There are a couple of advantages to using prose translations of the poems collected in "the Tip of the Writing Brush". The obvious one is that in translation the Poems are made available to a much wider audience as the majority of people in the world are unable to read the original Japanese version.

I note that all of the prose translations that I have seen attempt to maintain the appearance of poetry and that works to inform our mind that we are reading poetry with all of the mental and linguistic advantages that come with that.

There is another advantage that is, I imagine, worth mentioning and that is that the historical, emotional and cultural baggage that is particular to Japanese culture in a particular time and place is pretty much absent in the prose translations although the obstacle to understanding that the Poems address is universal to all self-centered imaginations in all times and places there is no need to add to our own in this time and place by piling on the misunderstandings of 19th Century Japanese villagers.

The disadvantages to reading the Poems in prose translations are also obvious. The "Waka" meter is lost in translation and the poems suffer then in mental and verbal recitation. Also, the prose translations are reflections of the understanding of the translators. Throughout these pages I almost entirely adhere to the current official Tenrikyo English language translation, which is an ongoing effort of a translation committee and though in rare cases I fall back on some uses from other translations that appeal to me I  sincerely believe the official translation to be adequate to the task at hand.