Investigating the accuracy of Yoshiki’s “Kurenai” lyrics.

Along with “Forever Love” and “Rusty Nail,” “Kurenai” is one of J-rock band X Japan’s greatest hits. Written by the group’s legendary frontman Yoshiki, the title of “Kurenai” translates to “crimson,” and the word shows up in the chorus in the song’s iconic lyrics:

“Stained in crimson, there is no one left to comfort me.”

▼ “Kurenai,” cued up to the chorus

“Kurenai” was originally released in in 1989, so our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun, who like Yoshiki hails from Chiba Prefecture, has had a long time to mull the lyrics over, yet he still finds them mysterious. Given the plaintive nature of the line, P.K. is pretty sure “crimson” is Yoshiki’s poetic way of referring to “blood,” but if someone was covered in blood, wouldn’t at least one person ask if they were OK?

And so P.K. decided to investigate if anyone would comfort him if he were stained in crimson in Tokyo. Grabbing the SoraNews24 company bottle of fake blood (we have a lot of weird things sitting around our workplace), P.K. headed to the park nearest SN24 HQ for an experiment.

The format was simple: he’d apply the fake blood, then see if anyone offered him any sort of comfort within the next five minutes, even something as simple as someone asking “You OK over there?” He also decided to make this a three-stage test, increasing the amount of blood each time, starting off with a bloody nose-like trickle.

▼ “Stained in crimson…”

▼ “…there is no one…”

▼ “…left to…”

▼ “… comfort me.”

…

…

…

Wow, there really was no one offering comfort to P.K.! To be fair, though, having a bloody nose probably wouldn’t qualify as being “stained in crimson,” and it’s entirely possible that passersby didn’t even notice the simulated hemoglobin leakage. So now it was time to step things up a notch by applying the fake blood to P.K.’s cheeks and forehead.

▼ “Stained in crimson…”

▼ “…there is no one…”

▼ “…left to…”

▼ “… comfort me.”

…

…

…

Once again, no one came by to offer P.K. any comfort. This time, though, he did have a few people look over at him, and he returned their gaze, but no one came over or called out to him.

OK, now it was time to really stain P.K. in crimson. For Stage 3, we slopped as much fake blood as we could onto his face without getting it in his eyes, and actually more than we could without getting any on his shirt.

▼ “Stained in crimson…”

▼ “…there is no one…”

▼ “…left to…”

▼ “… comfort me.”

…

…

…

But even with this much crimson, no one offered comfort too P.K.

P.K. was pretty shocked at the non-reaction from passersby, but he had a theory. Maybe people felt awkward approaching a single stranger sitting by himself, and so would be more willing to approach two people who were both stained in crimson? Honestly, we’re not really sure we follow his logic here, but a lack of logic has never really been a reason not to do something in the eyes of our boss, Yoshio, and so he joined P.K. for an impromptu Stage 4 of the test.

▼ “Stained in crimson…”

▼ “…there is no one…”

▼ “…left to comfort…us.”

Sadly, even P.K. and Yoshio’s combined crimson quotient wasn’t enough to convince anyone to comfort them. The closest that came to happening was when a pigeon came over, but he might have just wanted to have a word with them about the time we tried to have some of his avian kin poop on us as part of a get-rich-quick scheme.

▼ “Don’t you guys ever do anything normal?”

Actually, that touches on something that might have skewed the results of P.K.’s “Kurenai” test. Shinjuku, the part of Tokyo that SoraNews24 HQ is located in, is a neighborhood where some strange things happen…and sometimes we’re the ones doing them. In this very park, we’ve previously strutted about in our homemade Mirror Man invisibility suit and had a play date with our gigantic chocolate egg child that we later broke into pieces and ate. It’s entirely possible that at this point, when some of the locals see P.K. and Yoshio, they already know they must be up to something weird, and so they make a conscious decision to keep their distance. We can’t deny that that’s a wise choice, especially if they could tell from the color of the fake blood that they weren’t really bleeding or injured.

Come to think of it, we really should go back and take another look at the song’s lyrics:

“Stained in crimson, there is no one left to comfort me.”

“No one left to comfort me.” In other words, there used to be people who would have offered comfort, but not anymore, and considering that P.K. and Yoshio almost got arrested in this same neighborhood during one of their previous experiments, it stands to reason that random passersby might not be too eager to get involved with them.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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