Song difference

[jonathanteoh]

Say can anybody tell me the difference between Back in Love and Boys Be Free or at least the track length cause I'm confused between which is which and when I download Back in Love its actually Boys Be Free but not from the site's server here cause I'm using another downloading program to download these songs.

[Tim needs time to work it out]

The song is basically the same...

In fact, the only difference is that "Back in Love" is the English version of "Boys be Free".

[Neil Lafrenais]

"Boys Be Free" is the Japanese vocal song that concludes 5 episodes of the Magnificent World (OAV1) series.

The big difference between this song and "Back In Love" is that "Back In Love" is in English.

More precisely, "Back In Love" is the dubbed English version of the original "Boys Be Free" Japanese vocal.

The track length between the two isn't much. Only a second or so. From my Winamp list, they read as:

Boys Be Free - 3:50
Back In Love - 3:51

These are, of course, ripped from the BEST OF EL-HAZARD CD, so depending on what you source is, the track lengths could vary slightly.

Hope this helps!

[jonathanteoh]

Another interesting track from El-Hazard is Once in a Lifetime. I looked through all the tracks displayed in the music section but it does not show up unless I missed it. Also I tried downloading the files there but downloading with Internet Explorer is very slow and there is another option to hear it from the site but that is also another to download it with a download program but the file when downloaded, does not have music and contains some static before my player changes track. I wonder if those files are in mp3 format? Hope you can tell me and thanks for the answers on those two songs really appreciate it since my head was about to go bonkers.

[mark_engels]

Usually when I hear "Once In a Lifetime" mentioned in an El-Hazardian context, it is in reference to a fine music video produced several years ago by a fellow named Michael Ko.  The song itself is by Sarah Brightman.  It's a wonderful video I enjoyed a lot.  I'll warn you all it's particularly suited to the mushy WAFFY Makoto & Iffy fans out there (like yours truly.)

I KNOW it's available out there on the web someplace but for the life of me I can't seem to find it.  All of the links I'd bookmarked 404'd on me as I went to look for it just now.  I'm on the road right now though I THINK I've got it someplace on my home machine.  I'd be happy to take a look when I get there.  But in the meantime maybe our gracious admins know where we might find it?  Some of the Yahoo! group folks might know too...

--me

Mark Engels

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

I don't think I know of that music video.  However, I do remember once seeing a Makoto / Ifurita clip string very UNtimed to some music.  I hope this isn't the video you're referring to. :p

Also I tried downloading the files there but downloading with Internet Explorer is very slow ... I wonder if those files are in mp3 format?

All files are in MP3 format, some VBR (Variable Bit Rate [Encoded]) which only seems to cause more problems then solve.  But that of course has nothing to do with slow download times.  The slow times are because I host this deal off a DSL connection which, while fast coming to me, is painfully slow "going out", which is all you guys.  (There is nothing I can do, short of paying for an especially expensive "Home Business" package, which I might do if I happened to be employed and not already in the hole so far as my college tuition will be concerned.)  

I can only allow about 10KB/sec TOTAL bandwidth, and the server is software configured this way.  (And by total, this means that all concurrent connections get divisions of this, so two people will get 5KB/sec, and so on, sadly.)  If I don't cap it, then usually what'll happen is one person sucks all the out-going bandwidth, and that simply paralyzes the server system altogether, plus denies me my own internet access ("going out" is required to send even simple "acknowledge" signals back to other machines in the world.)  As it is my internet speed will drop into modem-esque speeds if many people are downloading.

On the flipside, I don't think any service provider in the world would give me the freedom, understanding, or disk space to do the stuff I try to do for all of ya... so running my own personal server is practically necessary.

If someone out there in the great big world could offer some mirrors somewhere, that'd be the only real solution.  If you happen to have an even-better-then-DSL connection and can and would like to set up your own server, I'd gladly help you to any extent possible.  Otherwise ... be glad when you manage to download them, one-by-one, or perhaps you'll get lucky on one of those nasty P2P sharing programs.

[jonathanteoh]

I actually have the problem of playing them more likely cause I downloaded one song and then I tried playing it with winamp and there wasn't any sound and it won't play at all no matter what program I used.

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Don't know.  Not using a download manager, are ya? I don't think those operate properly.

[larewen_evenstar]

I downloaded the song 'Back in love' and i think it's really great, but i was playing it too my friend and she said if i didn't shut that bloody thing off soon i was going to be unconcious for the rest of all eternity. so i had to stop playing it then. but the voice is kinda squeaky.

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Heh, and the video consists a bit of this...

[bakasama]

The Back in Love Version Stinks. With justice to the translators, i think they did the best they could, but they couldn't keep the original's "charm". Japanese "charm", that is.

...daisuki yo.... sounds a whole lot better than  ...we're back in love...  

The better translated tracks for me are Chiisa Hanna  (Little Flower) and Illusion (though the english version seems to be by some boy band. *BELCH* though its livable.)

[Makoto Mizuhara]

I wouldn't worry too much about comparing which is better between "Back in Love" and "BOYS BE FREE."  

I prefer to think of them as two seperate songs, which is, in essence, what they are, lyrically speaking.

"Back in Love" really can't be considered a "loose" translation of "BOYS BE FREE." The ideas behind the individual songs vary too much.

"Back in Love" is a generic love song about falling back in love with a former lover from one's past.  

"BOYS BE FREE" is something else.  Unfortunately, I lost my copy of a translation of "BOYS BE FREE," but from what I remember the opening stanza went something like:

"Even if a witch were to turn you into a girl
It wouldn't matter to me
We'll share the ribbons to put in our hair
and walk hand in hand together." (Please forgive, this is from memories of a lost file, so it's not exact)

Then, the refrain goes something like:

"You don't have to be strong
You don't have to be brave
Something something
I'll love you anyway, etc..."

The "point" behind the song seems to be that guys shouldn't be obsessed with maintaining a stereotypical image of masculinity and should rather be themselves, because it doesn't matter to girls.  In essence, boys should be free to be themselves.

Of all the "character songs" in the El-Hazard library, this stands out since it almost seems to be OOC for Alielle.  She seems to be singing to a guys, or guys in general, which she shows no interest in at all in the OVA timeline.

There could be two reasons for this.

1. Since the first soundtrack came out some 2 months before the first OVA debuted, the character of Alielle wasn't completely developed yet into what she was in the actual series.

2.  The song actually offers some insight into Alielle that we may not have considered.  Perhaps, this may expalin why she is orientated toward the female sex.  Perhaps she was frustrated in dealing with boys who were more concerned with maintaining a macho image instead of being open with her and thus she decided to give her love to girls instead because they weren't obsessed with such things.

That's just my little theory.  

As for why there were such drastic difference between the English and Japanese versions of the song.  THat just appears to be a product of anime releases from that time period in America.  

Pioneer did this, especially.  Often for their dub releases, they would comission English versions of the opening and ending songs (Tenchi, El-Hazard, Phantom Quest Corps., etc.)  

Since, oftetimes, translating a song from one language to another and making it tell the same thing in the same beat and melody structure is REALLY hard.  

To be honest, literal translations sound horrible.  If you want proof of this, listen to the English version of the Kenshin opening theme or the English Version of the Slayers Next opener.

The fact that most companies don't bother to create English versions of the songs anymore (Opting for subtitles in the credits) should tell you how appreciated the effort of creating new songs for a series was.  

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

I really don't care for subtitled anything.  Hearing Japanese lyrics only encourages me to almost mock it by making "fake English" out of the sounds.

"I'll be right down, oh look who called!", from part of the AW opener.  (I think this is a side-effect of the untrained mind trying to make sense out of what it knows should be "words")

I'll be honest, I'm an English-loyalist.  I don't pretend to even remotely like that Japanese is a common difficulty in my El-Hazard collecting.  My sister, on the other hand, is incredibly in to the culture, and just went to school tonight for some Japanese language class.  

I'm very grateful that El-Hazard at least was incredibly well dubbed dialog-wise, because some animes aren't treated as well.

[larewen_evenstar]

In some ways i agree with all of you. And i think watchong original japanese versions of things is important. But ever tried watching the Cardcaptors movie in Japanese without subtitles having never watched it before? It's really hard. And talking of the CCS movie, does anyone know where you can buy it in English and region 2 encoding?

[Saucer]

I'm one of those people who always figured "Boys Be Free" was just a lesbian-power song!  

But, Makoto Mizuhara actually has a very good theory in his post above.

And one the subject of dubbed openings and endings, call me a purist if you will, but I'm SO GLAD that Pioneer USA finally stopped doing that!