How was bringing Hengen Jizai into Portuguese?

I decided to write this post in English to comment a little on how it was to translate Hengen Jizai, by Pina Pengin, into my native language, Portuguese, and how I made the cover that I published. ^^

The idea came shortly after Pina started publishing Deep Dive explaining how the creation process was for her. I remember her commenting (was it at the afterparty?) how difficult it was to translate the lyrics into English. And that clicked for me. "Would I be able to translate it into my language too?" Well, Hengen Jizai seemed to invite me for it. "You can do what you want". So I started working on it May 5th.

Below I explain what I did. TLDR, I finished the entire project in 2 months (between days when I dedicated myself completely and days when I took a break waiting for inspiration). I think I re-recorded it 20 or 30 times in total before I got the final result (yes LOL). I learned a lot in the process, and although my recording has a lot of imperfections compared to the original (didn't call anyone to help me with mixing, etc.), I decided it would be interesting this way, because I wanted to see how far I can go.

The Lyrics Translation

Although I understand the English language well, my knowledge of Japanese is quite low. Pina published the lyrics in Japanese, and then also adapted them to English. So I did the following: Using tools, I translated both versions into Portuguese. Studying the two automatic translations, along with what I understand about English, I tried to find the meaning of each paragraph, after all, the most important is not to translate word-for-word, but to transmit the original message. I made a table to write down each part, like in the next picture.

For this post, I'm going to reorganize the table, showing the original, the adaptation, and the retranslation of my version back to English. Here:

Ok, this is the start. The first sentence speaks of a light going out, and that was easy to translate. But then came the word Devil, or Akuma. The literal translation in Portuguese is "Diabo" (Devil) or "demônio" (demon), however these words are kind of taboo here for some religious people in Brazil. So I changed the word to "mal" (evil), which indicates evil in a more general sense, which can apply to inner feelings too.

It was fun to translate "cut loose from the Demon's puppet string" to "cortar as cordas do mal", as strings appear in the video at this point. "Se libertar de suas garras" (free yourself from its claws) was an interesting addition, as hands, as if they were claws, appear at the top of the video as well. PLUS, "garras" rhymes with "almas", so this was pretty much perfect. *chef kiss*

In this part I was in doubt if I would keep "what are you waiting for" in English, but if I did that, I would end up repeating it twice. And I also thought it will be better to translate the entire song into Portuguese... so in the adaptation I changed the first question to another one.

HYPE.

The most important part here is how to translate "Hengen Jizai". As in English, I believe there is no exact translation into Portuguese for this term. The translators suggested to me "infinito" (infinite) and "mutável" (changeable). And "freedom" wass a separate word from "ever-changing" in the English lyrics... What would I do now? Well, I started thinking about the overall meaning of the song. It's telling me that we are free to choose any path we want, right? So, it's possible to pass this message with "liberdade infinita" (infinite freedom), joining the meanings of freedom with ever-changing. And so it became the name of the song for me, Liberdade Infinita. ^^

This part is the answer to the "what are you waiting for" question from earlier. Not much to comment here, other than the fact that the last sentence was hard to translate xD. A literal translation would be "viva sua própria libertada vida", which is too big and doesn't make much sense in Portuguese actually. So I adapted it to "seja livre e viva" (be free and live). Why I broke my head so much with such a small sentence, I don't know. xD

This was the hardest part to translate for me. So far, I don't know if I managed to convey the right idea in Portuguese. But Pina's English lyrics was a big help here.

And this part, maybe it became darker than the original xD. But it described a fear many people have: the fear of being judged for not doing what others expect. After this part, the chorus reminds us that freedom of choice is ours.

The translation here was smooth. ^^

Guitar noises. 🎸

And then we have the chorus and other repetitions. End of translation, wohooo!

OMG I have the lyrics! ... what if I try to sing?

During the translation I was already singing to myself to check the rhymes and timings. So at the end I sang the whole thing and was amazed at how good it turned out. And then, I ended up thinking about going further. "What if I recorded it?" It would be my first time doing a cover. 👀

First I tried to get the original video and recording myself singing over it, but I was making a lot of mistakes doing that. Then I remembered Aoi Tokimori's streams recording some songs: she records little by little, using a mixing program to put the parts together. So I downloaded a program for that too, put the karaoke version of Hengen Jizai, and started trying to record various parts separately and putting together the best attempts. I think there were about 10 to 15 attempts here in total. I learned how to do a radio voice in two parts, it turned out really well! In the end, I had the audio recording done, with no errors.

And now, how to make the video? For this, in OBS I merged my audio and the original video, and then I used my model while playing the recording. Yes, I mimed myself xD.

But that part was also surprisingly hard. I got the timing wrong several times, sometimes I forgot to mute my mic, and other times I just didn't move well (keeping the eyes closed during the instrumental was very difficult, I had to learn to adjust the model to achieve this). I did another 10 to 15 attempts here, until finally it was acceptable. You can say that I got 30 pon points in these two months. Was this the same average as Pina? xD

OK, I'm really sorry for this long text, but thanks for reading! I'm looking forward to Pina's return, and I hope you like this cover. PINA LOVE!