January | 2018 | Thoughts on Oku Hanako

rebirth

I’m a little late, but happy new year! What better song to start the new year off with than one about rebirth?

“rebirth” is the last track on Oku Hanako’s 2010 album, “Utakata” / うたかた. It is fitting to be the last because it was also used as the ending theme to the PSP game “Tales of Phantasian: Narikiri Dungeon X“, a remake of the Game Boy Color game “Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon“, and the same game that featured Garasu no Hana / ガラスの花 as the opening theme and Hane / 羽 as the insert song, both of which can also be found on the album.

I couldn’t find a translation for the lyrics, so I decided to try to do one myself. I encourage you to read my translation notes.

Having not played the game, it’s difficult to make comments on how the song relates to the game. However, the original game’s Wikipedia article outlines the game’s storyline, which I will assume to be very similar to that of the remake. Spoilers ahead, so I’ll make my comments in the spoiler block below (this is really an excuse to try out the new details element):

Spoiler

At the end of the story, the player finds the two main characters reborn as babies as the flow of time is corrected.

That is the obvious connection between the game and the song’s title, but I can’t see anything to connect the lyrics to the title or story. It’s likely that I’m not reading closely enough, because I did just skim through the description of the story.

Narikiri Dungeon X: Rebirth by NortheasternWind [YouTube]