

I believe lyrics are shown to both the first opening and ending songs of the
tennis anime, [Baby Steps](http://www.crunchyroll.com/baby-steps). Here is a
partial shot from the ending:

[![shot from end credits illustrating lyrics and possible
notation](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EeUoM.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EeUoM.jpg)

You can see that the normal credits are single rows of characters. However,
the lyrics at the bottom include a row of a few mini-characters above the main
ones. What do these additional markings (characters?) indicate? I am not
asking for a translation, just what their purpose is.

I vaguely remember seeing them in another series or two, but this is the first
time they really caught my curiosity. I'm assuming right now that they are
related to the music, perhaps how the song may have modified pronunciation of
certain words. It appears too sparse to be some sort of full musical notation.
There is only one voice in each song, so it is not the simultaneous words of a
second singer.

In the English Wikipedia there is an article called [Shakuhachi Musical
Notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakuhachi_musical_notation) related
to Japanese music. It did not seem to help, though I don't know much about the
topic. (I.e. I didn't see any pictures showing the double-row lyric thing.)


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2017-02-03T20:58:21.840
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question
japanese-language baby-steps
What are the markings used above some song lyrics?


The markings above the kanji are
[furigana](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana), which indicate the
pronunciation of the respective characters. I'm not an expert, but I recall
seeing this (sometimes for all kanji, sometimes only for some) in karaoke-
related videos on YouTube before. (Examples:
[北酒場](https://youtu.be/NjPM5RfY5_o), for some kanji;
[長崎の女](https://youtu.be/XxJcOKTzs6w), where significantly,
[女](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A5%B3#Japanese) is read as ひと.)
Wikipedia singles karaoke as a notable case in which furigana appears, and it
makes sense that furigana may be provided for some songs even when they're not
explicitly made for the purpose of karaoke (for instance, for a children's
show where viewers might sing along).


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answer