1. 鉄の弾が 正義の証明／貫けば 英雄に近づいた

Romaji: tetsu no tama ga seigi no shōmei / tsuranukeba eiyū ni chikazuita
Nuance: “Iron bullets prove justice; pierce through, and you draw closer to being a hero.”

🗣 Japanese nuance:
Justice here is not a principle—it is a result.
If violence succeeds, it is renamed righteousness; if it fails, it is condemned.
The emotionally neutral phrasing is deliberate, allowing the brutality of this logic to speak for itself.
Japanese lyricism often exposes cruelty not through outrage, but through calm description.

2. その目を閉じて 触れてみれば／同じ形 同じ体温の悪魔

Romaji: sono me o tojite furete mireba / onaji katachi onaji taion no akuma
Nuance: “Close your eyes and touch it—
the devil has the same shape, the same body warmth.”

🗣 Japanese nuance:
The “devil” here is not inhuman.
It breathes, it is warm, it is physically the same as oneself.
This line dismantles the idea of monstrosity, revealing that those labeled as devils are simply other humans.
In Japanese expression, this quiet realization carries devastating weight—
evil is not something alien, but something assigned.

3. 僕はダメで あいつはいいの?／そこに壁があっただけなのに

Romaji: boku wa dame de aitsu wa ii no? / soko ni kabe ga atta dake na no ni
Nuance: “Why am I wrong, and they’re allowed—
when there was only a wall between us?”

🗣 Japanese nuance:
The “wall” represents far more than stone.
It stands for borders, ethnicity, birthplace, and political convenience.
This quiet question exposes the arbitrariness of moral judgment—
how goodness and guilt are decided not by action, but by location.

4. 鳥のように 羽があれば

Romaji: tori no yō ni hane ga areba
Nuance: “If only I had wings like a bird.”

🗣 Japanese nuance:
Birds symbolize freedom throughout Attack on Titan,
and the Scout Regiment’s emblem itself is a pair of wings.
Yet this line never claims flight—only longing.
The wish remains unresolved, expressing freedom as something imagined, not yet attained.

5. ただただ生きるのは嫌だ

Romaji: tada tada ikiru no wa iya da
Nuance: “I don’t want to live just to exist.”

🗣 Japanese nuance:
This is not a rejection of life, but of life without agency.
To live safely inside the walls, stripped of choice and meaning, is intolerable.
Japanese phrasing emphasizes this emptiness through repetition, sharpening the refusal into a core belief.

6. なにを犠牲にしても それでも君を守るよ

Romaji: nani o gisei ni shite mo / soredemo kimi o mamoru yo
Nuance: “No matter what must be sacrificed, I will still protect you.”

🗣 Japanese nuance:
This is both a vow of love and a declaration of catastrophe.
Eren’s final decision—to unleash the Wall Titans and trample the world—
is born from this exact resolve.
In Japanese, the word soredemo (“even so”) carries painful awareness:
the speaker knows the choice is wrong, and chooses it anyway.

🎤 Emotional Summary

Akuma no Ko is not a song about becoming a hero.
It is a song about becoming the one who will be hated.

Those called devils were never monsters.
They were humans, sharing the same warmth, the same fear.
Yet someone must carry the burden of the world’s hatred so that others may live.

This song does not absolve that choice.
It simply stands beside it—quietly, honestly, without comfort.

Justice achieved through violence,
freedom bought with annihilation,
love that demands becoming a monster—

Akuma no Ko gives voice to the cost of believing in something strongly enough to destroy the world for it.