Note: Note: Fantômas is a character from French popular literature dating from the early 20th century. First created in 1911 by writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, Fantômas appeared in more than 40 novels written by the original creators, and later spawned numerous adaptations to other media such as comics and television. The novels were so popular that the character of Fantômas soon became an icon, especially the original picture of him, which showed him dressed in a domino mask and tuxedo, wearing a sinister smile and wielding a dagger over Paris. However, later iterations of the character portrayed him all in black with a black hood obscuring his face. A master of disguise, Fantômas always appeared under an assumed identity, and was a completely sadistic sociopath with no love or loyalty, who killed for pleasure using many creative methods of murder. Though enormously famous in France, only a few of the Fantômas novels have ever been translated into English. Fantômas was also made into a set of silent film serials around the time the novels were first published, starring actor René Navarre in the title role. The films became just as popular as the novels, garnering Navarre instant fame.

It's also worth noting that, for all his dastardly deeds, Fantômas was not a vampire or other supernatual creature, but a mortal man (see what I did there?) The re-interpretation of the character as a vampire in this song is Sakurai's own take on the story.

I took a few liberties with this translation in order to make it singable with the original melody, mainly because I feel that a singable translation was necessary to preserve the narrative quality of the original lyrics, and the spirit of the serial narrative of the original character's story.

1) Sakurai used nearly the same phrase in the lyrics to "masQue" on Arui wa Anarchy, but I translated it quite differently here because of the context. In addition to meaning "in good spirits," "gokigen you" is a somewhat archaic and formal Japanese greeting, so I added the similar French greeting "enchanté" to evoke the French roots of the Fantômas character.

2) "The moon is beautiful tonight" is a stock Japanese literary phrase meaning, "I love you (but I can't say it in so many words because I'm Japanese and therefore indirect)". The implication of the phrase would not be lost on any Japanese person with a decent education.

3) In the original Japanese, the word here is "kawaki," which means "thirst," not "hunger." However, English-language vampire literature has generally preferred the word "hunger" over "thirst," so I decided to stick with convention (plus, "hunger" fits better with the syllable count and is also easier to sing.) Also, I can't help but think of the 80's cult classic film The Hunger, which starred David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve as vampires, and also featured Bauhaus playing their iconic song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" over the opening credits. The film is required viewing in order to graduate from goth school so there's no question that Mr. Sakurai is well familiar with it.

4) It's unclear whether the narrator is dreaming of coming back to life himself (because he's undead), or whether he's dreaming of the resurrection of the victim he couldn't help but kill.