Bouningen – IND translation

This post contains an Indonesian translation for 棒人間 (*Bouningen*) a song by RADWIMPS, but I also want to talk about the song in English for a bit.

As with my previous song translation post, this is mostly done to practice my Japanese. For this one though, to my shame, I immediately gave up after the first verse and looked up Lyrical Nonsense’s excellent English translation as well. So I guess this is more like a translation from both the original and LN’s English version? I’ve tried my best to defer to the Japanese version, though.

RADWIMPS’s lyrics often feels a bit more like prose than a song, the way the words rush along, creating full sentences instead of the typical verses. The way they rhyme and how they’re structured is… well I don’t know the first thing about songwriting and even less about songwriting in Japanese, but I still feel like it’s very nice, despite or perhaps because of the way the words ram into each other. And the way this song in particular is sung! The implicit, nonchalant heartbreak. The way it kinda catch you by surprise with all the implicit emotions.

I’ve never looked up Bouningen’s lyrics before working on this translation, but I did pick up a few words here and there. “僕は人間じゃないんです、ほんとにごめんなさい (boku wa ningen janain desu, hontoni gomennasai) (I’m not human, I’m truly sorry)” is the easiest part to recognize, the centrepiece of the song. I had thought that the song is about a robot or other type of artificial life who can’t become human no matter how hard they tried. Reading the whole lyrics though, it’s a lot more heartbreaking than that. I want to give them the very biggest hug, and this goes out to everyone who reads these lyrics and feel like they relate!

Anyway, below is the Indonesian translation.

Biasanya kalau nerjemahin prosa, aku sering mengubah struktur atau memilih kata yang berbeda demi menyampaikan maksud implisit yang gak bakal ketangkep kalau gak kuubah dikit. Berhubung ini lagu, terjemahanku lebih berusaha mendekati arti per-kata dalam bahasa aslinya. Kalau ada yang lebih mahir bahasa Jepang dan bisa koreksi, mohon bantuannya ya!

棒人間 (Manusia Coretan)

ねぇ
僕は人間じゃないんです　ほんとにごめんなさい
そっくりにできてるもんで　よく間違われるのです

Nee
Boku wa ningen janain desu, honto ni gomennasai
Sokkuri ni dekiteru mon de, yoku machigawareru no desu

Jadi…
Aku bukan manusia. Mohon maafku yang sebesar-besarnya.
Aku dibentuk begitu mirip dengan manusia, jadi aku sering salah dianggap sama.