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Welcome to the start of my new project - "Translating the most influential book of the year - The hyDE"!!

As promised, I will be translating this 'hyde Bible' over the next coming months/years(!?), and due to popular
demand I will be doing all the chapters (hopefully) in order. I think it'll flow better that way anyway and if
hyde intended the book to be read that way, I want to keep to his wishes.
But to begin with, a couple of rules. PLEASE READ THESE as the last thing I want to do is offend anyone, or
convey the wrong messages, or get into trouble!
1) The translations are done by myself (Risa, the admin person) who is not a professional translator - I am
infact a scientist by profession and have never even dreamt that I'd be doing so much literature-related
work!! I am a Japanese/English bilingual but I can't guarantee 100% accuracy - I try to do translations by
meaning and nuance, so hopefully hyde's messages will be conveyed as accurately as possible. Oh and this
is JUST A HOBBY! I'm not profiting from this in any way (have to state that just in case I get sued or
something!).
2) Having read the book, it's quite a moving book and I have to admit some of it made me cry. In some parts
he has told us some deep and emotional things, which some people may find shocking or upsetting (having
read some Japanese fan blogs). I find it's always harder to translate something which I feel emotionally
about, so as much as I will try to exclude any element of bias, please be aware of this fact. Where the
interpretation of hyde's words can be a bit ambiguous, I will write every possible interpretation of the words
so you can interpret it however you wish.
3) PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT SHARE OUTSIDE THIS PAGE!! Afterall, 'The hyDE' is a copyright protected book,
and as much as I feel it's important that all the fans in the world can share this wonderful book, I don't want
to get into trouble! So if you want to share it, please guide the person here to this page. Anything you are
unclear about, please ask :)
4) Please be aware that at first sign of any trouble, I will delete this project entirely. Or, if on a happier note,
if there is any sign of an official English/other language version coming out, I will terminate this project.
OK, disclaimers over! I really do feel that every hyde/L'Arc fan should read this book, or at least have the
right to read this book, so I hope you all enjoy it!!! If there is anything unclear, or confusing, or something
that doesn't make sense, please feel free to let me know!
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1. Ability
I do have an adoration for geniuses. There are times when I think that I don't have any talent as a musician,
and I blindly play the guitar to the extent of breaking the strings, or scream in the middle of the night
because of the stress of not being able to find the melody I want in my head. Its always like that during the
composing-period I dont know if there was ever a time when I thought it was enjoyable. During the limited
time that I have, I feel distress, confuse myself, feel sleepy, feel envious of others talents, and repeat the
cycle of removing and adding bits from songs that are like an immature clay sculpture. It takes me much
more time than a regular composer. I re-arrange it again and again, spending weeks on it, and finally
encounter the melody that Id been searching for in my head. The song then becomes complete. I listen to it
as the first ever listener. And when I feel that its utterly beautiful, I think of myself as a little bit of a genius.
In most cases, I think the creation of something new is an addition/combination of different things. For
example, you dont normally think of combining a squid and a TV right (laugh)? But in reality, that has led to
the discovery of LCDs (Note: they used to use cholesterol from squids to make liquid crystals). Like that, I
think the addition of things lead to the creation of new things. Most people would look at those things and
wont think anything of them. But if I were to state what my talent was, I think Im good at recognising and
combining things.

For instance, when Im making music and think that I want a heavier, stronger element and say Dont you
think itll be cool if we add something like that part from Metallica here?, its difficult because most of the
time Im not understood, because The chord is major here or The tempo is different. Every time I think
Ah, people dont understand this feeling and in the end I have to convey it by putting it into practice. A
good example is when I tried to combine R&B and metal for X X X.
Also, because I know nothing about musical theory, Im often told that my chord progressions are unique and
strange. I end up modulating the chord without even noticing. Although now I can think of it as one of my
unique characteristics.
Using these to the full extent, I write the song like polishing a raw stone into a gem in the shape of the
image I would like to create. In other words, I arrange and rearrange my own song. Thats the method of
song writing that Ive discovered, and because of that I think the process of arranging is my forte. Taking my
own song, combining it with different things, changing it, and arranging a seemingly boring song into a song
that I like myself. In my case its rare that I write a brilliant song to start with, so its like I arrange that track
and make it into something better. As a result, for one song I end up with dozens of different versions. As far
as I know, Im the only person that writes songs like that. Thats probably where Im different to everyone
else. For X X X, I continuously arranged it for about 5 months (laugh). Despite it being on purpose.
This was really noticeable when I was working on ROENTGEN. At that time, Id decided that I was going to
write 10 tracks, but in the end it took me an entire year just to arrange them. I came to terms with the fact
that with my abilities, I can only make 1 track per month at most. Its more like a patient and effort-filled
process rather than a talent.
Regarding if every creation is a complete original, its hard to say. Something similar may already exist, and I
may be copying it without even noticing it. I think the world is full of plagiarism anyway (laugh). Taking
something and presenting it as your own after just changing something minor isnt an art, but I think taking
an aspect of something as a reference or copying it is a natural thing that cant be helped. They say 99
percent of success/invention is built on failure, and indeed most of the time I think any famous song is a
combination of already existing things. I guess it's the word plagiarism that doesn't make it sound very
good. For example, there are many people that currently say that China is plagiarising Japan, but if you think
about it, post-war Japan was plagiarising America, right? A country thats in the processing of developing
doesnt have a secure foundation yet, so theres no other way but to copy other countries. Therefore, I think
copying, or absorbing elements from other things, is the basics of creating something. What is art and what
requires artistic sense, is if one can take that and arrange it to be something of their own and express it in
their own way.
Because I have no engineering sense nor musical theory, I do think I could create something even more
better by adding something like kens ear (Note: ability to listen/hear sounds). For instance, by finely
analysing each sound. I always end up listening to sounds in a vague/broad way, so often there are cases
where upon being told, I notice Ah, if you say so, indeed this bit sounds a bit messy. I think people like ken
recognise things like that straight away. But for me, I cant recognise these musical things, like where the
sounds clash, so I do think itd be better if I had such an ear... If I did, I guess I could be like STING. STING is
an ideal musician, who has both the engineering abilities as well as the song writing skills. But in my case, I
write just with inspiration, so the chord modulations are all over the place, and I dont even notice it. I think
Kurt Cobain must have been like that too. On the other hand ken says that he can only modulate the chords
if he intends to. So if I did understand the musical theories, the songs I write will probably sound quite
different. But if I try to do that, I have to study lots of different things, which could be a bit tedious (laugh).
I reckon I understand to some extent what the listeners are thinking. I can pretty much predict sales figures
too. But personally I like writing unpredictable songs and observing everyones reactions. Its not like my
musical sense is completely different to the rest of the world, so I do feel that the songs that I feel are good
will be accepted by the public to some extent. Thats why its possible for me to take that risk/make a bet, by

purposefully releasing songs that arent like anything else in the charts. I believe in my musical sense and
bet on it. Well, not that when I bet on it Ive ever had a massive win (laugh).
Having created music for 20 years, there are many people who have grown up whilst listening to our songs.
We have been colouring/decorating stages of these peoples lives. In that sense, I feel its a really rewarding
profession when Im praised and thanked for these things, but when I think about it now, I feel that we didnt
used to do it properly enough (Note: the word used here sort of means randomly, not seriously, not
properly, however we wanted which is extremely hard to translate properly!). Randomly playing the guitar,
randomly writing songs and randomly singing them it was hard work at the time, but when I listen to them
now I feel theyre immature. Its because I havent ever studied how to improve my vocals, or different
methods of song writing. So because of that, Im happy to hear that lots of people love the songs we wrote at
the time, but a part of me thinks that we should have done it more properly.
I think its important to not have prejudices when you are looking for your own talents. I used to go to art
college because I originally wanted to be a designer, but because of my colour weakness (colour amblyopia)
I was having a dilemma that No one is going to want a designer that cant tell colours apart. But then I met
the guitar. And when I started to write songs, I noticed that writing songs was the same as drawing. The fact
that it was creating something was the same. Obviously the methods are completely different, but I think
art is the same, whatever you do if you draw, if you write songs, or if you do pottery. If the process itself is
enjoyable is another matter, but when I started writing songs and they were complete, I was really excited.
And at that moment, I realised that even with my colour weakness, I was able to do music and from there I
flourished. If I had thought, Theres no way I can play the guitar, I wouldnt be where I am now. I still think I
was more talented at drawing, but I havent drawn properly in years so I guess that talent may have gone by
now. In my case, because I was willing to try something new, I could change my perspective and find my own
path. In that sense, as long as you are willing to try something new without any prejudices, you can find lots
of different talents within yourself.

I'M ON A ROLL!!!
Because it's so nice to see everyone enjoying the translations and since today is the official release date of
L'Arc~en~Ciel's long awaited album 'BUTTERFLY', I have translated chapter 2 (well, and the fact that it's
quite a short chapter). ENJOY!
(But I warn you, it's not always going to be this regular that I post these - I'm quite a busy girl!)

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2. BIRTH
My birthday is the 29th of January, and I think they said I was born just after midnight. My bloodtype is O.
They wanted a girl, so I was often dressed up in girly clothes. Theres a photo of me in a bikini (laugh).
The reason why I thought I should talk about the things that Ive never spoken about before, is because of
this birthday issue. I found it painful to watch my fans saying to each other we shouldnt be celebrating
because its not official when they wanted to celebrate my birthday.
But Ill continue to not reveal my age. For some reason, the Japanese media always tend to state the age of
people on articles and TV clips. I really dont like that. Thats the one thing Im glad I havent ever revealed. I
think its a bit vulgar, and its uncool. When talking about someone, there are plenty of other things to state
than their age, but for some reason thats the one thing that always pops up. For instance, Id understand if

they state Grammy Award Winner if theyre talking about an artist. Therefore, even if theres much
speculation and its sort of obvious anyway, I have no intention to reveal my age.
I was born in Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture. Although I hadnt revealed that,the local people
obviously know, right? Especially since there arent many artists who come from there. So in the past theyve
said things like Why doesnt he reveal his hometown? or I bet hes embarrassed because Wakayama is in
the countryside, and a local newspapers even sarcastically written Lets revitalise our town, so that a
certain-artist can admit that hes from here. But that wasn't the reason why I hadnt disclosed this
information - it was because I had a certain ideal that I was longing for.
When I first started playing in a band, I was into the horror-hardcore or slash-metal bands like The Misfits and
GASTUNK. I had an adoration for those sorts of bands that had an unidentified, unknown, and mysterious
identity and I wanted to be like them. Therefore I had no intention in revealing my age, real name or
hometown even as LArc~en~Ciel.
But obviously the public didnt want to understand or relate to my ideals (laugh), which made me think Ah,
so youre going to take it that way? (Note: the local people thinking hyde is embarrassed about his
hometown) they thought that way, even though I myself was aware that hiding things for such reasons
was uncool. For example, I have a friend that's completely opposite to me he was from Nara, but when
someone asked him where he was from, he would say Osaka. When I asked him Why?, he said I want
people to think Im cool, so I dont want to say Im from Nara. Personally, I felt that thought itself was
uncool, but the fact that the public saw me in that way too... I found that really frustrating. But I never hid
these things in my private life. Ideally I want to be one of those people who hide everything even in their
private life, but Im not a person that can be like that.
The love for ones hometown spirit (Note: theres a word in Japanese which means this the fondness, or
pride, that people feel about their local hometown) isnt very strong in Wakayama, but its the place that
shaped me as a human being its full of my playful childhood memories and all the feelings from my
teenage years so my hometown is very important to me. Even now, I meet up with my friends from back
home once a year. I make an effort so that we don't lose contact/lose our friendship/bonds.
The bottom line is, in the end LArc~en~Ciel werent able to become the mysterious band that I had yearned
for back then. Because LArc~en~Ciel became major, if such a major existence was hiding their profile, its
natural for people to want to find out about them. Back then, when Id been longing for those ideals, the
world wasnt governed by the internet, and I wouldnt have even dreamt that it would become like this. In
this day and age, whatever you hide will be revealed by the internet. So in that sense, it can never be like it
was back then.
By revealing the things that Ive never spoken of before, there may be some fans that will feel disappointed.
But in the end everyone knows anyway, and I dont feel the appeal of remaining silent any longer.

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