I always assumed one of them was a mistranslation seeing as it's title in Japanese is written in a katakana form (where it's read as an English words or includes names) and not a kanji form like a lot of them. Because, considering the interchangeability of them, the way it's written in Japanese it can really read both ways as "Loss of Me" or "Rose of May", both would be spelled practically the same way with katakana.

But which is correct? I thought it was the latter because it makes more sense because of the Red Rose, and "Loss of Me" makes little to no sense. But yet more sites and listings I see and files I find still call it "Loss of Me", so at this point I'm not even sure anymore. So what's it really?

Well you could say that Loss of Me reflects Beatrix's lost character and self-respect because of blindly taking orders. After all, it is played when Beatrix starts doubting the reasons behind Brahne's actions.


But I prefer Rose of May too, to be honest.

im happy i took japanese as a subject for this year. i looked at what it says. put from katakana to romaji, its 'rozu(or su) obu mei'. and since katakana is used to spell foreign words, its literal translation is rose of may.

Since we first hear this song on the red rose, it is logical that the song would be called 'rose of may'. in both symbolic and literal points of view, they represent Beatrix character/personality.

I wonder where on earth 'loss of me' came from, to me it sounds like bad translation, thank god this beautiful piece has no lyrics, i'd hate to see what that could be translated into.

And of course, only its creator knows its true meaning: Nobuo Uematsu. too bad he's halfway across the world :(

Well vorvel, apparently he does respond to emails... check his site.

But can't the "mei" part be pronounced as "mi" if the "i" sign is small? I'm pretty sure I've seen a situation where the English word "ME" is transliterated into katakana for some other Japanese sounding title and spelled like that rather than just with the letter "mi".

as far as i know, a little 'i' is to make letter sound like '-ee' such as 'fu' if you put a little i beside it, it changes to 'fi'. little i,e,ya,yu,yo letters are to change the sounding of original letters for example if 'yu' was put next to 'chi', it would change to 'chu'. e is pronounced as 'eh' and i is 'ee'. if it was to say 'me' in english, then it would be 'mi' with '-' at the end of the i to extend that letter longer. the letter 'tsu' if little, is used to create a jumping sound.

i bet someone who knows more japanese than i do can help :) and correct me if im wrong XD

as far as i know, a little 'i' is to make letter sound like '-ee' such as 'fu' if you put a little i beside it, it changes to 'fi'. little i,e,ya,yu,yo letters are to change the sounding of original letters for example if 'yu' was put next to 'chi', it would change to 'chu'. e is pronounced as 'eh' and i is 'ee'. if it was to say 'me' in english, then it would be 'mi' with '-' at the end of the i to extend that letter longer. the letter 'tsu' if little, is used to create a jumping sound.

i bet someone who knows more japanese than i do can help :) and correct me if im wrong XD

Oh yeah, that does sound right, forgot about the horizontal line thing to extend vowels. It just seemed weird to think of that word as one character long.

Loss of Me, I'd say. I've used it for years. Plus, like said above, it describes Beatrix.

"Rose of May" IS the official, and original, title of the song. Plus, it sounds a lot better in my opinion.

It's a pain in the neck -- the whole controversy, as far as I'm concerned. Glad to hear that "Rose of May" is indeed the proper translation -- I always liked it better.