I’ve previously done translations of idol blogs, but seeing as they are often pretty boring to read I’ve decided to translate something that I find more interesting instead. Leo Imai is one of my favorite Japanese artists and I enjoy reading his blog. I don’t promise 100% correct translations seeing as my Japanese is very limited, but hopefully they’re better than using Google Translate^^
For those who aren’t familiar with Leo Imai, here’s some fast facts.
- Father Japanese. Mother Swedish. Born in Tokyo. Raised in London.
- Made indies debut in Japan with album ‘City Folk’ in 2006. Played Summer Sonic Festival in 2007.
- Made major debut through EMI Music Japan in Nov of same year.
- Released major debut album ‘Fix Neon’ in Feb 2008.
- Released second album ‘Laser Rain’ in April 2009.
- Has collaborated with artists such as James Iha, Zazen Boys, Kenji ‘Jammer’ Suzuki, and K.U.D.O.
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LEO: Coming Out
Posted 2009-09-18 21:40:10
U~su.
So I recently thought about opening this cardboard box I’ve been ignoring for a while, I was even starting to forget what was in it, but when I opened it a mountain of CDs came out of it. This is all stuff I collected in senior high school, and even I think it’s something to laugh about. Everything in this box is death metal and hardcore! Dismember, Disincarnate, Grave, Abramelin, Earache, rare compilations, Napalm Death’s boot (a boot cd?), even a grim New York band called Madball…
It kind of made me think “what a fool I was” when I gazed on this mountain of CDs.
I immediately started ripping the CDs to my music hard-drive. And while my iTunes library kept growing, I was devotedly downloading the artwork and things like that. Doing this simple and repetitive lonely work was irresistibly fun. It’s a task you easily lose yourself in.
Nostalgically I looked back at my old hobbies and life habits and suddenly I thought to myself “Ah, I’m a complete otaku”. So today I’m going to admit that fact and come out of the closet as an otaku!
秋葉原には行かないからA-Boyではないにしろ
完全にO-Boyであることは間違いないでしょう。
(This sentence made no sense to me as I have no idea what an A-boy and O-boy is, someone else might be able to decipher this part^^ It says something like, he don’t visit Akihabara so he’s not an A-boy, but kind of an O-boy?)
It has already been exposed so please don’t call me names, I’ve come out of the closet after all! But being addicted to someone or something is pretty important, right?
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I must agree with Leo about organizing your iTunes library, it’s very repetitive and a total waste of time, but it’s kind of fun!^^ Oh and congratulations! I’m glad you were able to come out of the closet, now you just have to live up to that and do some crazy otaku stuff! Haha. I myself have been out of the closet since my mother pushed me out of her body. Leo reminds me a lot of a friend of mine which makes this post even more epic for me. Well, I hope you enjoyed it, now I’m off to listen to some NAPALM DEATH and feel like I have a connection with Leo other than him being 50% Swedish^^
See the original post » LEO: カミングアウト
Leo Imai videos here » Leo Imai New Album “Laser Rain”
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Napalm Death <3
I would of never that thought Leo Imai listens to Death metal, he is now uber cool.
"Napalm Death’s boot (a boot cd?)" I think he is referring to a bootleg CD, recorded from a gig etc.
Haha yeah, that makes him pretty rad^^ Ah yeah, of course! It’s probably a bootleg as you said, didn’t think of that. Back in the days CDs often had these applications on them that you could launch and play games and whatnot. I remember Gorillaz had something like this on their album, so I thought he was referring to something like that!
I knew when I first saw him that he wasn’t %100 Japanese, but SWEDISH!? that’s awesome, it also explains why he can also speak French. I’m also very envious of how well you can can translate, I need to get back to studying!
Yeah, it’s pretty interesting how things work, his mother speaks Swedish with his father, and he answers in Japanese :D I hope I can see him live soon, I’ll definitely shout in Swedish! I think he’s probably the only Japanese artist I could speak Swedish with :P Might be able to exchange a few words with Bonnie Pink as well, since she has recorded an album here.
And thanks, my translations are only good until someone corrects them :P But I try to focus on the big picture rather than getting every little detail right.