ビニール袋は油膜の虹をみるか || Does the Plastic Bag Look at the Rainbow on the Oil Slick?

ビニール袋は油膜の虹をみるか
biniiru bukuro wa yumaku no niji wo miru ka
Does the Plastic Bag Look at the Rainbow on the Oil Slick?

Vocals: ランコ (Ranko)
Lyrics: azuki
Arranged by: kaztora
Album: パライソ (Paraiso) [Official site]
Circle: 森羅万象 (Shinra-Bansho)
Event: Reitaisai 10 [RTS10]
Original theme: Akutagawa Ryuunosuke’s “Kappa” ~ Candid Friend [芥川龍之介の河童　～ Candid Friend]

Requested by: ze

More azuki lyrics. I picture a Gensokyo overrun by the modern world when I listen to this one. And poor Nitori walks alongside what used to be a river, mourning for her beloved Gensokyo…

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Unofficial translation/非公式の英訳

I tread upon the irrigation channel, moistening my parched body.
Rustling, rustling… I flow downstream, towards the distance.
I feel no signs of life in the currents. Human ego flows, rustling by…
What kind of dream is the plastic bag having?

A rainbow-coloured blackness floated in the sediment.
Though it hurt, I continued to swim.

Inhuman building blocks gently drew close
And the setting sun shone upon the debris.
No traces of times long past were in the mud I seized.
Please, don’t forget…

I walk across the gutter, checking where it leads.
Rustling, rustling… I’ll go somewhere beyond the wire fence.
I aim at the gaps and throw something at them. I’m dirty by nature.
For whose sake does the water flow?

The modern conveniences gathered on the riverbank
Could not pay the price of usefulness…

I take an unfathomable pane of glass in my hands
And I look at the setting sun through it.
Screws are scattered about. I turn them, turn them, turn them… look!
They sink towards the whirlpool.

The plastic bag that aimed for the sea is lost in the approaching waves.
A rainbow still reflects from its figure, even as it sinks to the bottom.

Before they know it, humans part with this world and set off.
But my eyes gaze upon debris spreading out before me.
I sit down and lament nature, which will not return.

The clear mud loiters on the piping
And the rainbow continues without end.
But why does the plastic bag continue? For whose sake?
For its own sake.

The dreaming electronics, too,
Cling to the rusty radio.
The sun rises upon the horizon
And the oil slick spreads out beyond –
It is the world of rainbows and plastic bags.