It’s true, you’re to blame—just look at me and me only

“Shoujo Rei” or “Girl Spirit,” featuring Hatsune Miku, was released by MikotoP on July 18, 2018. The popular Vocaloid song follows the story of two high school girls, one of whom is a ghost. The cover art features the two girls standing on a railroad crossing, one of whom does not cast a shadow. The lyrics are said to have two different meanings when read forwards and backwards.

I’d like to first analyze the lyrics and music the way we experience it, forwards, then take a step back to analyze the lyrics in reverse. I will not discuss lines that I feel are self-evident. I will be using the translation from the Vocaloid lyrics Fandom wiki, translated by Serene_Snowfall and Summer’s End, proofread by Forgetfulsubs.

{Your} instincts start to go crazy,

like a cornered mouse

The song starts with a girl laughing and a breezy, upbeat instrumental, the steel drums and acoustic guitar adding to the atmosphere. This line is possibly just in reference to the film “Ningen Shikkaku: Tatoeba Boku ga Shindara” (1994), which the song may be based off of. In the interest of not getting ahead of myself and spoiling the song, I won’t comment on the similarities to the film. It’s worth noting the subject is left ambiguous, we’ll get back to that when reversing the lyrics.

now, standing in an abyss of despair,

you jumped into the railway crossing

In contrast to the airy instrumental, we’re confronted by the reality that the narrator is singing about a girl who has killed herself.

Yes, you’re my friend,

so take my hand

Yes, you’re alone,

you’ve got nowhere to go, do you?

—But with things like this,

we’re able to love each other

While I do believe this to be a queer song, as is the film previously mentioned, I believe other lines sell this further, as she could be referring to friendly love. Other than that, the lines are straight forward and portray the girl who killed herself as lonely and with nowhere to go.

It repeats again;

A flashback, the buzzing cicadas…

And you, who will never come back.

Our matching keychains

are being torn apart for all eternity.

The girl with her pale white skin

that the summer got rid of

I find myself wanting to be possessed by her so much it brings me to tears

The chorus consists of the narrator’s flashback to when the girl was alive. Their matching keychains have been torn apart for all eternity by her summer suicide. This timing will be important when we analyze the song in reverse. Otherwise, cicadas are mentioned and heard throughout the song. They represent the summer, youth, and rebirth. I interpret this less as being about a “rebirth” and moreso to show that her death haunts the narrator.

My true nature starts to break loose

at the start of September,

a flower vase placed on the next target,

and the one who started it… was me

Placing a flower vase on a desk is usually done when a person has died, doing it while a person is alive is a kind of bullying that basically says “you should die.” Throughout the song we get a few seemingly out-of-place lines like “my true nature starts to break loose at the start of September,” that don’t quite seem to make sense yet, we’ll get back to those when we reverse the lyrics. Either way we learn the narrator was bullying the girl who killed herself, in spite of calling her a friend and matching keychains with her.

It’s true, you’re to blame—

just look at me and me only

It’s true, you want someone to help you,

don’t you?

I believe this to be a quite tragic few lines about the narrator’s growing love for the girl who wishes for someone to help her. Perhaps the narrator was afraid of being bullied herself, or perhaps her bullying was the only way she knew to manifest her queer love.

I gently place a kiss

on your drowning hands

This is the line that sells the love to me. The narrator feels for the “drowning” girl yet all she can do is gently place a kiss on her hands.

Those faintly smiling beasts

dig their nails into {you}

until their hearts are refreshed,

and now your skirt is uneven.

A scream that seemed as though it cut off the silence of summer

echoes through the classroom, in the window is the blue sky

We get some lines about the bullies digging their nails into the girl, once again with an ambiguous subject though.

“You’re my friend.”

Of course, you’re my friend,

so take my hand.

Of course, you’re gone,

and I’ve got nowhere to go.

If we were able to love each other

in that transparent world—

After some cicadas and train warning sounds, a girl whispers “you’re my friend.” Then we get a bridge and a key change to heighten the emotions in preparation for the final chorus. The narrator talks about being able to love each other in the afterlife in the final line, she also laments the fact the girl is gone and says she has nowhere to go.

It repeats again;

A flashback, the buzzing cicadas…

And you, who will never come back.

Our matching keychains

are being torn apart for all eternity.

The girl with that pale white skin

that the summer got rid of

I find myself wanting to be possessed by her so much it makes me sad

You were just transparent,

and pointed at me

The final line refers to a trope of a ghost pointing at the person who caused their deaths. The song seemingly ends with the sound of a train crashing into something and the train warning signal. Now let’s get into the second half of his story and reverse the song! I will be truncating or glossing over some line that keep the same meanings since we’ve already read them.

You were just transparent,

and pointed at me

This way around the start the song right off the bat with the girl being dead and blaming the narrator.

I find myself wanting to be possessed by her so much it makes me sad

The girl with that pale white skin

that the summer got rid of

Our matching keychains

are being torn apart for all eternity.

And you, who will never come back.

Tragically, after knowing the girl blames the narrator, we learn of the narrator’s feelings for her.

If we were able to love each other

in that transparent world—

Of course, you’re gone,

and I’ve got nowhere to go.

A scream that seemed as though it cut off the silence of summer

echoes through the classroom, in the window is the blue sky

Those faintly smiling beasts

dig their nails into {me}

until their hearts are refreshed,

and now your skirt is uneven.

I will interpret the ambiguous subject to be referring to the narrator when we reverse the lyrics. That is to say, the narrator is now the one being bullied. While this translation doesn’t note it, the subject of the uneven skirt is also ambiguous too, so you could read it as “and now [my] skirt is uneven.”

It’s true, you want someone to help you,

don’t you?

It’s true, you’re to blame—

just look at me and me only

I believe this to be the narrator now facing the same situation she put the girl through, the narrator is now the one who wants someone to help, and she blames the girl’s suicide for her current bullying.

My true nature starts to break loose

at the start of September,

a flower vase placed on the next target,

and the one who started it… was me

I believe this to be the narrator now sincerely placing a flower vase on the girl’s desk after her death, as opposed to bullying her while she was alive. Note the timing being September, after the summer the girl killed herself.

—But with things like this,

we’re able to love each other

Yes, you’re alone,

you’ve got nowhere to go, do you?

Yes, you’re my friend,

so take my hand

now, standing in an abyss of despair,

you jumped into the railway crossing

{My} instincts start to go crazy,

like a cornered mouse

Once again, this translation doesn’t note it but the subject who jumped into the railway crossing is ambiguous. I believe this to be the narrator jumping in front of a train this time to be able to love the transparent girl in the afterlife.

And there it is, we get the story of the narrator who bullied a girl she loved to suicide, who then gets bullied in return and commits suicide herself. A beautiful tragedy where the two lovers blame each other for their respective deaths.

Not bad for a first article, huh?