Anisong: Koi Boudou

So I didn’t watch too much last season, but amongst the limited set of stuff I perused this song caught on to me best. Koi Boudou is the ED to Binbougami Ga, which is a show that looked somewhat cheap at the beginning, but which turned out to be something quite worthwhile after all. The shoddy production values and the non-novel (but still funny) slapstick comedy aside, the show took the “reach through Ichiko’s apparently bad personality into the lonely but kind person underneath” part of the story surprisingly seriously and played it all out with a satisfying level of depth. I liked it. I also like that “people are nicer than they seem on the surface” is a commonly recurring theme in anime. It’s an idea well worth being constantly reminded of.

The song Koi Boudou has this bouncy, cheeky feel that I felt helped define the mood of the show. Also in particular, one of the things that really caught me is how the lyrics and the presentation of the accompanying video made the song seem to resonate deliciously with the outwardly-obnoxious yet innerly-lovable nature of Ichiko’s personality, as well as with her love-hate relationship with Momiji. Alas the world is sometimes an ugly place – I listened to the full version and realized that the setting is really that of a girl complaining about another girl flirting with her guy. Le yawnz, terrible! So terrible that we at Between Linux and Anime are just gonna pretend the full version never existed. Ostrich head-in-sand style.

So what we have here is the TV version! The one ambiguous enough that we could fancy it being about the broken relationship between our main characters – hate, dislike, laced with grudging care and inexorable love. In fact the way the video is arranged I think hints that Sunrise themselves intended this fancy to some degree. We shall fancy away and savor it then. As usual, you can hit F8 to listen to it while it’s up (or play it from the player at the sidebar). Hit the jump for some pictures, Romaji lyrics, and translations. Enjoy!



Lyrics

Tennen yosooi uwamezukai shite
Ano ko wa aitsu ni motare kakaru
Atashi no shisen wo shitte i nagara
Shiran kao shite misetsukeru

Oshiete agetai wa ano ko no honshou
Hontou wa itsudemo She says only backbiting!

Ano ko no koto ki ni iranai
Usotsuki neko kaburi aisouwarai
Doushite minuite kurenai no
Atashi mo hontou wa I love you I love you

Ano ko no koto ki ni iranai
Usotsuki neko kaburi happoubijin
Atashi wa honki wo yuzurenai
Kawarazu kyou datte I love you I love you baby!
Ima ichi ni tsuite hai yooi no pyon de koi boudou gouon!

Translation

With her air-headed guise and her upturned eyes
that girl goes leaning on him
Well aware of my eyes on her
She puts on a face pretending not to know

I want to tell you about that girl’s true nature
The truth is, ever and always, “She says only backbiting!”

I don’t like that girl
She’s a liar, a pretender, wearer of fake smiles
Oh why can’t you see it as it is
When the truth is that I’m also “I love you I love you”

I don’t like that girl
She’s a liar, a pretender, everybody’s friend
I’m serious you know, I’m not letting go
Today as always I’m also “I love you I love you baby!”
Right now, right here, here I go ‘pyon’ with my roaring rebellion of love!

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