welcome datacomp

Yes, it’s me again. This article is so dense I am going to give you two opportunities to back out, and I recommend you take them.

One of the first popular Vocaloid videos, c. 2007, was a poorly drawn anime OP, as featured in the Chibu Miku-san comics. The reason it was popular was not for the artwork or the music but because it was full of esoteric Buddhist references which no Westerner has ever successfully explained. The title was Gohou Shoujo Sowaka-chan (護法少女ソワカちゃん), which is a humorous reference to “mahou shoujo” but literally means Apologia Girl Svāhā, svāhā being Sanskrit for “Hail!”, which I will tone down a little to Apologist Girl Sowaka-chan.

This is your first chance to stop reading this article.

The title of this OP is Gohou Shoujo Sowaka-chan ~Koi no Mantora ON MAKARAGYA BAZOROSHUNISHA BAZARASATOBA JYAKU UN BAKU ~. This translates to Apologist Girl Sowaka-chan ~The Mantra of Love – Om maharaga vajrosnisa vajraattva jah hum vam hoh~. The “mantra of love” written out here is a secret dharani (esoteric and untranslatable invocation), not normally revealed to the unitiated, to invoke the little-known Diamond Mandala bodhisattva 愛染明王 (Aizen Myouou) which literally means King of Great Love. The entire title of the OP is a parody of the OP of the 1980s anime Sasuga no Sarutobi, which was called The Spell of Love is SukiTokimekiToKiss. But the music is a grotesque parody of Anarchy in the UK.

This is your second chance to get out while you still can. Seriously, if the above paragraph confuses you somehow there’s no need to continue. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Alright, pull up a chair, load up the YouTube, and follow along with me.

大好きなパパは住職

Sowaka-chan’s father was the abbot of a temple. Note the furigana here– there’s a deluge of words to come. We’re supposed to tell from the esotericism in the title that he’s Shingon Buddhist.

ある日誰かに殺され

One day, he was killed by a mysterious person. It seems he was wearing a mask at the time, had a rope around his neck and a cucumber inserted into his nether regions. This is apparently a reference to Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel “The Silent Cry”.

一人残された私は真相究明の旅に出る

Left alone by herself, Sowaka-chan left home to scour the world for her father’s killer, Easy Rider style. (edit) The creatures on the side of the road are from Final Fantasy.

お供は小坊主クーヤン

She was accompanied by the junior priest Kuuyan. This is a horrible “modernization” (I’m not sure what the proper word is for sticking -yan on the ends of someone’s name like a 13 year old Japanese girl) of Kuuya (空也), a Heian period Pure Land Buddhist monk whose image is famous in Japan.

口から発した言葉を実体化できる能力を持つ

He had the ability to materialize the words that came out of his mouth. Sowaka-chan says “I don’t need that stuff!” According to folklore, the six ways of writing the nembutsu materialized from Kuuya’s mouth as he chanted it, the nembutsu being a famous Pure Land Buddhist invocation. I don’t know if you’d want to eat the kanji 肉 (meat) as it came out of Kuuya’s mouth though.

いないよりはいたほう便利

It turned out to be more useful than she expected.

私たち冥府魔道を行くの

Together they went to the Land of Demons. This is a parody of the Lone Wolf and Cub episode “Baby Cart in the Land of Demons“.

使徒使徒ぴっちゃん襲来

They were attacked by disciple Picchan. Another reference to Lone Wolf and Cub, this time the opening theme. (edit) But Picchan himself is meant to be the First Angel in Evangelion.

お大師様にやかって通販で買った五鈷杵(vajra)で魔を祓う

Taking after Shingon founder Koubo Daishi, they exorcised the demons with a vajra that they purchased from mail-order. A vajra is a symbolic weapon in Buddhism that cuts through ignorance and hatred. Obviously you cannot actually injure people with a vajra (unless you fling it at them), so the joke here is that it’s a mahou shoujo style weapon that creates some sort of magical rainbow beam. Apparently it was advertised in a mail order catalog as a way to become popular with the ladies. By the way, this entire sequence is a reference to Gintama.

恋の真言(mantra)唱えてみせるの
この想いあなたにとどけ

“I will recite the mantra of love, and deliver this thought to you.” The word used for “mantra” is Shingon, which literally means mantra, but is more familiar to most Japanese as the esoteric sect of Buddhism which is the basis of all this silliness. As you can clearly see here, she is reciting the mantra of love in the siddhaṃ script. The fact that there are eight Sowaka-chans in a ring references the eight bodhisattvas that surround eternal Buddhas in Shingon.

衆生済度の教えを心に

“In my heart is a teaching of enlightenment for the masses.” Sowaka-chan sitting on the construction site is a parody of the ED of Devilman.

五十六億七千万年後に愛してる

“I will love you for 5,670,000,000 years.” According to 菩薩處胎經, after achieving bodhisattavahood, Maitreya ascended to the Tushita heaven where he will wait for 5,670,000,000 years before returning to Earth to save mankind. This is also a parody of the Genesis of Aquarion OP. In the caption Sowaka-chan is saying “I want to gassho with you,” gassho being the hands clasped together, which is a somewhat more complicated reference to Genesis of Aquarion.

護法少女ソワカちゃん

Apologist Girl Sowaka-chan.

宗派はいろいろあるけど元はゴータマ・シッダルタ

“There are many sects and subsects, but the origin is Siddhartha Gautama.” The captions remind us that Sowaka-chan is Shingon Buddhist and Kuuyan (ugh) is Pure Land Buddhist, but they work together as a team, which has been the case for many centuries in Japanese Buddhism. The second frame shows Buddha at the origin of all schools–even Nichirenism which I do not agree to be Buddhism for the reasons addressed in the next line.

ほんとは仲良くしたいんだけど****系は相性よくないの

Poor Sowaka-chan really wants to make friends with everyone, but the ****ists (the song says “Nichirenists”) aren’t compatible with her. The captions have the Nichrenists telling Sowaka-chan that she will drop into the Avici Hell, the most painful hell realm in Buddhism. I have had Nichirenists tell me I am going to Avici Hell so many times I have lost count. To tell the truth, if so many Buddhists are going there, it doesn’t sound all that scary. I bet there’s really a nice resort and sandy beaches there.

突然目の前に現れた
謎のイケメン小波旬

Suddenly, he appeared in front of us. The mysterious macho man, Konamishun (saying “Wagahai no na ha Konamishun”). He looks like the actor Shun Oguri and his makeup resembles the metal band Demon Kogure, but he’s meant to represent Mara, the evil goddess of worldly samsara. He proceeds to quote a line from Demon Kogure.

モロ好みのタイプだけど “He’s the kind that makes me swoon, but…”
敵なの？　味方なの？

“Is he enemy? Is he friend?” A line from Eccentric Shounen Boy.

この世界は諸行無常の理

“The truth of this world is that all is transitory.” Think on that one, guys. (edit) This is a reference to the opening lines of the Tale of the Heike, viz., “The sound of the Gion Shouja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline.”

残酷な仏のテーゼ

“This is the cruel Buddha’s thesis.” I’m ashamed– this is a blatant Evangelion reference and I didn’t even notice it.

愛読書はメカ沢新一先生

“My favorite author is Shin’ichi Mechazawa-sensei.” Shin’ichi Nakazawa is a religious scholar who was roundly abused for offering praise of Aum Shinrikyo before the sarin attacks. The book title is “An Introduction to Ramen,” parodying Nakazawa’s “Introduction to Lenin”. The “Mechazawa” thing is a Cromartie reference.

私もチベット修行に連れてって

“I want to practice in Tibet, too!” Because Nakazawa went there. Tibetan Buddhism is remarkably similar to Shingon practice, meaning that both schools accurately preserve an ancient Buddhist lineage. Considering that the Shingon school was founded by a single traveling monk (Kobo Daishi) in the early Heian period, I think that’s a pretty impressive accomplishment.

“Practice” is the New Agey American equivalent of Japanese 修行 = “devotion” or “fervor”. Oh well.

愛の秘印(mudra)結んでみせるの

“I will bind [myself in] a mudra of love.” A mudra is a hand gesture with an esoteric purpose in Shingon or Vajrayana Buddhism. There’s a mudra associated with the mantra described above but I don’t think that’s what Sowaka-chan means by “mudra of love”.

この願い未来にとどけ “I’ll deliver this wish to the future.”
夢の曼荼羅心に描くの “I draw my dream mandala in my heart.”
五十六億七千万年後に愛してる etc.

The eXtREME fighting scene shows Kuuyan attempting to fight the Putty Patrol or whoever they are by saying the word “crab”. This is a pun on the novel Kanikousen, i.e. 蟹光線 = crab beam = kani-kousen. There’s also another pun which is too obscure even for the guy I’m translating to get. Finally we see Kuuyan squashed by his low spirits (鬱, you learned something from Haruhi after all).

愛してくれなきゃ仏罰下がるわよ

“Buddha will punish those who don’t love.”

Useful links

• Cheat sheet (I got most of the anime references from here)
• Shuugyousha no tame ni

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 10:46 pm by shii and is filed under translation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.