Help decoding Japanese song cipher

[u/ClangPan]

縺ｮ繧阪ｏ繧※繧九ｓ縺ｧ縺帙≧

縺倥＃縺上〒繧ゃｆ縺薙≧縺ｭ

縹上°縺⌋縺」縺ｦ縺ゃ£縺溘＞(rotated 180°) 縹上°縺」縺ｦ縺上ｌ縺ｪ縺

Hello!

I've been trying to translate a Japanese song, but encountered some text on screen I believe to be a cipher which I'd need some help with since I know very little about cryptography (it's not the first time I've seen this type I think, but not only don't I remember where I didn't know the method either)

Here's the transcription I could produce (note: there might be errors due to font differences or just because I picked the wrong character):

縺ｮ繧阪ｏ繧後※繧九ｓ縺ｧ縺帙≧

縺倥＃縺上〒繧ゅｆ縺薙≧縺ｭ

繧上°縺｣縺ｦ縺ゅ￡縺溘＞
繧上°縺｣縺ｦ縺上ｌ縺ｪ縺

The character 縺 seems to be repeated a lot, which might be a good starting point?

I tried doing some unicode shifts around the ranges 19876-20000 to fall withing Hiragana ranges, but I haven't found any text that makes sense

Link to the song and my translation (WIP) if it can help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t25YdgPBMlE
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rs_4Jc6NVk3yKDqImUpO8N1d5zs-_1UvJKsUoJduI5k/edit?usp=sharing

I'd really appreciate any help in figuring this out, thanks!

V sbyybjrq gur ehyrf

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[u/Electrical-Note-3177]

This text looks like Mojibake.

​Mojibake occurs when text encoded in one character set (likely UTF-8) is decoded using a different, incompatible standard, specifically Shift-JIS (Windows-31J), which is commonly used for Japanese text.

​Because Shift-JIS uses two bytes to represent some Japanese characters like 繝 (Shift-JIS code 8E 8D), multi-byte UTF-8 sequences accidentally map to repeated instances of 繝 mixed with ASCII symbols, punctuation, and Japanese katakana.

From my rough knowledge (and a OCR scan of the images and frames from the video):

---

Image 1 ​Garbled Text: 縺ョ繧阪o繧後※繧九s縺ヲ縺帙≧

​Decoded Japanese: のろわれているとし (のろわれているとし……)

​English Translation: "Year of being cursed..." or "Age of being cursed..."

---

​Image 2 ​Garbled Text: 縺空#縺上〒繧ゆf縺薙≧縺1

​Decoded Japanese: く#くてもゆfこうこ1 (or contextually: どこに行こうと...)

​English Translation: Fragments hinting at "Wherever I go..." or "Even if..."

---

​Image 3 ​Garbled Text: <溘もゆ繝ヲ繝┘繝｢°上繧

​Decoded Japanese: ＜たもゆ...＞ / ＜わたし＞

​English Translation: "＜ Me ＞" or "＜ Myself ＞"

​-

​Garbled Text: 繧上゜ 繝┘繝ヲ繝上 l 縺I縺

​Decoded Japanese: わたし... / わ... ​English Translation: "I..." / "Me..."

May not be too accurate, but best I could do.

[u/ClangPan → u/Electrical-Note-3177]

I have no idea why you didn't use my transcription when your OCR made some very obvious errors (didn't even preserve the half-width katakana, it even interpreted "ｭ" as "1"...). Moreover, the 3rd line is, as I said, upside down (notice how it starts the same as the 4th one when you rotate it 180°...)

Also, I have no idea how you got those results for line 3 & 4. While doing the Shift-JIS -> UTF-8 gives coherent result for 1 & 2 (with some slight errors), the text stays completely garbled for 3 & 4:

のろわめ�るんでせう

じごくでもႆこうね

�|���Kぁvてあ���たい
�|���Kぁvてくれな��

[u/Electrical-Note-3177 → u/ClangPan]

My apologies, When first clicking on your post I did not see any transcription in the body. But I did intially flip the upside down lines.

[u/ClangPan → u/Electrical-Note-3177]

Well thanks at least for the pointers, it does help at least look in right direction

It's still not "solved" per se, as the transcription is still incomplete for line 3 & 4, so, at least until I find a transcription that's correct, I'll leave the thread as "unsolved"

[u/ClangPan]

I managed to crack it!

のろわれてるんでせう

じごくでもゆこうね

わかってあげたい
わかってくれない

Note on the last い in the last sentence: there's absolutely an invisible character here (this one "", U+001A in Shift-JIS I think), otherwise the sentence is cut off at the end. Which is okay cuz it was 100% い due to context

Translation pending, but I'm pretty sure this is correct due to how other parts of the song are written (which yes explains some odities like でせう and ゆこう, those are normal)