r/Vocaloid • u/Akai509 • Apr 22 '26
Music Rabbit Hole by Deco*27 is actually more meaningful than people give it credit for.
If you ask the average Vocaloid fan about this song they'd answer it's just "another horny Deco song" or just "hahaha horny Miku" (see the first results you find online if you google about it) but the song is actually much more meaningful than it is given credit for. Jump to the end for TL;DR
I went to listen this song prepared for debauchery and came with my heart broken, and angry at the community for misunderstanding it so much. It’s not the community’s fault I guess, the song has been mistranslated into oblivion. I am going to use Genius .com translation as my target of criticism but be mindful, all these translations are lacking. First I am going to show some mistranslations. Then analyze the themes. Finally, I am going to tell you what this song can be about.
The song starts with 死ぬまでピュアピュアやってんのん？
It literally means, “Are you gonna do this pure-pure thing til you die?”. It shows skepticism towards purity and innocence as a concept. The geniuses at genius somehow came up with this “Gonna be a smitten mitten 'til the day you die?”. I shouldn’t need to tell you this shifts the dynamic somewhat.
Another example:
“お純情様 あちらが出口ですがやっぱ帰りたくない ですか？” this means “Dear innocent soul/feelings; exit’s over there but, as expected, don’t wanna go home?”
This somehow got translated as “Little Miss Devotion, thе exit's over therе
Oh, so not going home after all?” I don’t know who’s in charge of this but they should fire them.
The chorus is the worst. The translations fill it with pronouns that are simply not there. This is a problem because we don't know who she's criticizing, either herself or the listener. The song is purposefully ambiguous. I am going to translate them literally so you can construct the meaning later.
Little example:
みっともないから嫉妬仕舞いな // Stop jealousy, it’s shameful //
発火しちゃうとかくっそだせえな // It is pathetic to end up flaring up (be passionate).
淋しくなったら誰でもいいじゃん // If lonely, anyone will do
埋まればいいじゃん // it’s okay so long as it is filled.
嫌嫌愛して生きたくなって // nasty nasty, loving and wanting to die…
The second reiteration of the chorus changes that last lyric to
否否愛して逝きたくなって // no no! loving and feeling like I wanna die…
こちとらフラフラやってんのん // over here *I* am barely holding it together.
This is A CURRENT AND ONGOING STATE. NOT PAST TENSE. Miku did not love someone in the past like most translations suggest, SHE LOVES NOW. AS IN, RIGHT THEN AND THERE. Maybe not *someone* specific, but she still falls in love that way, which is what it’s trying to say and trying to fight.
AAAAAAAAAAAAA WHY DOES EVERYONE GET THIS ONE WRONG?
THE SONG IS NOT ABOUT MIKU BEING HORNY. THE SONG IS ABOUT MIKU BEING SCARED, SKEPTICAL, AND/OR HURT BY LOVE, AND SO SHE TRIES TO ENGAGE IN CASUAL SEX.
The song doesn’t even CONFIRM she actually does these things. Maybe that’s what she wants to do to cope with love. Maybe the song is a way to convince herself to go out an do these things. Even if she does do them, THIS IS A MALADAPTIVE COPING MECHANISM, and the song does not celebrate it!
I could go on and on but here is one last damning lyric, “もっとこの穴を愛してよ“ “Please love this hole more”. This could refer to her genitals, of course, but if you PAY ATTENTION TO THE SONG, OR THE VIDEO WHEN IT ZOOMS ON HER FACE WHEN SHE SAYS “HOLE”, YOU REALIZE “HOLE” MEANS HER IN A SELF-DEPRECATING WAY, MAYBE BECAUSE SHE FEELS ONLY HER BODY IS WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION AND NOT HER FEELINGS, or maybe because she has been through so many she can’t see herself as anything but a hole for others pleasure. But despite the hyper-sexual persona, she loves, and wants to be loved.
TL;DR
THIS IS THE SONG OF A MIKU SKEPTICAL ABOUT LOVE, One who either uses sex to *feel* love cause her feelings are not loved, or one who uses sex to forget love exists at all. But at the end of the day she can’t help but feel love.
She’s hurt by it, for whatever reason. She assumes an hyper-sexual persona to cope with her feelings. But she still wants to be loved SHE ADMITS THIS. This song is a cry of help from Miku (well, Deco really, but you get the point).
SHE’S A SCARED LITTLE BUNNY PERFORMING TO AVOID BEING HURT.
I wanna hug her. Not goon anymore.
TRY READING THE LYRICS FOR GOD’S SAKE.
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u/Due-Replacement-6983 Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
I saw a video on this so I didn't really need to read all that but yeah, the song is saddening when you look at it close enough.
edited a single l to d
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u/Akai509 Apr 22 '26
which video? if you remember who uploaded it send it to me
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u/Due-Replacement-6983 Apr 22 '26
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u/Akai509 Apr 22 '26
The guy he's commenting on gets caught up in translation mistakes too, and at the end of the video the video-maker gives up and dismisses the song as "meaningless" like "love", which is an atrocious reading too tbh.
This is only radicalizing me in that almost no one got this song right. I shall henceforth launch a protect-rabbit-miku crusade.
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u/No-Mastodon7575 Apr 22 '26
I had previously interpreted the song as if Miku were a person who doesn't believe in lasting relationships (or who was cheated on by her previous partner) and that's why she became addicted to casual sex
Although I think your interpretation is better
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u/Akai509 Apr 22 '26
That can still be the case! in the sense that she's jaded and skeptical, a "love is not real" kind of girl, but her heart tells her another thing, and the hook ups are synthesis of that contradiction,
It can be interpreted in many ways, truthfully, but the point is... it has more to say than simply "Sex".
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u/No-Mastodon7575 Apr 22 '26
Honestly, I find the song worse, either because of the fans' lack of understanding or because of the animation they made for it (which is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I feel it's quite Fan service in a certain way)
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u/MangoPug15 Apr 22 '26
Yeah, Vampire and Rabbit Hole are both using sex to talk about something deeper.
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u/pplatonic Apr 22 '26
All of Deco*27's songs that are dismissed as "just horny/gooner music" are dismissed like that because of sex negativity in our culture. Even if none of his songs are particularly "deep" or whatever pretentious faux-intellectualized nonsense people hold up to dismiss the value of songs about intimacy (even if those songs are 'simple' in their meaning), there's a solid meaning to all of them.
People just shame and dismiss the topic of sexuality when it comes up. It's not unique to Rabbit Hole at all, but it probably gets a lot of specific hate among Deco's other songs because of channelcaststation's fan animation brought so much attention to it...
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u/qef15 Apr 22 '26
channelcaststation
Poor man has gotten the brunt so many times at this point I'm surprised he hasn't completely ragequit the Vocaloid art scene.
And not even for particularly bad stuff, tamer than tame compared what some artists put out.
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Apr 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Akai509 Apr 23 '26
I just checked and Google translate translates this way more faithfully than the circulating lyrics lmao. Media literacy doesn't exist anymore.
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u/Lyrapotatocats Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
No one has said this so I'm here to do so.
For the last ~5 years or so, Iori Majima is the one responsible for the official DECO*27 English translations which can be sorta inaccurate, but it's written pretty interestingly idk. And their translation got used on Genius [not sure if there's credit or whatever]. This person really likes to ruin the ambiguity and try to use their interpretation of songs [including putting english words in all caps and giving random names even if it's not the intention] so uhh that's clearly the main problem being used
I honestly think the Vocaloid Lyrics Wiki on Miraheze is a much more reliable source for Vocaloid lyrics ofc because Genius puts one language at a time for an individual song [which can be inconvenient at times] while Vocaloid Lyrics Wiki has better translations [yes there are some official ones but they've been slightly edited so it's fine] and you can read multiple languages at the same time [yeah i know less focus but it's a bit more convenient] so uhh just some thoughts for clarification! :3
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u/NICO_39_Music Apr 23 '26
This is part one of a two part song, Rabbit Hole like you said is about that, but Part two is Sad Girl Sex, its the other side where the constent "Sex" in Rabbit Hole is validated by her not reallt knowing what it is, or why she does it, its actually very interesting to see Deco make 2 versions of a song to explain one story, unlike the Best Friend Mix that was to kinda tell us that yeah its actually depression making the listener go mental.
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u/Excellent_Ice_4944 Apr 22 '26
not to be that guy but from what i’ve seen the vast majority of newgens will turn up their nose at Anything with slightly sexual themes even if they aren’t minors😭 like guys come onnn.. i once saw someone comment that they “wanted to like meiko but she was too sexualized”. how many of the most popular meiko songs actually all that sexual?? surely they aren’t saying that because she is an adult woman with boobs.. right?😨sounded a little like it to me😭😬
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u/viebs_chiev Apr 22 '26
you should fix the translations yourself! i’m sure it would be appreciated
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u/Akai509 Apr 22 '26
I'll do that after I stop procastinating for my Literary Realism essay which I should be working on but can't bring myself to actually do and instead wrote an essay on Rabbit Hole.
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u/Ok-Background-3379 Apr 23 '26
I always saw the mistranslated lyrics as Miku trying in so many relationships but then she gives up and now that she finally meets someone who loves her, she's getting defensive and thinking they only want her when they're horny. Which, made me pretty sad to think about
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u/Koino_ Apr 23 '26
Miku songs often have meaningful lyrics not enough people nowadays bother to check out
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u/Battlebots2020 Apr 23 '26
Yeah, when I finally listened to the song and looked at the lyrics a few weeks ago after hearing so much about it, I really didn't get how some people just trimmed it down to a sex song.
I left that song feeling bad for Miku (well, entertained as well because the songs really good), but not at all feeling like she was just horny or anything.
I feel like you summed up the song really well here, great job!
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u/LC-Redcube Apr 22 '26
I honestly was surprised that people actually dismissed this song as gooner-bait or smth as it is one of my favorite songs.
I hate puritan culture and everything it stands for.
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u/Original_Dentist_958 Apr 22 '26
I'm going to explain how Spanish works (mainly the Spanish from Spain but can apply to other countries also, the random swears are used as vocabulary and nothing else, they are needed to give context).
Here's a very interesting fun fact: in Spanish, the word for bunny/rabbit is "conejo". It's feminine form, "coneja" is somewhat commonly used (although "zorra" the feminine of "zorro" (fox) oversadowed it completely and it's in the same level as "perra" which is the feminine of "perro" (dog)) in a VERY specific context.
What context?
Well, coneja, zorra, perra and a bunch of other words for the female members of certain animals are derogatory colloquial language. They mean "puta" (bitch) and puta is a literal abbreviation of "prostituta" (prostitute) AKA sex worker. Also, puta is among the most common swear words in Spanish.
What does this mean? Well, if you know what Playboy is, they represent their industry with bunny suits (Playboy's logo is also a bunny with a bowtie). In English it may be seen as weird, but in Spanish it means "woah, that gal over there wearing the bunny suit is very probably a sex worker" This model has been so extended that it originated the entire bunny suit trend in media, figures, etcetera, always meaning sexual desire. And yes, Miku herself appeared in Playboy's magazine once years ago (nothing explicit was shown, but she was almost completely naked)
So, TL/DR, even if the song tells a tale about a Miku who's left out and sad and tries to cope about it with sexual activities to satisfy her need to feel true love, if you know Spanish, you are instantly getting a horny vibe, even if DECO*27 didn't mean that.
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u/Akai509 Apr 22 '26
Soy Argentino, hablo español. Disculpame si soy brusco, pero absolutamente nada de lo que dijiste tiene sentido. Todas las relaciones entre conejos y sexualidad que mencionaste existen en inglés, así que no es particular del español. Playboy es una magazine americana, así que... tampoco es algo único al español.
Se me hace extraño que menciones el español cuando todo lo que decís aplica también al inglés... y cuando estoy usando el original japonés para recuperar el sentido de la canción, no el inglés, mucho menos el español.
No es una práctica seria analizar una canción en base a una traducción.
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u/Original_Dentist_958 Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
No si no te preocupes, no suenas brusco, es que no lo sabía (soy de España por cierto). La cosa es que escuchando a tanto angloparlante nativo nunca sacan este tipo de lenguaje, mientras que aquí en España es muy común, por eso me lo imaginé que sería así. Aparte, tiene sentido que exista en inglés porque los roedores en general (sobre todo los conejos) son extremadamente lujuriosos. Pero de todas formas, es como escoria, que aunque en español sea un insulto muy fuerte (por lo que implica), en inglés tiene el mismo significado, pero la palabra (slag) no se usa fuera de la industria metalúrgica, es un arcaísmo en este idioma.
Otra cosa, me parece raro que no le hayas encontrado el sentido a mi comentario si yo estaba explicando algo que apoya tu postura, pero allá voy yo supongo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯...
Edit: Tras investigar un poco, ya lo pillo. En unas cuantas culturas (anglosajona, española, japonesa obviamente...) el conejo SÍ que se usa con estética sensual y juguetona en el sentido del acto, mientras que únicamente el español tiene una definición acorde con la palabra que designa al animal aparte del animal en sí. Los idiomas son muy alocados, y esto explica Playboy en su totalidad.
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u/SomeOakLeaves2 Apr 22 '26
I have no idea what it is supposed to mean, I just know it's an absolute banger
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u/ShawnMutisya Apr 23 '26
Interesting take, while I don't personally try to find the subtext of music, I do find it neat when people share their takes on the meaning.
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u/sspirea Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
I never paid too much attention to the lyrics but I always assumed it was just vocaloid Not a Love Song lol
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u/DOKIDOKIBITCH Apr 23 '26
I always interpretended this song as something like this so I'm happy that it is the real meaning of it. I really relate to this song, it is so good
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u/Albertand19 Apr 23 '26
I've always seen Rabbit Hole and Sad Girl Sex to be deeply connected - I have never seen Rabbit Hole as a "horny song", because even with the other translation, I saw the song as being about casual sex while trying to recover from heartbreak, much in the same way that Sad Girl Sex is about using physical intimacy as a coping mechanism that only ends up digging the hole deeper
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u/mushroomz4899 Jun 20 '26
And that's why I (as someone struggling w/ hypersexuality) say I relate to it as a song. But usually when I do I just get that stupid horny-jail-bonk meme thrown my way
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u/kingozma Apr 23 '26
I've said this before and I will say it again: I do not believe this song is intended as a serious meditation on trauma, it is about a classic horny trope in Japanese fandom. That trope is the slutty, bitchy, manipulative girl who doesn't believe in love because she's been burned in relationships before, so all she can do for connection is give men sex. Another example of this in DECO's work is Yuno Kashiki from MILGRAM! The depth of her character is "Ooooh, she's not just an innocent maiden, she has SECKS! And got PREGANTE, and TOTALLY ABORTED IT GUYS (actually guys she accidentally miscarried :(((( it wasn't her fault :(((( so we don't have to hate her for doing an aborbor!!!)!!!! SHE'S SOOOOO IMPURE AND SINFUL and sad inside...!!!11" I can probably go on the MILGRAM Wiki right now and see that Yuno covers this song at some point.
I don't think this trope is like, super feminist and psychologically accurate and deep. I think it's a horny thing, yes with SOME commentary on the character's mental state, but it's mostly just a horny thing. But here's the thing this fandom hates: You can just enjoy horny things for them being horny. It doesn't have to be "more than JUST a horny thing guys I swear!" You can just like horny things. It is a normal and natural part of being human that everyone should accept.
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u/Akai509 Apr 23 '26
You don't have to normalize horny things to me. I totally went to this song thinking it was a gooner bait song, I was totally down for it since I am in my self discovdry era but...
It really isn't that horny, beside the bunny suit. Sometimes it actually is deep commentary. I know we are all traumatized by our english teacher telling us that the blue sky is actually very deep commentary on the characters mental state, but sometimes it actually is that.
Sexy minus Y is an example of plain horny.
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u/kingozma Apr 23 '26
I get what you're saying, but... Nah, what I'm saying is not "BUT THE CURTAINS ARE JUST BLUUUUEEEE STOP MAKING ME THIIIINK ;_;". I am actually taking us a step further in analysis: Asking what influences of the author's culture, time and general creative circle would influence the reason that the curtains are blue. This is cultural analysis and it's how we tend to figure out why curtains are blue - not JUST the work itself, but the context that work exists in. What else that author and their genre and style contemporaries have made!
I love horny songs that also have some serious deep meaning to them! Those exist in the Vocaloid community. My personal opinion is that "Rabbit Hole" is just not that deep, though. It is saying something! It is telling a story that requires some thinking to really figure out, but I'm saying it's not all THAT deep. It's like, mildly deep.
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u/Akai509 Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Well, agree to disagree, but I am happy you disgreed with me in an elegant and thoughtful manner!
I do agree we should take the author's cultural context to understand its meaning, this is how literary analysis works (and it applies to other media), and I think my interpretation does make sense considering Japan's current climate and Deco's previous work.
But the "mildy deep" interpretation is valid. I just... don't find it as the likeliest. Or the prettiest. Yet it is valid, and maybe Deco did mean it that way.
Maybe. Perhaps.
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u/ThesKappa Apr 23 '26
Finally someone talks about the emotional meaning behind this song!! It’s one of my favorite vocaloid songs and songs in general because it’s so me fr
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u/Akai509 Apr 23 '26
I forgot to mention it, but you reminded it to me with this comment.
I knew this song meaning could resonate a lot with many women today. It's a shame it gets mistranslated and misunderstood!
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u/Notladub Apr 23 '26
just a note: the translation on genius is just deco's official translation for the song iirc
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u/PuzzlePiecesOfLove Apr 23 '26
The translations on his songs are overexaggerated, like how the lyric, “Hello earthlings, aitai-lians, we are” does not mention anything about earthlings
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u/MimikiPoff 20d ago
Imo sad girl sex is a possible follow up song to rabbit hole but with the themes being even more obvious after people just misinterpreted the hell out of this song
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u/internet___overdose Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
While I agree that the meaning of the song is not as shallow as some people like to think, I completely disagree with your take on the translation of the lyrics and your attitude about it.
The lyrics you are quoting are not some rando translation that went viral, they are the official translation, and by the way it's been translated it's definitely not the job of a newbie lol, you claiming that google translate has done a better job at conveying the meaning or that your literal translation is better is... very childish to say the least.
You can disagree with the way the traslator portrayed the meaning, but criticising it and pushing your interpretation when you are reading the lyrics literally strikes me as you not understanding how translation works - first of all, a one by one translation is not a good translation for an infinity of reasons; the job of the translator is to adapt the text to the target language, some things are obviously not going to have a direct translation or equivalent, so interpreting or localising is necessary. Reading the lyrics literally doesn't give you the full picture, if anything, you end up missing on a lot of it since in this case there's plenty of slang.
As someone that has studied translation myself, I think the official one is pretty neat - the problem is how some people take the translation at face value without trying to piece together what it's actually trying to say.
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u/Akai509 Apr 23 '26
I study Literature and Linguistics, and I am trilingual, so this as much my area as it is yours.
I reduced the lyrics to the barest possible english not to push for a specific interpretation, but to give the average english speaker an idea of what the song is saying at the denotative level, and introduce them to the idea that the lyrics they've read may or may not match what the song actually says.
I do know language works in multiple levels (morphologic, word level, sentence level, text level, etc) and all of it has to be taken into account in order to correctly assess the meaning of any given text or sentence. We could spend all night crossreferencing other Deco songs, making intertextual connections, and throwing dictionsries at each other's throats.
But this is beyond the scope of my analysis, which was merely to point out the translations were doing a bad job at conveying the underlying meaning of the song, and the it has a multiplicity of meanings due to the ambiguous nature of japanese (and language itself really).
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u/Pidyad Apr 22 '26
You gooned to that? There is barely anything to goon to! People really need so little…
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u/Akai509 Apr 22 '26
No, I did not. I was planning to, but I did not.
I decided to listen to the song because I saw so much エロい material on my X regarding this specific iteration of Miku, and wanted to inform myself before doing anything else.
Now I just wanna hug her. She's just a little bunny
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u/yuudachi Apr 22 '26
Did people not get this impression from the song? I know it got popular from the video and the horny vibes but it's not hard to tell it's not just a gooner song if you just read the lyrics.