1. どこから春が巡り来るのか知らず知らず大人になった

Romaji: Doko kara haru ga meguri kuru no ka shirazu shirazu otona ni natta

Cultural Nuance: "Without knowing where spring comes around from, I grew up before I knew it."

🗣 Japanese Insight: What makes this phrase interesting is the way the word shirazu / 知らず works. The first half takes the form of a question, "where does spring come around from?", and is followed by shirazu shirazu / 知らず知らず. Shirazu shirazu is an adverb meaning "without realizing" or "before one knows it." Yet when you hear the line straight through, the first shirazu also sounds as if it picks up the question in the first half, meaning "not knowing where…." In other words, "not knowing where spring comes from" and "growing up without realizing it" seem to overlap, pivoting on a single shirazu.

Meguri kuru / 巡り来る combines 巡る ("to go around") and kuru / 来る ("to come"), describing how the seasons turn as if in a circle and return again. In Japanese, haru / 春 ("spring") is the name of a season, but it has also long been used as a metaphor for youth, hope, or the prime of something, as in 青春 ("youth") and 人生の春 ("the springtime of life"). So haru here can be taken as the actual season, or as the protagonist's hope. Spring comes around every year, yet the protagonist grew up without ever knowing where it comes from. A quiet bewilderment of this kind seems to be woven into the gentle sound of the line.

Note that haru appears once more in the second verse, where it is sung as something the protagonist sees with their own eyes. Keeping in mind the contrast with the "unknown spring" of the opening makes the flow of the whole song easier to follow.

2. 口の中はたと血が滲んで 空に唾を吐く

Romaji: Kuchi no naka hata to chi ga nijinde sora ni tsuba o haku

Cultural Nuance: "Suddenly, blood seeps inside my mouth. I spit at the sky."

🗣 Japanese Insight: Hata to / はたと is an adverb that describes a sudden change in an action or situation, or a sudden loud sound. It is used in expressions such as はたと気づく ("to suddenly realize") and はたと立ち止まる ("to stop short"). With a somewhat old-fashioned ring, it sharply captures a moment that arrives without warning. Nijinde / 滲んで comes from the verb 滲む, which means for a liquid to seep out little by little and spread. The blood does not gush; it slowly seeps. This leaves listeners to imagine the cause: did the protagonist bite down on their lip, or were they struck?

The second half evokes the proverb 天に唾する (also phrased 天に向かって唾を吐く, "to spit toward the heavens"). Spit aimed upward falls back onto your own face, so the proverb warns that trying to harm others will only come back on you. The lyric uses sora / 空 ("sky") rather than 天 ("heaven"), and it presents the act not as a warning but as something the protagonist actually does. Knowing it may come back on them, they spit at what lies overhead anyway. The line can be read as an attitude of defiance.

Yonezu said of this passage that he was drawn to the distinctive, slightly distorted voice of the drama's lead actress, Sairi Ito, and wanted to bring that texture and "kire" into the song. This phrase is sung twice in the song. According to Yonezu, he sings it the first time as if roughening his voice, and the second time in a clear, soaring voice. The part featured here is the first instance, in the first verse. The same words sound rough at first and bright the second time. Comparing the two is one of the pleasures of listening to this song.

3. 瞬け羽を広げ 気儘に飛べ どこまでもゆけ

Romaji: Matatake hane o hiroge kimama ni tobe doko made mo yuke

Cultural Nuance: "Twinkle and spread your wings. Fly as you please, and go as far as you can."

🗣 Japanese Insight: Matatake / 瞬け is the imperative form of the verb 瞬く. This verb originally means to blink (to close and open one's eyelids), or for stars and lights to twinkle. It shares its kanji with 瞬間 ("moment"), evoking a glimmer that lasts only an instant. For a scene of spreading wings, 羽ばたけ ("flap your wings") would be the natural choice, but here 瞬け was chosen instead. Because the two sound very similar, 瞬け can be understood as carrying the echo of 羽ばたけ while adding the image of twinkling light.

This phrase strings together three imperatives: matatake / 瞬け, tobe / 飛べ, and yuke / ゆけ. In everyday conversation, the Japanese imperative is too strong to use easily. In songs or when cheering someone on, however, it can express a strong wish rather than pushing the listener away. Who the words are addressed to is not stated. They can sound like the protagonist rousing themselves, or like someone sending another person off.

Kimama / 気儘 means behaving as one pleases without conforming to others. As in 勝手気儘 ("selfish and willful"), it is often used negatively, suggesting selfishness. What stands out is that the word is offered here in a positive light. Yuke / ゆけ is an old-fashioned way of saying いけ ("go"), often used in poetry and song.

In the first half of the first verse, the protagonist grieved over having no wings: "もしもわたしに翼があれば 願う度に悲しみに暮れた" (moshimo watashi ni tsubasa ga areba negau tabi ni kanashimi ni kureta), "If only I had wings, I'd wish, and each time I sank into sorrow." In the chorus, the tone turns around: now the song calls out to fly itself. In an interview, Yonezu said he liked the word 逃げ切る ("to get away," "to outrun to the end"), which the music video director Tomokazu Yamada had used. He then described doko made mo yuke / どこまでもゆけ as an image of outrunning every tie and constraint at a speed too fast for the eye to follow, and said that to him, this is not a negative expression.

4. しぐるるやしぐるる町へ歩み入る そこかしこで袖触れる

Romaji: Shigururu ya shigururu machi e ayumi iru soko kashiko de sode fureru

Cultural Nuance: "Cold showers are falling. Walking on into a town of cold showers. Here and there, sleeves brush."

🗣 Japanese Insight: The opening is based on a haiku by Santōka Taneda (1882–1940), known as a wandering haiku poet. On a TV program, Yonezu revealed that he had quoted the haiku with 山 ("mountain") in the original replaced by 町 ("town"). He also said it was a haiku he had long liked, and that he loved the sound of しぐる.

しぐる, written 時雨る, is an old verb meaning for 時雨 to fall: intermittent passing showers that come and go in late autumn and early winter. Shigururu / しぐるる is an old conjugated form of this verb and is almost never used in modern conversation. The ya / や that follows is one of the 切れ字 ("cutting words") used in haiku, which pause the line with a sense of emotional exclamation. In haiku, 時雨 is also a 季語 (a seasonal word) for winter, a word tinged with coldness, loneliness, and transience. With the sound of classical Japanese suddenly slipping into a modern pop song, the atmosphere of the second verse cools sharply from the spring of the first.

While the original haiku is set in the mountains, the lyric changes the setting to machi / 町 ("town"). Rather than a deserted mountain path, the protagonist walks into a place where people come and go. Soko kashiko / そこかしこ is a somewhat literary way of saying あちらこちら ("here and there"). The image of sode / 袖 ("sleeves") that fureru / 触れる ("touch") brings to mind the proverb 袖振り合うも多生の縁. The proverb says that even a small moment, such as brushing sleeves with a stranger on the street, comes from a bond formed in a past life, and it reflects a Buddhist way of thinking.

Yet the lyric goes on to say that although there are so many people that sleeves brush here and there, when the protagonist looked up, nothing was there. On the same program, Yonezu explained, in essence, that no matter how many people are around you, if you cannot share your feelings with them, it is no different from loneliness. Touching without forming a bond. A loneliness that turns the warmth of the proverb inside out can be felt seeping through this passage.

5. したり顔で 触らないで 背中を殴りつける的外れ

Romaji: Shitarigao de sawaranaide senaka o naguritsukeru matohazure

Cultural Nuance: "Don't touch me with that smug, knowing look. Striking my back, completely off the mark."

🗣 Japanese Insight: Shitarigao / したり顔 comes from したり, an old expression meaning "I did it" or "I pulled it off," and refers to a self-satisfied look. In modern slang, it is close to ドヤ顔 (a smug, "how about that?" face). Here it can be read as the expression of someone who believes they fully understand the other person. The following sawaranaide / 触らないで is a refusal phrased not as a command but in the softer form of a request. Its tone is gentler than the forceful imperatives lined up in the chorus, and that makes its urgency all the more striking.

Matohazure / 的外れ originally means an arrow missing the mato / 的 ("target") in archery. From this, it came to mean opinions or actions that are off the mark. The line ends with the word 的外れ, and what exactly is off the mark is not stated. Words? Advice? Criticism? Space is left for listeners to fill in freely.

Japanese has the idiom 背中を押す ("to push someone's back"), meaning to encourage someone to take a step forward. With that in mind, naguritsukeru / 殴りつける ("to strike") someone's back can be read as words meant for that person's own good arriving as pain. Yonezu said he strongly empathized with a scene in which the protagonist is lectured "for your own good" (あなたのことを思って), and that it influenced the lyrics. Knowing this, the irritation in this phrase feels more concrete.

6. 誰かを愛したくて でも痛くて いつしか雨霰

Romaji: Dareka o aishitakute demo itakute itsushika ame arare

Cultural Nuance: "I want to love someone, but it hurts. And before I know it, rain and little pellets of ice."

🗣 Japanese Insight: The forms aishitakute / 愛したくて and itakute / 痛くて come one after another, each ending in -te. This form links clauses and loosely indicates reason or sequence, but here the sentence is never completed. The effect is that the wish to love and the pain are set side by side, unresolved. At the same point in the first verse, the song described falling in love, breaking, and drifting apart. In the second verse, the focus shifts to the wish to love and the pain that stands in its way.

Itsushika / いつしか is a somewhat literary word meaning “before one knows it.” The song repeatedly uses expressions for things moving forward without one noticing: shirazu shirazu / 知らず知らず, itsu no ma ni ka / いつの間にか, and itsushika / いつしか. A sense of circumstances changing without any memory of having chosen them seems to run through the entire song.

Ame arare / 雨霰 literally means rain and arare / 霰. Arare refers to little pellets of ice: tiny grains of ice under 5 mm in diameter that fall from the sky. Unlike raindrops, they are hard, and they strike the skin with a sharp patter. Each grain may be tiny, but taking them head-on hurts. In Japanese, the word is also used in the form 雨霰と降る (“to come down like rain and pellets of ice”) as a metaphor for bullets, arrows, criticism, or questions pouring down fiercely. Not just the sheer number but the sense of each one striking and hurting can be considered the basis of this metaphor. Read alongside the preceding itakute / 痛くて (“it hurts”), the line can also suggest that the pain felt each time the protagonist tries to love has, before they knew it, turned into hard grains raining down over their whole body.

What is falling is never revealed in the lyrics. Since the song has moved through words for weather (spring, a downpour, and cold showers), the image can be taken both as real bad weather and as a metaphor for something being hurled at the protagonist one thing after another. That double meaning gives depth to these few words.

7. 貫け狙い定め 蓋し虎へ どこまでもゆけ

Romaji: Tsuranuke nerai sadame kedashi tora e doko made mo yuke

Cultural Nuance: "Take aim and pierce through. Truly, toward the tiger. Go as far as you can."

🗣 Japanese Insight: Kedashi / 蓋し is an extremely formal written word that many Japanese people cannot even read. It is an adverb that has been used in the tradition of reading Classical Chinese texts as Japanese (漢文, kanbun), and it means "I think," "truly," or "probably." Today it survives only in formal expressions such as 蓋し名言である ("truly, a memorable saying"). The very placement of such a word in the chorus of a pop song leaves a strong impression. Because it can be taken as the confident "truly" or the conjectural "probably," the nuance here also changes depending on how it is translated.

The e / へ in tora e / 虎へ is a particle that indicates direction. Whether the protagonist is heading toward where the tiger is, or becoming a tiger themselves, is left open. The drama's title, Tora ni Tsubasa (虎に翼, "wings for a tiger"), comes from the Chinese classic Han Feizi. It originally means giving wings even to a tiger that is already strong, that is, adding further power to the powerful. The protagonist's name, 寅子 (Tomoko), also contains 寅, a character that represents the tiger. The first chorus sings of spreading wings and flying, and a tiger appears in the second chorus, so putting the two together seems to bring the title phrase into view.

Tsuranuke / 貫け is the imperative form of 貫く. Besides meaning to pierce through an object, the verb is used to mean holding to one's convictions to the end, as in 意志を貫く ("to stay true to one's will"). Combined with nerai sadame / 狙い定め ("taking aim"), it evokes the image of an arrow striking its target. Set beside matohazure / 的外れ from the fifth phrase, the line can also be read as the protagonist, once on the receiving end of off-target words, now taking aim and charging forward themselves.

🎤 Emotional Summary

"Sayonara, Mata Itsuka !" is a song that holds anger and pain inside a light melody suited to the morning. The protagonist, who grew up without knowing where spring comes from, walks on through the sorrow of having no wings, the off-target words of those who think they understand, and a loneliness in which people touch but cannot share. Yet the song never sinks. With the imperatives matatake / 瞬け, tobe / 飛べ, tsuranuke / 貫け, and yuke / ゆけ, it keeps pushing forward.

Linguistically, too, the song moves across a wide range of Japanese: classical tones drawn from Santōka's haiku, stiff written language of kanbun origin such as 蓋し, idiomatic expressions such as したり顔, 的外れ, and 雨霰, and phrasing that echoes proverbs. Set to a light four-on-the-floor rhythm, these create a curious sense of airiness despite the heavy content.

Yoshiko Mibuchi, the model for the protagonist of Tora ni Tsubasa, forged her path in an era when it was rare for women even to work in the legal world. There was the prejudice and discrimination aimed at her simply for being a woman, and there were the many walls blocking her way. Overcoming them must have required a rebellious spirit that refused to yield to injustice, and truly "blood-seeping effort" (血のにじむような努力). This Japanese expression describes effort so intense it wears a person down. Seen this way, the line kuchi no naka hata to chi ga nijinde / 口の中はたと血が滲んで seems to reflect not just pain but the figure of someone gritting their teeth and pressing forward.

The "kire" Yonezu spoke of resonates less as anger meant to defeat someone than as the strength to move forward as oneself. Because the song was written not as a supporter calling out encouragement but as his own story, each listener can see their own story in it. And the farewell greeting, made lighter by a single long-vowel dash, seems to embody the attitude of waving goodbye without clinging, and still moving on.

📚 Sources & References

• Natalie Music, feature interview: "Kenshi Yonezu, 'Sayonara, Mata Itsuka !' Interview | The Tora ni Tsubasa Theme Song Infused with the Energy of 'Kire'" (interview and text by Tomonori Shiba)

• Billboard JAPAN, interview: "Kenshi Yonezu on 'Kire' and 'Getting Away': What Mattered in His Asadora Theme Song 'Sayonara, Mata Itsuka !'"

• GINZA, interview: "Kenshi Yonezu Sings an Asadora Theme Song (Part 2)"

• Modelpress: article on Yonezu's remarks on the MBS/TBS talk show Nichiyōbi no Hatsumimigaku (aired September 1, 2024)

• THE FIRST TIMES: news on the music video reaching 100 million views and on the song's selection as the opening theme for the Tora ni Tsubasa film