Do you like cats, Len, Kid and ballads?

There are lots of things I happen to like, such as vanilla slice, Pikachu and yellow (why isn't there more yellow in the world?).

Four particular sources of enjoyment in my life, in no particular order, are:

1. cats
2. Kagamine Len
3. music by Kid-san and his associates ZankyouP and HzEdge
4. songs that tell a story (a.k.a. ballads)

I hope you like these too, since they've come together in a song, Proud Cat, which I subbed and which I thought I'd talk about. This triple-time ballad seems to be about a homeless boy befriending a stray cat. Told from the cat's point of view, it describe's the cat's feelings before, during and after its encounter with the child. The account is beievable and touching.

Actually the song was released some time ago, in 2012, and I made the subs in January 2016 (better late than never!). Now by 2012 Kid-san's tuning of Len-kun had improved markedly over earlier songs, and in this song Len's diction is clear and his expressiveness reflecting the cat's feelings moved me to tears (I seem to cry a lot these days).

I love the descriptions of the cat's personality, "smug, proud and pretentious," accepting that it's alone in the world, struggling against the hands that would give love. I wonder if that's a bit like me ... Just a bit, I think.

"I won't accept you staining my pride" is what the cat tells the boy. The cat is also "covered in dust". In Japanese, hokori "pride" and hokori "dust" sound the same. The one full of dust is also full of pride. Was that a deliberate choice of words?

In some parts of the song, you hear Len breathe! I asked another producer about that and he told me that each Vocaloid comes with their own breath effects. Were they recorded from the same vocalist that supplied the voice, I wonder?

Incidentally, Kid-san later reused part of the beautiful melody in another of his songs, Rainbow-Colored Boy, which I might write about another time.

OK, here's the song. Enjoy! Full lyrics on Len's Lyrics.