A eurobeat song by A-One, an arrangement of
“感情の摩天楼 (Emotional Skyscraper) ～ Cosmic Mind”, boss theme for the character Hijiri Byakuren from
Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object.

Song Lyric Context:

So generically the Touhou games use historical characters and ‘historical’ folk lore monsters as a basis for the characters and their backstories (which is why the games are so popular on the Japanese Internet, since in part they are a continuation of thousands of years of tradition for the modern era) — this song, despite the ridiculous (intentional) fanservice, is a continuation of this done by a fan group trying to ‘give a song/lyrics’ to describe a character.

Once upon a time, there was a (ostensibly real) Buddhist Priest named Myouren. He had a (fictional, at least, this depiction) sister named Hijiri Byakuren (kanji: 聖白蓮 “Holy White Lotus”). Hijiri loved Buddhism, but loved her brother more. Like, fun for the whole family kinds of love. Attachments are a nono in Buddhism, doubly so when they’re your brother, triply so when you’ve already made vows of celibacy and of ‘forsaking the world’ as monks do.
She kept this on the down low, and she was well liked and famous for exorcising demons . When her brother passed away, it left her with a very large fear of death (alongside a longing for her brother), so in her fear she turned to dark magic and learned the secret of immortality.
While doing so (and thus, abandoning her humanity) she became close with the youkai (‘demons’) she was hunting, and instead started hiding them and protecting them, at first to keep her powers (as they are derived from the same source), but later because she realized they were not as different from humans as she originally thought.

But let’s step away from her backstory a bit; Imagine you’re a Japanese villager in the mountains. Suddenly you see this person walk up to you with this ridiculous outfit and a band of demons cheerfully following her and referring to her as their teacher…espouse the values of Buddhism, of nonattachment. She’s totally sincere and she (at least, on the outside) lives a perfectly virtuous life. Without knowing that she has this completely ridiculous backstory that goes against basically every tenet of Buddhism and seeing that (at the very least, on appearances) she truly believes in helping others and teaching people how to live more fulfilling lives…is she moral, or is she not?

In the Touhou universe, she’s functionally the posterchild for Buddhism (with other characters representing other Eastern religions); while her actions and demeanor are kind and helpful, is she really a ‘good Buddhist’ given her attachment to life, her brother, and her own perspective? Her appearance in the franchise starts an arc (from Touhou 12 to roughly Touhou 15) that basically revolves around her and 2 other characters representing Taoism, Buddhism, and Shintoism and how the religions are both good and bad for society as a whole.
I highly recommend reading “Symposium of Post Mysticism” if this idea hits your fancy.
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Part_1



With this backstory, here are the lyrics: the speaker of the song would be Hijiri Byakuren, and I can only assume that the “target” of the song is to her brother that she definitely wants to get stuck in a drying machine for.

(Repeat Chorus)

(***)

[*1] The line is ostensibly “What’s the white magic”, but in katakana is just “wazawaitomajikku” and that could either be “what’s the white magic(?”) or “disasterous/calamity magic”
[*2] 勘違い (kanjigai) means like ‘misunderstandings’ or ‘not reaching a mutual understanding’
すれ違い (surechigai) means like ‘failing to meet (on an agreement)’ or ‘talking past each other’
[*3] 道徳 (Doutoku ) – Morality, but ‘way of virtue’,
秩序 (chitsujo ) – Social order, systems

[*4] jibunkatte is like saying ‘I’m going to do this for me as I want to do it, IDGAF’
[*5] Karma -> Cause and Effect, but because it’s this song…
[*6] Shortening of Namu Sanbou (南無三宝) – The three jewels of Buddhism:
(the Buddha, dharma (the way things are), and the clergy)
Rarely used, but is a proclamation of one’s faith used similarly as “In the name of the father, son, and holy spirit”
[*7] “For what reason”, “Why are you doing this?”
[*8] “Ii kagen de” is like saying “got his shit sorted, got his shit together” . It carries this connotation into the song.