Title: オズネイ・ハマンはもういらない (I Don’t Need Any Oznei Haman Anymore/No More Hamantaschen)
Circle: ShibayanRecords
Vocal: yana
Lyrics: 深水チエ
Arrangement: Shibayan
Release Date: October 30, 2011 (M3 28)

When this song first came out in 2011, I had absolutely no command of the Japanese language but I knew this song was a keeper.  I spend a lot more time by driving alone listening to all of my old Touhou albums and the words of this song (I was listening to the CYTOKINE remix) started to become clearer and clearer.  Now that I’ve come back to it after more than a decade, I realized how much this song fits Shou Toramaru.  Touhou music is truly the gift that keeps giving.

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Title: Eternal Knowledge
Circle: T. Piacere/Eternal Melody
Vocal: 黒崎朔夜 (Sakuya Kurosaki)
Lyrics: 葵 (Aoi)
Arrangement: 葵 (Aoi)
Release Date:  Aug 11, 2012 (C82)
Requested By: JULIOCESAR

A Locked Girl vocal arrange from 2012 that got lost in time.  IT was originally released under by T. Piacere in the golden age (2009-2014) when Touhou Project was the #1 doujin series with over 2,000 circles every Comiket.  T. Piacere disbanded in 2014 and the singer created a new circle, Eternal Melody.  This song was released again in 2017 under the circle Eternal Melody.  It would be their last Touhou album.

This is a simpler song from a simpler time.  The song is about Patchouli Knowledge describing how she feels when she reads her books, locking herself away from the outside world and diving into the colorful ocean of  knowledge found in ancient history.

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Title: ワタシケンシ (I am Kenshi)
Circle: 森羅万象 (ShinRa-Bansho)
Vocal: あやぽんず＊ (Ayaponzu*)
Lyrics: azuki
Arrangement: kaztora
Release Date: Dec 30, 2018

It took 7 years for me to find a Youmu arrange that I like, and it turned out to be one of the longest and most lyrically advanced song I’ve ever come across.  This song relies a lot on wordplay like homophones in order to drive the story’s narrative.  I don’t think I’ve figured it all out yet, but I gave it a shot and I’ll come revisit this translation down the line later once I’m more fluent.  The song appears to be about Youmu’s journey to finding out her true self.  She started by waiting for others to tell her what she is, but discovered that it was up to her to determine her own identity out of other things that sound similar.

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Title: Twosome
Circle: はちみつれもん (Hachimitsu-Lemon)
Vocal: ゆーな (Yuuna)
Lyrics: あいざわ (Aizawa)
Arrangement: CleanTears
Release Date: October 14, 2018

There haven’t been too many arranges recently where I get the urge to translate it myself.   That’s not to say Touhou music quality or quantity has dropped recently, I think arranges in general have been getting more creative and 2018 has been a pretty good year.  However, my exposure to Touhou music in my daily life has dropped since the heydays of 2012.  My shelves are lined with untouched albums that I just don’t have the time to listen to due to life and work, and all of my translation requests lately have come from my viewers.  But every now and then, I come across something posted by Nitori, Alice, or Mayumi and I know exactly what album to buy next time I’m in Japan.  I have to admit my latest guilty pleasure of the Yorigami Sister’s theme, Egoist Flowers (and I love Shion’s character too), so Light Night Beat 8 is definitely going on that list.  Thanks to Mr. Deagle for supplying me with the lyrics.

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Title:  ジキルの愛情実証実験 (Jekyll’s Love Verification Test)
Circle: Pizuya’s Cell
Vocal: 普透明度 (Futoumeido)
Lyrics: 虎ヶ咲まなみ (Tora Saki Manami)
Arrangement: pizuya, yuta, hellnian
Release Date: Dec 29, 2016 (C91)
Requested By: Ihsan Bintang Ariaji

A very quick-paced, darker rendition of Hangover of Bedfellows Dreaming Differently.  It’s quite dense in terms of lyrics per bar and transforms the song quite liberally by only preserving the first note of each bar in the main riff and changing up how the song reaches the next bar.  I noticed this trend of transformation happens a lot more as Touhou Circles get older and feel the need to separate with the original composition which bothers some fans.  However, some of my favorite arranges significantly deviate from the original so I actually welcome the change (I feel Hangover of Bedfellows Dreaming Differently is a little harder to arrange in the first place).

The song itself is about someone who constantly fears that her lover doesn’t truly love her back and puts them through tests that she herself knows are cruel and terrible.  The lyrics of the song are joy to read like most songs from Pizuya, which is a bit of a shame due to how crowded they feel in the song.  I also started to mark syllable emphasis in the romaji.

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