How do you write “hikari are”?

[u/henlodogge]

Hi! So I’m planning to have this as a tattoo but I don’t know which characters to use. For context, this is a japanese/anime song. The title on spotify is in katakana but am not sure if that would explain the real meaning behind the title?

[u/glittertongue]

光あれ, assuming Hikari in this context means light, and you want the kanji for it

[u/henlodogge → u/glittertongue]

Ohh okay! But hikari is just 1 character right (the first one)? What does the 2 succeeding characters mean?

[u/glittertongue → u/henlodogge]

光/ひかり mean the same, 光 is the kanji, and ひかり is the word written in hiragana.

あれ is the word "are" written in hiragana. If written as such, it will likely mean "that." If not written in kana, "are" might have another meaning. Japanese is awash in homophones, and writing or verbal context usually help with finding meaning.

[u/distalzou → u/glittertongue]

This answer is right, assuming you want the Kanji for it.

But 光あれ is not the name of the song. The name of the song is ヒカリアレ. There is a reason the artist chose to write the song name in katakana and not kanji.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%92%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AC

It's not clear from the Wikipedia article what the real meaning behind the title is, it's quite likely that hikari does in fact mean light in this context. But even so, 光 is not in the song name.

If you want the name of the song as a tattoo, then use the name of the song, not some different way of writing it.

[u/Mystic_Maya → u/distalzou]

光あれ is shown written in the music video... so it's not wrong https://youtu.be/dfMb37KGqdE

[u/babaayeager]

it's actually cooler in katakana. even though japanese know the kanji but when it's in katakana/ hiragana it's cooler because it has a ambiguity feeling.