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I'm kinda wondering what the opening theme song of Arakawa Under the Bridge, Venus and Jesus lyrics mean.

On the third stanza,

A neighbor of Venus
Why? During that interval that we don't know
Jesus lives across the hall
I'm hearing something bad

It mentions the name, Jesus. What does that stanza imply? Does it have something to do with the Christian religion?

A neighbor of Venus

Maybe, Earth?

Why? During that interval that we don't know

Interval we don't know? Maybe, before the concept of time existed?

There are also other lines that I don't quite understand.

Lyrics taken from Lyrics Translate.

  • Looking at the Japanese lyric, I guess the translation doesn't make any sense because it tries to translate line by line, while the stanza should be translated as a whole. I think the lyrics more or less means: "Jesus has started living across Venus, during the time she is not aware, and that's quite a situation she got into", if we translate it as the view of a 3rd party. As for the choice of Venus and Jesus, I guess they rhyme and Venus = girl while Jesus = boy? From the view point of someone who hasn't watched the series, it looks like a bad choice, since it is not related to the reference. – nhahtdh May 06 '15 at 06:57
  • It's a standalone song that was used for the OP. Isn't there an official translation or something? – Hakase May 06 '15 at 07:11
  • @nhahtdh I guess they used Venus because Nino, the MC girl, says she's from Venus. But I don't know about the use of Jesus. And if so, Jesus pertains to Kou? –  May 06 '15 at 08:28
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    @KousakaKirino well, lets face it Kou does see himself rather highly, its not out of the question for him to compare himself to Jesus. So Nino claims to be a Venusian, Kou would probably see himself as Jesus. It does fit. – Daboyzuk May 07 '15 at 13:27
  • @Daboyzuk Hmm, you have a point. –  May 07 '15 at 14:34

2 Answers2

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In an English fan dub of the OP here, they use "Jesus" as a curse word, but I haven't found anything on Japanese people doing that, so I would assume they could not decipher the meaning and just went with what sounded good. Jesus is also mentioned in the title so it seems to refer to a person.

Another thing to think about is the "I'm in hell again" line. Is that meant to tie in? Well, the Japanese word used "地獄"　can refer to either the Buddhist hell or the Christian one. (Used in Mark 9:43-44.) It doesn't seem to refer specifically to the Christian hell. As the full word was "生き地獄", I think a more accurate translation may be "hell on earth".

It may just be another instance of "use Christian themes to sound cool" thing. Random Christian stuff like crosses and such are added in to Japanese media a lot because it is exotic and strange to them. Using "Jesus" in a song is an example of that I have seen before.

As Arakawa Under the Bridge is very random, it's hard to tell. The perspective of the song appears to change between the stanza and the person who translated it is actually French, and from what I can gather, some bits may not be entirely accurate. However, the French version seems to take some liberties that are not in the Japanese for some reason. I also looked at this translation which varies slightly.

Basically: The song is random like the series, and the use of "Jesus" is just to make it sound cool.

Coincidentally, Hikaru Nakamura, the mangaka of Arakawa Under the Bridge also writes another great series called Saint☆Oniisan, which is a slice-of-life about Jesus and the Buddha on holiday living in an apartment in Tokyo. Probably nothing to do with it, but it's pretty interesting.

nhahtdh
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Laiseran
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A neighbor of Venus

Why? During that interval that we don't know

Jesus lives across the hall

I'm hearing something bad

So this stanza is not translated very accurately, especially the last bit with "I'm hearing something bad". The official Japanese lyric is "kiite, yaba-i no" The use of the word "Yabai" connotes a young teen gossiping about something, or asking for advice (yabai is like "OMG that is SO bad. In the context, it does not mean actually bad). With that being said, it almost sounds like the singer is knocking on the doors of different gods, such as Venus and Jesus, asking them for advice on something a teen (and Nino) would have trouble with, such as love.

Venus, (he) is living next to me

Why is (he), while I didn't even notice

Jesus (he) is living across me

OMG this is SO bad.

That's the way I heard it as a Japanese native speaker, but I may have interpreted wrong. I may be a little biased because this song to me is tied to the anime/the manga (which are really awesome, especially the manga) so it leans to make sense along with the show, although this was originally a normal song, not made as an OP. I hope that helped!

LazyKaiju

LazyKaiju
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    This doesn’t exactly answer the question of what they *mean.* Flagging this as non-answer. – Jan Nov 18 '16 at 17:59