BABYMETAL – MEGITSUNE lyrics

Kitsune is a fox. Foxes (and raccoons) are thought to have supernatural powers in Japan, and they are believed to use them to deceive humans. A famous story goes something like; a fox transforms itself into a human and buys a bunch of stuff from a merchant, and the merchant later finds that all the money that the disguised fox gave him were actually leaves. A Megitsune is a female fox, and has similar connotations as the word Vixen in the English language when referring to a woman. A Megitsune often refers to a woman who is deceptive.

The song seems to be about how girls (specifically Japanese girls) paralleled with this idea of a female fox, who due to their association with deception come with extremely negative connotations. I'll be ignoring all the filler lyrics (like sore, and chiki washoi).

The first two lines appear to fit more with the girls of the band rather than foxes despite it referring to a megitsune in the first line. "The prim and pretty female fox" seems to fit more for the girls of the band who obviously put a lot of effort into their image being entertainers, and "With twin tails waving" definitely refers to the girls. The next two lines fits more with foxes as they roughly translate to "Bounce and Doron" and "Seven forms of transformation". Doron is the onomatopoeia for the sound of smoke. If you are familiar with Ninja's in pop culture and anime at all, a lot of their abilities (transformation especially) start with a plume of smoke, and this effect is also prevalent for Foxes using supernatural powers. Seven forms of transformation probably refers to the most famous ability of foxes, which is to change their shape.

The next four lines appear to refer to the girls again. They read something like "The chosen girls/ Singing in a false dream/ Spanning across a thousands of years/ They live here in the present" If you feel like those lines don't really make sense I have to admit its a pretty crappy translation and I'll also say this doesn't make that much sense to me either. I just take it a very epic way to refer to themselves.

The next part is in my opinion where the good part of the song starts with the "Ahhhhhhh". It goes "That's right girl's are always actresses/ I'm not a fox/ I'm not a fox/ Just a womanly vixen" I think its significant that she uses kitsune when saying she is not a fox but megtisune when she finally says she is in fact a fox. The last line might be a little off in translation. Otome is a word that basically means "womanly" or "of femininity" or simply "Woman". I think it's basically saying she isn't a deceptive fox with all the negative connotations, but rather just a woman, who is forced to be somewhat of a fox in society.

The next lyrics say "Yamato Nadeshiko onna wa kawaru no". Yamato Nadeshiko, as someone pointed out in the lyrics refers to The perfect incarnation of a beautiful Japanese woman. And I know this isn't a big point but in the song I hear "Yamato Nadeshiku" which would give the word an ending that gives the meaning of "similar too" as well as a connotation of a adjective. I feel like this fits more with the rest of the line so it reads "We change to become more like Yamato Nadeshiko" or "Change in a way more similar to Yamato Nadeshiko"

The next lines go "We laugh with our face/ Cry in our minds/ Just agreeing/ Not showing tears" This seems pretty straightforward, kind of commenting on the condition of women in general that are basically forced to be deceptive in order to gain acceptance. It seems especially significant when you consider that Japan is a pretty chauvinistic culture as well as the fact that Yamato Nadeshiko generally refers to a beautiful, but also traditional Japanese woman who is expected to be mild mannered and agreeable.

The next part is sang to the melody of an old Japanese folk song. I only assume this because the melody is so familiar to me from my childhood, so there's no research done on this. I would also expect the folk song to have something to do with foxes. Anyway, she says "Fox/Fox/ I am a Vixen/ Girls are actresses" Basically the same lines from a little further back in the song commenting on how girls are forced to be deceptive.

The next part is identical to a previous part so I'm skipping it. The next part after that reads almost the same with its previous counterpart with the ending modified. "That's right girls are always actresses/ I'm not a fox/ I'm not a fox/" and instead of ending with "Womanly Vixen" she starts "womanly" and then cuts to "Don't look down us" or "Don't underestimate us", which in Japanese flows much better to simply mean "Don't look down on Women". I think I basically gave a pretty good idea of what my interpretation of the song is already so I'll just translate the last few lines.

"Ah../ Into Yamato Nashiko's we change/ In order to never disappear/ We light up our fireworks"
"Ah../ To bloom and to wither is the fate of a woman/ Laugh with our face/ Cry in our minds/ We are all just pure-hearted womanly vixens" I translated Junjo to pure hearted, it could also mean innocent, or honest, basically exact opposite connotations of a Megistune.

Lastly as much as I absolutely love this song I can't help but laugh at the idea of a 17 year old girl singing about how "To bloom and to wither is the fate of all women" It kind of sucks because I really like that line.