Balleriko (バレリー子)

The Plot

Balleriko tells the story of a high school girl who falls in love with a boy. The two of them have sex under a stairway at school after hours. This is routine for them until one day, the girl finds out the boy is seeing another girl on the side. Furious with this, she has one last sexual encounter with him and never sees him again.

The Ballerina Girl Herself

My red ribbon flutters as I wave goodbye
After school is my time as prima ballerina

The song's speaker is a young girl, most likely of high school age, judging by the design of her uniform in the PV. On top of that, the speaker most likely has just started puberty. This is evidenced by the first few verses of the song, where the speaker talks about being mistaken for an "innocent girl" by her male peers and getting over the fear of "that bleeding".

The Horizontal Tango Ballet

Hey ding ding dong, Come now, let's dance
More and more, do it harder, Heave-ho
Here, until your climax,
I'll take good care of you

Throughout the song, ballet is used as a metaphor for maturity, sexual or otherwise.

For the speaker, maturing into a young woman is something she has come to accept and even be proud of. She holds this self-perceived maturity to a high regard, as seen when she takes offense to the fact her love interest has taken interest in a girl she deems is worse than her. Could it be because she's not as "mature" as the speaker?

Her using ballet as a metaphor throughout the song says a lot about her as well. Ballet tends to be taught at a young age, and she seems to be quite talented at it as well, being able to pull off a nine turn pirouette. (Though, that might also be metaphorical for her self-percieved sexual prowess.) Though she sees herself as mature, the speaker still cherishes ballet, which may be symbolic of her still clinging onto her youthfulness.

The song's name also plays into the theme of maturity. "Balleriko" (バレリー子) is a portmanteau of バレリーナ (Ballerina) and 子 (ko). 子 can mean "girl" but it can also mean "child". This could be interpreted as the speaker not being as mature as she thinks she is. She's still very much a child despite her having sex with the boy she likes or the fact she got her first period before any other girl in her class.

Odette and Odile

For our masquarade, which would you prefer?
Odette or Odile?

A misinterpretation I see with some other translations of this song is having Odette/Odile refer to the love interest. If anything, Odette/Odile would more than likely refer to the speaker herself.

Odette and Odile are the heroine and villianess of the ballet production Swan Lake. In the story, Odette is cursed to be a swan during the day and a human at night. In order to break the curse, someone who has never fallen in love before must profess their love to her. A prince comes along and falls in love with Odette, however, the sorcerer who cursed her in the first place transforms his daughter Odile to look like Odette to trick the prince. The trick works, and the prince declares his love to Odile. The sorcerer reveals his trap, leaving both the prince and Odette heartbroken.

Swan Lake is unique in that both the heroine and villianess are typically played by the same ballerina, thus a ballerina with great skill and endurance must be chosen to play both roles. Knowing this, it's implied that the speaker sees herself as the superior "dancer" compared to the other girl. However, this leads to another conflict. When the speaker asks who the love interest prefers, she isn't asking about which role he wants to play; she's asking him who he prefers to see her as: his true love or the fake.

The Odette and Odile reference goes even further when you look at the Swan Lake's original production. Originally, Odette and Odile were supposed to be played by two different ballerinas: Anna Sobeshchanskaya and Pelageya Karpakova. However, Karpakova took over as Odette when complications involving Sobeshchanskaya arose. It was rumored that Sobeshchanskaya accepted jewelry from a Russian government official, but sold the jewelry off and married another man. With how much two-timing was present both in and out of production for Swan Lake, it seemed perfect to reference for this particular song.