Anisong of the Season: Oath Sign

So I decided to resurrect Anisong of the Season. Fall 2011 was an overall pretty awesome season with plenty of great music. It felt like almost every show had an OP, ED or both worth sitting through – Tamayura, Last Exile, Chihayafuru, Guilty Crown, Mirai Nikki, even the idolm@ster songs got better in the second half. So I was left with the happy problem of actually being spoilt for choice for Anisong of the Season, in contrast with the season before where I basically just gave up because I didn’t particularly like anything.

In the end from among my favorites of the season (Which included tracks like Memoria of Fate/Zero, Starboard of Last Exile) I chose Oath Sign, the ringing, beating OP for Fate/Zero. Fate/Zero was to me the best show of Fall 2011, head and shoulders and waist, and Oath Sign just had that certain “just right” quality to get you into the correct mood for the show every time, almost on the level of what Bouken Desho Desho did for the original Haruhi. The spectacular animation sequence that accompanied it and LiSA’s rough-and-raw rock-out style only added to the awesome. Loved it, love it. I only hope that the new OP that would in all likelihood surface for the next half would be as awesome. It’ll be a long wait :( Especially since, Nisemonogatari awesome notwithstanding, Winter is thus far looking like a really dry season compared to what we got in Fall.

(Random insert: why does Last Exile 2 appear to be so off-the-radar, at least among the aniblogs that I follow? That stuff ended up something I would consider top-three material even in the stacked season that it fell in, and yet no one seems to be murmuring a word about it. Weird.)

So anyway, here’s Oath Sign by LiSA. As usual, you can hit F8 to listen to it while it’s up, and hit the jump for a picture, Romaji lyrics, and translations. Enjoy.


Lyrics

Kurikaesu sekai nando te wo nobashitara
Hakanai namida wa kuroi kokoro tokasu no?

Mebaedashita omoi ga mune ni hibiita nara
Kimi no tonari de zutto kawarazu mamoru darou

Ochita kibou wo hirotte asu ni tsunaide yukeba
Karamatta ibitsu na negai datte hodokeru

Hikari wo kazashite tamerai wo keshita
Agetakatta no wa mirai de
Naiteru yoru daita mama nageki wo sakende

Fumiireta ashi wo tooku no risou ga
Sotto iyashite yuku
Tashika na kizuna wo tsuyoku nigiri susumou doko made mo
Kegarekitta kiseki wo se ni

Tsukurareta omoi furereba nani yori mo
Atatakakute genjitsu ga kasumi hajimeru

Kurui dashita sekai ni toika ketsuzukete mo
Kotae nante denaitte mou kimi wa shitte ita no?

Naite nijinda negai wa Kesshite yurugi wa shinakute
Tada sotto itami wo owarinaku ataeru

Kanashimi wo shitte Yorokobi mo shitta
Yowasa wa kimi wo kaete
Tachidomatta toki Hagare subete wo kowashita

Todoku hazu no nai kotoba wo takushite
Mieta hitomi wa
Nani wo kanjite toozakeru no?
Kokoro kakusu youni

Ima koko ni iru imi
Oshiete kureta nara
Tsuyoku irareru kawarazu itsumo

Hikari wo kazashite tamerai wo keshita
Agetakatta no wa mirai de
Naiteru yoru daita mama nageki wo sakende

Fumiireta ashi wo tooku no risou ga
Sotto iyashite yuku
Tashika na kizuna wo tsuyoku nigiri susumou doko made mo

Mayoi nante me wo hiraite
Furiharatte te wo nobasou
Kegarekitta kiseki wo se ni

Translation

If I never stop reaching out to a repeating world
Will my fleeting tears melt a black heart?

If these budding feelings echoed in my chest
Then I’ll surely stand with you and protect you as always

If I can pick up a fallen hope and connect it with tomorrow
Even a wish entangled and twisted can come unraveled

I held up the light and banished hesitation
What I wanted to give to you was: In the future
On nights when you weep, while I hold you, cry out your grief

The distant ideals will take my advancing feet
and gently heal them
Holding on to those definite bonds, I’ll go on
No matter where to
Bearing tainted miracles on my back

When I touch these feelings that we created,
my reality, warmer than ever, will begin to fog

Even if we continue questioning a world in chaos
No answer will come – you knew this didn’t you

A wish, though blurred by tears, will never waver
It simply continues to pain me softly, endlessly

You learn of sorrow, having known joy
Weakness changes you
Free yourself from the frozen moment, bring everything down!

Trusting in words that should never have come across
These eyes that I see -
What do they feel that they distance themselves
As if hiding their heart

If you’ve taught me
The reason I am here,
I can stay strong, without change, forever.

I held up the light and banished hesitation
What I wanted to give to you was: In the future
On nights when you weep, while I hold you, cry out your grief

The distant ideals will take my advancing feet
and gently heal them
Holding on to those definite bonds, I’ll go on
No matter where to

Hesitation? I’ll open my eyes,
Shrug it off, and reach out
Bearing tainted miracles on my back

Romaji Lyrics taken from Gendou’s Anime Music.
Translation by me, adapted from translations from AnimeLyrics.com and Gendou’s Anime Music.

(PS. This song was pretty darn hard to translate, so I’m not sure how accurate this end result is. I’m pretty sure that the other two translations aren’t any better though, and I really didn’t like them, so as usual I wrote my own)