hiroki

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

can't help but feel that this whole debate is much ado about nothing 
 
if you're living in japan and regularly go to lives then you're entitled to give your opinion on their lives. if you're an international fan who voraciously gobbles up all their releases (legally or not) then you're entitled to evaluate the quality of their recorded music. the problem only arises when this discussion bleeds into the neighboring terrain of 'how does one objectively judge a band's quality?' or 'what's the proper way of enjoying a band?'--which never fails to generate 5 pages of same old thing that impresses no one in particular...
 
then there's the question of how much instrumental value you are actually of to the band, which is related but entirely separable from the first. it's def true that the actual impact of someone ordering a 3000 yen album from CDJapan on the band is probably a lot less than they think, but that doesn't reduce the weight of their opinion on the band's recorded music. critics all over the world are paid to do exactly that: to give their opinions while remaining pretty much monetarily irrelevant.

MEJIBRAY will go on indefinite hiatus at the end of 2017.
 
 

Probably already an overstated point for some of us, but just in case we get the inevitable "BUT... did the writer/lyricist mean/intend this??" objection (thankfully we haven't) - there's a landmark essay called "The Intentional Fallacy" by Wimsatt and Beardsley that has argued quite persuasively that it's immaterial what the author had meant to say. All we have at our disposal is the text, and what matters are the various readings the text opens itself to and makes possible as it circulates across different times, spaces, languages. We're not interested in (and can never be) plumbing the depths of the author's consciousness, so that's not the point of exercises like this  But if we really want to, we can satisfy ourselves with knowing that the band had knowingly alluded to Jean-Jacques Rousseau  
 
As for the song itself: while I generally don’t have much of an intuition for this kind of lyrics (I’m sure most MH people have more meaningful things to say on the lyrics directly), I found a ton of interesting ideas in the previous posts that I feel I can say something about so allow me to briefly chip in with some of my thoughts. More than a detailed reading of the lyrics per se it's kind of a running “commentary” with some indications along the way (hopefully) on why/how these ideas might hook on to the lyrics.
 
I'll limit myself to making one longer comment and a shorter one. My longer point reads more like an extended footnote to @chemicalpictures's post so I'll put it under spoiler tags:
 
 
And the shorter remark: I was going to comment on the ‘doppelganger’ effect in the lyrics (everyone who has said something so far has noticed a kind of echo, repetition, or doubling that takes place in the lyrics) but this post is long enough so I'll keep it to a few words:
 
In Rousseau’s philosophy, he makes a distinction between what he calls amour de soi (love of the self) and amour-propre (self-love). “Love of the self” is a regard for self-preservation independent of what other people might think or feel about me, while “self-love” is a ‘corrupted’ version which arose because we desire other people to see us in a particular way. This is related to the whole "passage from savagery to civilization" narrative that the Enlightenment was obsessed with (for Rousseau, “self-love” only emerged in a “civilized” society where we're compelled to enter into social/political relationships with other people) – but more important for our purposes is how this “self-love” operates on the basis of a kind of split subjectivity. What I mean is that Rousseau’s “self-love” assumes not one but two “I”, one that other people see and we want to make look good, and a more interior/primitive “I” behind the screen that’s making this judgment in advance and dressing up the first "I", as it were. In Chiaki’s lyrics we find a series of echoes: “デキタ。” (in Katakana) becoming “できた。” (Hiragana) – a repetition but in a different script – almost like a different (/same?) person repeating the same words. Also, the line “僕は「僕」と君とディナー” is precisely this doubling of the self that Rousseau’s “self-love” gestures towards: an (authentic) I, and a (spectral) “I” that exists as a second-order construction in language, set typographically here in quotation marks.
 

BLESSCODE will sell their MEMORIAL BOX (9,800 yen) through mail order, by pre-order only.
 
Pre-order starts today and will end in 1 week's time, on 2017/05/21.
 
Contents include:
1) Memorial Photo Book
2) Post card
3) CD
4) Last Live DVD
 
 

BLESSCODE will sell their MEMORIAL BOX (9,800 yen) through mail order, by pre-order only.
 
Pre-order starts today and will end in 1 week's time, on 2017/05/21.
 
Contents include:
1) Memorial Photo Book
2) Post card
3) CD
4) Last Live DVD