digitalalterego

This morning I woke up to XLOV's cover of A Nonsense Christmas, and I loved it; it's such a cheeky song and of course XLOV sang it beautifully. 

Then later I saw AtHeart's cover... Uh oh. 

I mean, I'm only 18 years old and singing at my age those lyrics would make me very uncomfortable. I even thought it was a little weird for Haru, who is just a bit older than me to be singing that song. But AtHeart? Who approved this!?!? It's so absurd that it makes me laugh. I shouldn't laugh though, considering past criticism they got for their concept images and their song Good Girl. It's not like I have any strong opinion on this group but considering this reoccuring problem there is definitely someone in their company who needs firing!

Go listen to XLOV's cover
Maybe not AtHeart's...

I looooove making playlists for fictional characters and media and recently I've been SO obsessed with Devilman I just wanted to post about all the songs I've chosen!!!

The first song, which I just listened to for the first time and made me decide to post these, is BUCK-TICK's song Ash-ra from their COSMOS album. I love BUCK-TICK, I'm slowly making my way through their albums but this one is probably my favourite one so far. Because all their albums have at least one song I love, but this one gripped my attention the entire way through. And the lyrics are great too. There are a lot of BUCK-TICK songs that remind me of Devilman in some way, so this is probably just the first of many~

The title Ash-ra is a stylization of Ashura- a warrior demon yokai originating from Buddhism. They love combat, war and violence. Within Buddhism's reincarnation cycle, whenever you die you are reborn into one of 6 realms based on how good you were in that past life. In Japanese Buddhism, the Ashura reside in the 3rd realm, aptly called Ashurado. This realm comes after the Heavenly realm and the Human realm, which are considered "good" realms, meaning while Ashurado is not pleasant it is much better than going to, for example, the Hungry Ghost realm (my favourite realm just because its name lol).Ashura are also highly controlled by their emotions, meaning it is difficult for them to escape the cycle and achieve enlightenment.

Of course this reminds me of Devilman. The demons of Devilman are much like the Ashura in their love of violence and war. The entire reincarnation cycle of Buddhism is also very in-line with Devilman's loop theory. Take Ryo. Ryo specifically is highly controlled by his emotions, and is a very emotionally explosive character both as the human Ryo and as Satan. He is stuck in God's loop (reincarnation cycle) and God plays on his extreme emotions to force him to relive the same emotional mistakes and self-wrought destruction time and time again (much like how the emotions of the Ashura keep them out of Nirvana). If Ryo were to overcome his emotions, I'm sure he could break the loop (and I'm writing a fan-fiction about it as we speak) but that would be a betrayal to his character.

"Please, let's dance a passionate dance, to the rhythm of love that seems to curse everything"

This lyric reminds me of the way love is portrayed in Devilman. It does seem like a curse, or at least that is the way God makes it out to be. We see it time and time again. God punishes Satan for his empathy (a form of love) towards the demons, Haim kills himself out of his love for Silene, Akira experiences immeasurable pain when his loved ones are killed, and Ryo's creation of Devilman (which he does to protect Akira out of his love) is what leads to his downfall every time. My personal theory is that Devilman's God doesn't believe in love at all and sees it as a weakness, hence why he cast Satan out and used his own love against him to eternally punish him, proving to Himself that love is a useless weakness. No matter how you look at it, God is the true villain of Devilman.

"I only loved you, and now I hate you deeply."

Akira is a kind of Jesus-like character in the way that he loves those around him. Depending on the iteration he is a very selfless character. Which is his motivation for following and believing in Ryo in the first place. If a friend you hadn't seen for months contacted you, pulled a knife on your crush and asked you for a favour with no further explanation, would you go with them? Hell no! But Akira does, not just because he is naive (which he is, at least at the beginning) but because he loves humans, and tries to see the best in them, much like Jesus. But the hate of someone who loves everyone is a very powerful thing.
Notice how the lyric says "I *only* loved you" but doesn't say "Now I *only* hate you"? After all the terrible things Ryo has done, Akira hates him. But he doesn't stop loving him and believing him. Hate and love coexist.

I wish I could understand Japanese so I could analyse the lyrics better, and analyse more of them, but that will have to do for now since it's getting late~~~

Listen to the song NOW!

I have a cough lately, and I've already gone through an entire bottle of honey just to soothe my throat.
I didn't like honey before, but ever since I discovered this effect of it I'm like an addict. My favourite way to have honey is to put it in warm milk with a little bit of turmeric. It's effective in 3 ways: the honey soothes your throat, warm milk makes you sleepy and turmeric is anti-inflammatory among many other things. At least that's what my mum says. It certainly works for me.

The honey obsession doesn't stop there. Aesthetically, it's like liquid amber. The colour is so rich and beautiful. The texture of honey is so decadent, it just screams excess and luxury.

These 3 title-sharing songs each embody the qualities of honey in 3 entirely different ways.




Raveena

This song is so calming (like all of Raveena's songs) and feels like milk and honey before bed. Which is literally in the lyrics. And the visuals are so soft and beautiful. It's a treat to hear and watch, truly. Honey is a natural sweetener, and this song feels so natural and down-to-earth.






L'arc~En~Ciel

I think this song embodies the sticky and decadent quality of honey. The lyrics have that feeling too, and the song is both energetic and bittersweet. The barbed-wire imagery is in such a contrast to that, and it gives me the message that it's worth getting stung a bit to collect something precious like honey.






KARA

This song is the sugary sweet side of honey. Personally I think this is one of the best electropop k-pop songs, and I regret that I've yet to listen to more of KARA's music. This song always cheers me up and makes me feel more light-hearted.