lyrics by JUN TOGAWA | music by FRANZ WULLNER
This song appears to be an adaptation of Wullner’s Choir Exercises in C, Op. 26, if such a thing exists. The giga in the title can also refer to a kind of cartoony drawing popular in the Edo period, but is most likely being used to refer to the modern sense of ‘caricature’ or ‘cartoon.’
Translation and notes under the cut:
A moth soars like a bird
Scattering its golden scales, see
Jinda (1), Rondo, Mazurka (2)
On my shoulder it sits
A moth that sings with a golden voice, see
Choir exercises, Concone (3)
The language of the kingdom of moths
Is exchanged through golden eyes, see
Iroha, Hifumi (4), Goodbye
1: I have no idea what this refers to, and no one on the internet seems to know either. I cross-referenced Chinese and Korean translations and found that they tended to note they didn’t know what it is. Even the Japanese bloggers I looked at didn’t understand it!
2: A Polish folk dance in triple meter. Chopin famously composed some mazurkas.
3: Giuseppe Concone, a famous Italian vocal teacher.
4: Names of traditional Japanese Shinto prayers, as well as the opening lines of each. Prayers for purification and happiness, I believe.
