In 1989, there was an anime released called Curse of the Undead: Yoma. It’s not remembered much today, except for its theme song called the Yoma Counting Song. The thing is, the translation of this song seems to be kind of fuzzy and, most likely, not very accurate. Can any Japanese language experts shed some light on this?
妖魔・数え唄
Youma Kazoe Uta
Yoma Counting Song
一つ、一夜の恋ならば
Hitotsu, hitoyo no koi naraba
One, a one-night love
二つ、二人で地獄へと
Futatsu, futari de jigoku e to
Two, if the two of us go to hell
三つ、皆を殺しても
Mittsu, minna o koroshite mo
Three, we’ll kill everyone too
四つ、黄泉への道標
Yottsu, yomi e no michishirube
Four, signpost to the underworld
五つ、戦の血の雨の
Itsutsu, ikusa no chi no ame no
Five, the blood rain of the war
六つ、骸とかわりゃせぬ
Muttsu, mukuro to kawarya senu
Six, just like a dead body
七つ、涙も枯れ果て
Nanatsu, namida no kare hate te
Seven, my tears run dry
八つ、闇夜が溶けてゆく
Yattsu, yami yo ga tokete yuku
Eight, the dark night starts to melt
九つ、今夜は祝言を
Kokonotsu, kon’ya wa shuugen o
Nine, we’ll have a wedding tonight
十、で吐息を朱に染めて
Too, de to iki no shu ni somete
Ten, our breaths are dyed red
Well, I’m no expert – in fact I’m rather rusty…
However, since nobody else has answered at all, I thought I’d throw in my two bucks’ worth:
- The counting is in an ancient Japanese progression. Even the ‘native’ teachers where I taught English in Japan in the 1990’s were only able to count up to five in that old system. More common is the names of numbers that were borrowed from the Chinese:
1 - Ichi…6 - Roku
2 - Ni…7 - Shichi
3 - San…8 - Hachi
4 - Shi…9 - Ku
5 - Go…10 - Ju
…however, the Japanese will often use a mixture of the old and borrowed names of the numbers, substituting Yon for 4 and Nana for 7 and often counting some objects 1,2,3 using the Hitotsu, Futatsu, Mitsu nomenclature.
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There’s a transcription/typography error on the last line of Japanese characters. The “no” is actually supposed to be ‘wo’ and is the same as the character in the third line – it looks like a plus-sign with a leg sticking out, and a C drawn to intersect that leg. Individually, it’s pronounced ‘wo’ but when used in a sentence it’s pronounced ‘o’ (though non-native speakers will often include the ‘w’ sound when they encounter it).
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If my mother were still alive, she’d probably be able to translate more accurately and tell you more about the background of the song, if it’s traditional. My ability to read Kanji was never that good, so the above is all I can offer.
—G
BTW: Sounds like a gloomy song, at least with the translations you’ve got listed.