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NOTES / INTERPRETATION:
Blue font indicates text originally written in English in the official booklet.
★Mantra. I definitely did not translate the mantra myself. I found a translation to the mantra at the end of the heart sutra on this page (thanks, Wikipedia!). It is repeated 6 times total in the song and the lyrics complement it beautifully.
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The above (aside from the mantra) was translated by me; for the original post and more notes, check out [ PuncProsody ].
If you’d like to share the translation, please link to this page. Do not repost it. Thank you.
Other Fan Translations:
If you would like me to host your translation, link to your translation, or know of another translation that has been made (in any language), please let me know and I’ll put up a link to it. The more the merrier.
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Behind the Scenes
An early arrangement of this song was debuted at the beauty;tricker fest in early 2022 as the very first song in their set that day without any prior notice. Its lyrics were released early as well, in one of SHOU’s Official note entries afterwards. In that entry, SHOU took a bit of time to explain a few things about the song’s title and theme, all of which was above the subscriber line.
The title is pronounced kai.
The lyrics are a darkside Kenji Miyazawa-esque poem.
As for the theme, it’s “cast away the eggshell that is the self and together let’s go to a place unknown” and what’s more, at the outset of the song, Saga-kun is chanting the “gone, gone, everyone gone to the other shore, awakening, svaha” Heart Sutra once, but when I tried to simplify its meaning, I arrived at that sort of message.
From the start, humans are not aware of their perception or of their physical body. To have these is just to have attachments. If you think that way, a person becomes far lighter and can probably go to a distant place.
In terms of recording, we’re nearly done, but it’ll be summer when you guys can listen to the tune… I hope… (distant look)
SHOU, ALICE NINE. Official note vol 124
As it turned out, aside from being played during lives, the studio recording of kai wasn’t made public until the album was actually released! You can actually see a performance of the early arrangement of the song on the extra Blu-ray disc of the FC Limited Edition of the GRACE album though, which captured the finale of their Brutal Revelation tour.
In Official note 148, Saga gave some more insight about elements of the song, all of which is under the subscription cutoff point. If you are a subscriber, click the aforementioned link, and search 界 using CTRL+F (or Command+F) to start your reading at the first result.
The same day that the album dropped, an incredibly in-depth interview regarding GRACE was put up by DECOLUM and featured plenty of interesting remarks about kai.
SHOU: Last year, I thought I would stop perceiving death as a negative; I think I was influenced by a book I read whose subject was that death isn’t just as a condition, but I probably also was inspired by Saga-kun having brought the “Heart Sutra” for “kai”.
Interviewer: “kai” is your song TORA-san, but were you the one to make the request that you wanted the Heart Sutra to be added in?
TORA: Nope. Saga-kun added that in. But his way of thinking was terrific, I thought. What’s more, it fits, luckily, and I’m really into it. This idea, isn’t it amazing? Even if people wanted to put a sutra in, I think they wouldn’t really have the courage to. After all, Visual Kei really has a tendency towards Christianity, doesn’t it?
Interviewer: Certainly does.
TORA: I thought it was great to bring a sutra into it. Japanese-style Visual Kei exists, but it doesn’t go as far as using sutras. I’m like, why has no one done it ’til now? It’s cool.
Interviewer: However, for the lyrics “flower of nirvana” is fine, but a “church” appears as well.
SHOU: So true! Even though it’s the Heart Sutra, there’s a church. I guess you’d call it a mixture.
Saga: Properly speaking, that place is a temple.
Nao: A blending of Japanese and Western styles.Interviewer: You’re doing “ALICE NINE.” perfectly.
Saga: What I think of Visual Kei’s greatness as being is this sort of scariness. When the sutra came to mind for me, I thought, “nah, a sutra?” Which, I think, is why no one had done it. Until now in terms of what I’ve personally come to see of the Visual Kei scene there have been a lot of things where I’ve been like “this is awesome” and “I guess this doesn’t exist”. If a regular rock band were to do those things, it seems like “it’s a gimmick” is what would be said, but we take those “gimmicks” all the way. That is the greatness of Visual Kei, I thought to myself, so I gathered my courage and put it in. If you just wanted to make yourself look cool, of course you absolutely wouldn’t put a sutra into a song. However, that’s because it’s normal when you don’t put a sutra into a song.
Interviewer: “kai”, which has a sutra added into it, is already becoming a killer tune with perfect destructive power at lives, and I think ALICE NINE. is an important band that has such incredible depth to it.
Saga: Precisely because we’re a band that dances (everyone laughs), a sutra is no big deal.
DECOLUM, Interview about GRACE, 2022.11.02
Shortly after the album GRACE was released, Saga held a nearly 3-hour live event on Youtube to talk at length about each song on the album, and while the archive of this incredible talk was only up for a brief period of time after the event ended, I jotted down a few notes during the course of it, and here are two remarks about kai:
★ The chanting of the mantra from the sutra was recorded by Saga in a completely dark room while at home. He described it as being a “romantic” setting.
★ He explained that he had remembered going with his grandmother as a kid to see and hear some Buddhist chanting in person, and how the experience had left an impression on him.
Later, in ALICE NINE. Official note 169, Saga went into detail again about how the song was made, part of the Heart Sutra being added into it, and what influenced it, all of which is under the subscription cutoff point. If you are a subscriber, click the aforementioned link, and search 界 using CTRL+F (or Command+F) to start your reading at the first result.