YO! SAY natsu ga mune wo shigeki suru
nama ashi miwaku no maameido
dasu toko dashite tawawa ni nattara
honmono no koi wa yare soukai
YO! SAY, Summer loves to titillate, and fascinate
When mermaids bounce around with bare legs
So let it all hang out, get your fruits ripe for picking
True love's so hard to find
You've gotta savour every drop!
gomakashi kikanai usugi no kyokusen wa
kakushinhan no shinayaka na STYLE!
taisuisei no kimochi ni kirikawaru
shunkan no mabushisa wa ikagana mono
You're no master of disguise
I'm onto you and your fashion crimes
When you've got barely anything on
You know your perfect curves can't hide
Gotta shift my mood to something waterproof
Right when you stun me in the blink of an eye
You really think you'll get away with it?
kokoro made nugesareru atsui kaze no yuuwaku ni
makechatte kamawanai kara manatsu wa fushouji mo kimi shidai de
These scorching winds make me wanna strip
Right down to my soul
But that's cool with me
When it's the height of summer
whatever comes of my reputation
lies solely in your hands
youseitachi ga natsu wo shigeki suru
nama ashi miwaku no maameido
dasu toko dashite tawawa ni nattara
honmono no koi ga dekisou kai?
YO! SAY, Fairies play!
So summer titillates, and fascinates
When mermaids bounce around with bare legs
So let it all hang out, get your fruits ripe for picking
True love's so hard to find
We've gotta savour every drop!
kimi ja nakutemo bategimi ni mo naru yo
atsui bakka no machi wa yuuutsu de
suki wo misetara fui ni mimi ni hairu
sabui gyagu nanka de suzumitakunai
Even if I'm with someone else
Exhaustion finds its way to me
Stranded on an urban heat island
It gets me down real bad
Maybe I could open up to you
And you'd be forced to hear my cheesy jokes
God, I hope you don't think it's a turn-off...
musekaeru nettaiya wo irodoru hanabi no you ni
uchiagetechiru omoi nara kono mama dakiatte
kogareru made
Can you feel a spark between us?
Or maybe fireworks burning colours into the sky
on a sweltering night when the air is thick
Well, if that's how it feels, come into my arms
And love me just like that
youseitachi to natsu wo shitakunaru
atsui yokubou wa toruneido
dasu mono dashite sunao ni naritai
kimi to boku to nara It's All Right
YO! SAY, Fairies play!
I need them in my summer days
I'm coming at you like a hot tornado
I'm gonna let it all hang out!
I wanna be real with you!
As long as you're with me, It's All Right!
tokai no biru no umi ja kanjinaku natteru kimi wo
hieta wain no kuchizuke de yowasete torokashite
sashiagemashou
When you're a fish out of water
in a sea of high-rise buildings
And you've lost touch with yourself
I'll be the one to lure you in
With my kisses like chilled wine
I'll get you drunk, and melt your heart
youseitachi ga natsu wo shigekisuru
nama ashi heso dashi maameido
koi ni kamakete orusu ni naru no mo
Daisuke teki ni mo ALL OK!
YO! SAY, Fairies play!
And so, the summer titillates
Mermaids, bare legs, bellybuttons too...
When you've got a one-track mind
You let love consume all your time
Well, that's just like Daisuke...
So it's ALL OK!
YO! SAY natsu wo dare to shitakunaru?
hitorine no yoru ni You Can Say Good Bye
oku no hou made kawaku ma nai hodo
honmono no koi wo shimasenka?
YO! SAY, Don't you think
your summer days have room for two?
You Can Say Goodbye to nights spent all alone
I'd never leave you high and dry
Deep down, you know I'll satisfy
True love's so hard to find
Come let it blossom with me!
Notes
- Yet another Akio Inoue song full of wordplay, and me trying to sprinkle that same flavour in wherever I could. As usual, it's impossible to put every pun in precisely the same place as it is in Japanese. So trying to maintain both the literal narrative and the spirit of the song is a real balancing act. But if a pun didn't work I wasn't gonna force it... (So sorry. But the song itself warns that you're going to hear some cheesy puns, does it not?) I'll be stuck here forever if I explain every single choice, but I will use this note section to elaborate on a few things... tl;dr: Akio Inoue did several things on purpose, and therefore so did I.
- Right off the bat, there's the double entendre of mune wo shigeki suru. When mune comes up in songs, it's usually referring to someone's heart, although the extremely literal meaning is someone's chest. It's not clear whose mune we're talking about here. If you imagine it's the narrator, then this line is about his emotional state: he's v excited about summer, and the mermaids, etc. But if you turn it around and read it another way (much like typing 58008 into a calculator) then there's clearly a boob joke about the mermaids showing off skin at the beach here.
Now, how the hell do you capture all that in English? Titillate seemed like the best option, tbh. It also sounds pretty weird in a pop song. But in the same chorus, you have tawawa, which I'd say is an equally uncommon word (btw, that word typically brings to mind a tree branch, bending under the weight of the heavy fruit hanging off it. Are you sensing a theme here?) So you know what? I stand by it. - Yes, he is actually singing about reverse mermaids.
- This song was used on a TV commercial for the soft drink Mitsuya Cider. Whenever you hear soukai at the end of the choruses, it's the inflected part of the verb it's attached to, but there's also a double meaning of refreshing because Inoue deliberately writes it in kanji as 爽快. I couldn't find a non-clumsy way to splice that exact meaning in, so instead, I tried to hint at a drink in other ways, and thought about the kind of language that might show up in advertising copy in English.
Incidentally, the MITSUYA-MIX version has slightly different lyrics. The CM started running on TV several months before the full single was released, so it used an earlier demo version where the mermaid lines are hajikeru chijou no maameido/hade na taiyou mikata ni tsuketara (When mermaids bounce around on land/The sun loves to show off, but get him on your side...) - At the end of the chorus, 宝物 (treasure, something valuable) is usually pronounced takaramono, but here it's honmono (本物, the real thing). Without going into elaborate detail about how kanji works, in some scenarios it also makes sense to read 宝 as hou - so I feel like it's not even too much of a stretch for Inoue to use honmono for a creative reading of 宝物, since it's pretty close to houmono!
- In the first verse (gomakashi kikanai...) there are a few things going on:
- While the English word style describes someone's fashion sense, sutairu most often refers to someone's body or figure, and that's clearly what he's singing about here. However, he also comments on what they're wearing, and Akio Inoue wrote the lyrics... so I think you can make the argument for a double meaning here.
- I landed on fashion crimes to try and capture some of 確信犯 (kakushinhan), where the narrator accuses someone of the premeditated crime of (checks notes) wearing something sexy. Ok, so that's more like "you did this on purpose!" while a fashion crime pretty overtly implies their outfit is terrible. Not wanting to push the translation too far in the wrong direction, I debated whether to keep it...
But consider that he's really in two minds about this situation: yes, he likes what he sees; but he's also like, are you sure you should wear that? (ikagana mono, he questions) If he has to ask, maybe they really are wearing something in fashion crime territory? Can they get away with their crime AND their outfit? Thus, I decided fashion crimes could stay, provided enough excitement came through in the verse too. - Wearing something a bit risqué so everyone knows how hot you are, but your outfit is also objectively kinda weird, and the jury's out on whether your sartorial choices are socially acceptable? Hey, does that remind you of anyone...?
- Ah yes. The YO! SAY and yousei (fairy) homophone wordplay... So whenever the original specifically mentions fairies, I kept YO! SAY in there for repetition, and made the next part rhyme. Literally what else can ya do. 🤷
- Now, this isn't officially in the song itself, but another possible homophone for yousei is 陽性, a positive result on a medical test. Posting the first 22 seconds of HOT LIMIT is now a convenient way to share the results of your PCR test with the world. This song was truly ahead of its time.
- The second-last chorus mentions a Daisuke, and I sure hope that most visitors to this website have some idea who that is... But just in case: it's a shoutout to Daisuke Asakura - the composer of this song, and TMR's producer at the time!
- Similar to the soukai wordplay going on earlier, the song ends on shimasen ka (that's him extending an invitation to the listener). But Inoue writes the -sen ka part with 鮮 and 花, the kanji for fresh and flowers.
- OH MY GOD these translator's notes are longer than the actual translation... I've reached my HOT LIMIT...