Philosophical Questioning

[willowchan.livejournal.com]

I recently dragged a friend of mine into watching D. Gray-Man and now she is one of us. o(^-^ )o She brought up a few interesting things I'd never considered before.

Possible Spoilers: Mana, 14th Noah, current end of anime series (Pretty much you should be entirely up to date before entering this conversation otherwise you risk being spoiled)

Who is singing during the Musician's Melody (anime version)? Allen even begins singing along for a little while. If you understood the lyrics, they hold clues within them. The most interesting part of those lyrics talks about silver eyes, something prominent about Allen. At one point the singer is praying "show this child what love is. Give a kiss to his hands you hold." At least, that's what the translation I got a hold of had said. Anyone have any ideas?

My personal idea is perhaps it's something Allen's mom originally had made and she was the one singing, though it'd be weird for him to remember her voice.. Unless it was the fourteenth's memories.

My friend seems to have had the impression that perhaps the fourteenth was a girl. Though I have yet to find any text specifying the gender of the fourteenth (and I didn't look thoroughly), the fourteenth is shown wearing boy's clothes while holding Mana's hand. Hoshino is known to mislead people though, and she's not above cross dressing a character for surprise value.

Comments

[hakuren-yuki.livejournal.com]

Chapter 166 pg 11-12 : Shows that the fourteenth is most probably a guy when they used "he" and "brothers".

Allen was abandoned by his parents due to his left arm so i doubt the one singing is his mom.

Well, it'll be interesting if the fourteenth is female.

[eikyu-ni.livejournal.com]

I thought something similar, when I first heard the song, but I'm still not sure myself about the hole thing.
About the way they referred to the 14th in the manga, you have to know, that in japanese they don't differentiate between "he" and "she", and the "he" was likely just used because the scanlater choosed to use it.
And then the word "brothers" was used by Allen while Cross, who should really know it, just says that the 14th had an older Brother.
Though in the anime when the 14th was talking to Allen in the Arc he used "ore", the masculine way of saying "I", while in the song "watashi", the femenine form was used.
So either the 14th used "ore" and "watashi" like he wanted, the guys who made the anime just thought a female voice would sound better than a male or, my favorite theory, the 14th and the person who sang the song were'nt the same.
So this said I close my useless post with the words: Hoshino-sensei likes to tease us.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Well. The actual singer was Allen's voice actress. XD; It's just that she sang with her natural voice instead of her Allen!voice. As far as we know, it's Allen himself who sings it in the manga.

[willowchan.livejournal.com]

In the Japanese version, the fourteenth was never specified as a "he" from my knowledge of Japanese.. which isn't entirely high, but I was able to read the sentence.

And on page 12 Allen says the rough translation of "siblings" in the Japanese version. Though it is the kanji for "big brother" and "little brother" it does not necessarily mean brothers. It means "siblings".

So I'd have to argue the fan translation is misleading.

And Allen SAYS he was abandoned by his mom. Who knows if it's true? He doesn't seem to know a lot about his own past.

[willowchan.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right. Like I corrected before, Allen says "siblings", not "brothers". Also, the gender is never specified. The Japanese version of "he" is generally not preferred over a name as the subject. "Kare" is "he" and there is no "kare", nor did there need to be one, as the subject was already specified as "the fourteenth noah". Japanese grammar is very different indeed. o.o

Watashi is not feminine though, it's merely neutral. Atashi however, is feminine.

And I'm leaning towards the fourteenth having been close to the female who made that song.

Hoshino sure does like to tease, ne?

[willowchan.livejournal.com]

I was wondering! I suspected as much. It really is Allen's voice actor? Wouldn't that be ironic if Allen as a little kid had that sort of singing power.

Or perhaps they chose the same voice actor for Allen's mother. :p *throws ideas out there*

[arivess.livejournal.com]

It is really Allen's voice actor. To be honest, your theory's nice, but I think they just had her use her normal voice because she sings better with it. ^^;

As far as the manga implies, I think either the 14th or Mana wrote up the song, and Mana was likely the one to sing it to Allen.

[willowchan.livejournal.com]

Oh right, and when Cross says "he" in the English translation on the bottom of page 12, he doesn't actually specify "he" in Japanese. Cross doesn't even specify "I" in that particular sentence for that matter. It's just the way the language works. If the subject is obvious, it's dropped. It's not constantly repeated like in English. "I" "that person" "the fourteenth" would all be dropped if obviously the subject.

[willowchan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the manga never really hinted at it. But since my friend talked about the idea, I realized I'd never seen the fourteenth's gender be specified. The Japanese version tends to just use "The fourteenth noah", or "that person". And even used gender neutral "siblings" when referring to Mana and the fourteenth.

I kinda wanna prove to my friend that the fourteenth is in fact a man, like I'd assumed. But I'm having a bit of trouble. lol XD

[arivess.livejournal.com]

But the gender neutrality might just be a Japanese way of expressing things. Gender neutral means gender neutral -- not female. From what I understand of Japanese, it's usually more polite to use things like "that person" instead of a direct "he" or "she", isn't it? So it might just be that they happened to not use a gender-specific pronoun.

Thing is, though, I'm pretty sure it does say somewhere that the 14th is a man. Since you say they don't in the chapter that talks about Mana and the 14th, I think they do earlier. I remember thinking myself that the 14th might be female before, and going, "Huh, I guess he is male" at some point.

[kalium-kx.livejournal.com]

Girl fourteenth would be interesting..ever throught that could be dedicated to Mana as a prayer after his own death(fourteenth)

[eikyu-ni.livejournal.com]

Thanks for agreeing with me. Sadly I'm not that great in japanese grammar, so I'm glad you could explain it more detailed than me. I always thought watashi was a basically feminine form wich can also be used as a neutral form by men, while atashi was completely feminine. But if that's not right thanks for correcting me.

And yes, sometimes Hoshino can be really mean to us.