"In a world that had faded to darkness, I was endowed with color
Ah, by a melody
Which will save even this rotting body"
I love this song!!! Every single Valk song is a banger and Mika is one of my favorite characters so I've been wanting to cover this song for a long time hehe
I could write a whole paper analyzing the lyrics but let me just tell you the gist of my interpretation of them:
This song is all about Mika's feelings from the time he met Shu, to the fall of Valkyrie by Fine's hands, to the era afterwards where they were in ruin.
The first verse is about how Shu picked Mika up when he was aimless and gave him a purpose. The glass marbles which reflect the color of the moon and the blue night are representative of Mika's eyes, which are also yellow and blue, and by extension they are a metaphor for Mika's soul, so in the lyrics where it says that gentle fingers touched the marbles and gave color to the faded world, it means that Shu reached out to Mika's soul and saved him from his despair.
The first chorus is about Mika's devotion to being Shu's doll, dancing in just the way Shu wants, discarding his own personhood as a consequence. The amber and lapis lazuli are again in reference to his eyes and his soul, and this time they are being used to describe how Mika disregards his own feelings for the sake of immersing himself in Valkyrie's productions and perfecting the art of dancing as Shu's marionette in the era where Valkyrie reigned at the top of the academy.
The second verse is another expression of appreciation for Shu. It's interesting to note that in Japanese, "the shadow cast by the waning crescent moon" contains all the parts of Mika's name (下限の"三日"月の欠けた"影"の一"片"/kagen no MIKAtsuki no kaketa KAGE no hitoHIRA), so this too is being used as a metaphor for Mika himself. The verb 「繕う」can be used to describe mending clothes, and Shu is skilled at sewing and he's the one who made all of Valkyrie's costumes, so even though a subject isn't specified in this sentence it can be inferred that the lyrics are referring to Shu as the one who sewed the shadow back together. Thus, this verse says that Shu fixed Mika when he was broken and made it easier for him to function as a human. In the stories Mika has expressed that he felt like he was simply a doll pretending to be human, maybe due to his struggles with connecting and relating to other people, or maybe because of his lack of autonomy, but in any case, Shu is the one who fixed him up to a state where he could even pretend to be human.
The bridge that goes like "even if this world fully collapses, that would be painless salvation" is about Valkyrie's fall from grace after Eichi stomped on them during the War, how they were on the brink of disbandment, and how they continued to be tormented by the new competition system put in place by the student council. The unit suffered so much that even if they did end up disbanding, it would be freeing.
But the last chorus is about how, despite all that, they continued on with poise and did not compromise their artistic style to conform to the new system, even if it meant losing status. The line "all I want is a rondo that forms a perfect loop" might be Mika expressing that he has grown weary from everything changing around him, and he just wants to be back in a comfortable routine of consistency and predictability again. And then at the very end, we come full circle with the glass soul metaphor again, as he says that even if he ends up burning out and caving in on himself, the love he feels for Shu and Valkyrie will eternally be scorched into the remnants of his soul.
...Is what I got out of this song!! But if anyone else interpreted any part in a different way I'd love to hear about that too :0
Lyrics: Matsui Yohei
Composition: Tanaka Shunsuke
Arrangement: Masuda Takeshi
Original vocalist: Kagehira Mika (CV: Oosuka Jun)
SVP, mixing, translation: Me
#EnsembleStars #Enstars #あんさんぶるスターズ #あんスタ