Evangelion - Zankoku na Tenshi no tēze

[isaacsol]

I am working on the Evangelion opening, which I hope to submit to the site (as a correction >.<) but I need some expert advise on it.

The lyrics are on a YouTube video, as annotations. The video though is not the greatest quality.

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[Rizuchan]

I don't know if you could call me an expert, but I'll give some comments on it.
Please though, next time transcribe the lyrics and post them in the thread. Having to watch the video to read them all is troublesome, and even more so to post about. :wacko:


残酷な天使のように 少年よ　神話になれ
Just like the cruel angel, young boy, become a legend.
This is just a minor opinionated thing, but I always seem to see 少年 in this song translated as "young boy". I don't know about you, but when I think of "young boy" I think, what, a boy about 5 or 6 years old? I think "young man" or just "boy" is more accurate.


青い風がいま
胸のドアを叩いても
A blue wind is now tapping on the door of your heartYou're missing いても here. It should be more like "Even though a blue wind is now tapping on the door of your heart"


私だけをただ見つめて
微笑んでるあなた
You look only at me, and smile.Don't miss ただ here. だけ belongs to 私 but ただ belongs to 見つめて (does that make sense?) technically this is all describing あなた, so it should be more like "You, smiling, are just looking at me and only me". This doesn't sound very good in English, though, so you can probably get away with artistic liscence using something simpler like "You are just looking only at me, smiling".


そっとふれるもの
もとめることに夢中で
You who avidly seek the gentle touch of another"Avidly" isn't quite right. 夢中 is literally "in a dream", meaning in this case the person is preoccupied with this to the point of tuning everything else out. Something like "You are so engrossed with seeking the gentle touch of another"


運命さえまだ知らない
いたいけな瞳
Even your innocent eyes do not know their fate
you're missing まだ here. Also, this line is a continuation of the previous and should be treated as such.
"You can't even see your fate yet, with such innocent eyes"


遥か未来　めざすための　羽根があること
There are wings that will take you to the distant futureThis correction of mine is rather picky, but ための means "for the purpose of", like "[there] are wings for the purpose of aiming for the future"


ほとばしる熱いパトスで
With an overflowing of hot pathos"ほとばしる" is being used as an adjective here to describe pathos. I think "overflowing" isn't strong enough here, ほとばしる means "to gush out". ("With surging, hot pathos")


私の愛の揺りかご
In the cradle of your love"私の愛" that would be "the cradle of my love" :)


あなただけが　夢の使者に
呼ばれる朝がくる
In the morning when you will be called alone by the messenger of dreams.You don't need "when" in there, it makes this sentence a fragment and isn't there in the original Japanese. Though, if you want to be more literal, it should be "When the morning comes, you, alone, will [...]"


もしもふたり逢えたことに　意味があるなら
If two people drawn are together has any meaningThis isn't wrong but in this case I think ふたり is personal to the speaker, rather than ambiguous, like "If the two of us being drawn together has any meaning"


私はそう　自由を知る　ためのバイブル
I know that the bible contains freedom自由を知る　ための all describes "bible". That makes it a "bible for learning freedom". The translation on the website has a good footnote about this.


悲しみがそしてはじまる
And the beginning of sadnessはじまる is a verb. "And then the sadness begins"


抱きしめた命のかたち
その夢に目覚めたとき
When you awoke, you held tightly onto the form of life.Don't forget "その夢に", "When you awoke from that dream". Also, the use of "その" here implies that "dream" is the subject of the previous sentence as well. "When you awoke from the dream where you held tightly onto the form of life"


女神なんてなれないまま
Even though I know I'll never be a goddessThis isn't a biggie since a lot of translations I've seen omit it, but "なんて" after a noun means "or anything of the such". "I'll never be a goddess or anything like that, but..."

[isaacsol]

Thank you so much, this has helped me a lot, and it has helped a bit with my Japanese as I know see more about grammar. I will make these corrections soon. Next time I post a song, I will post it as a text file, the only reason I didn't this time was the uploads were not working for me here.

With the 'shounen' part, the reason I chosen 'young boy' was because it seemed to make more sense in the sentence itself, and in the context as well. The 'young boy' was no doubt referring to Ikari Shinji, the 14 year old main character of the series.

I am going to start work on the translation now. Thank you very much.