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I haven't come across a specific thread like this, but it feels like something people will enjoy. Feel free to share any pictures of yourself with Japanese artists. I'll start off with the few pictures I have (and leaving some out because they are too unflattering). With Masashi (Jupiter). I have one with the full band too but there's no telling what my face is doing on that exact photo so I'll leave that to your imaginations. Myself and Megaromania. None of them had time to do their hair because they were late, so they're all looking droopy, myself included. BLACK LINE. I still don't remember what came over me when I went here. It was enjoyable, to say the least. (I don't recall why I was wearing Kisaki's shirt to this show). Together with my ultimate heroes. Look how joyful they are. Kaya was lovely. He smelled nice too. Just two hours before this I was still dressed up in the muck from my Silent Hill nurse cosplay, and I dislocated my knee early on that day.

I hope not, that'd be really boring. I'm putting my bets on GACKT and Maria Cross.

Even Luna Sea ripped off my favorite japanse band Dir en grey, just compare Luna Sea's ''G.'' to my favorite japanese band Dir en grey's ''Unknown・・・Despair・・・a Lost'' and you'll see.... My favorite japanese band Dir en gr did it first

Many people don't know this but even famous western people are ripping off my favorite japanese band Dir en grey, such as Morgan Freeman

Nice band pic! Also, highly unlikely, but it would make me so happy if they were named after the (delicious) $3 wine from ALDI

this is relevant again

sux for ray, it was (allegedly) his last band he's one of my fav vk bassists, i hope he pulls a kisaki and comes back with a better band where he can show off his talents.

Limited edition A : 1944 yens CD : 01. RUDENESS RESORT 02. Marburg DVD : 01. RUDENESS RESORT MUSIC VIDEO 02. RUDENESS RESORT MUSIC VIDEO BTS Limited edition B : 1944 yens CD : 01. RUDENESS RESORT 02. プラスチック・ハート(Plastic Heart) DVD : 01.2016.1.7「名も無き明日はない」at TSUTAYA O-WEST LIVE映像 Regular edition : 1296 yens CD : 01. RUDENESS RESORT 02. GIFT 03. RUDENESS RESORT(KØULESS ver.)

as previously mentioned, it appears to be Sadie 真緒(mao) & 美月(mizuki), who have previously formed special unit "The MUMMY", especially today 2016/03/18 is Sadie 11th anniversary (Sadie first live was at Osaka BIG CAT at 2005/03/18)

my life aesthetic tbh

the unit of my dreams

So there seems to be only two members... who wants to start making guesses?

I am going to defend him here yet again, but you are aware that he is committed to everything he does, no? They broke up because of a lack of interest in their formation — the scene considers him to be 'too old' (this goes for Sui and Misery as well), and because they focus on a traditional melodic sound instead of chugging guitars and grunting, people grew tired of them because it's not what the current fanbase wants to hear. Their sales were terrible, event attendence less than scarce, and people generally bark every possible insult they can think of at Kisaki, so I can imagine why he doesn't want to pursue something people intensely dislike. Give the man a damn break. If you follow him as closely as I do you'd see the depression oozing from his comments on the band's disbandment, it's not something he or any of the other members wanted.

Hello! Where do I start... I’m from Poland. Actually, I wanted to join the forum years ago. Unfortunately, I’m slowly losing my interest in J-rock/visual kei and I’m more into J-pop now. But I still want to follow the scene. Nice to meet you!

^ Oi. *wink wink*

Nice band pic [2] I think I found their mascot, a winking owl

Stranger things have happened lol.

Happy birthday Mana-sama

Right now it's Yoshiki Chips. Thinking about the new X Japan album and then this, leaves a real taste in my mouth.

FINALLY!!!!! SOME REAL TALENT !!!

https://vine.co/v/iwKm6wppIIH amazing

^ wtf at CindyKate hate. You make me so sad =( I'm not entirely sure if this is supposed to be a VK-related thread or not. (only glanced at the first and last pages) but.. I seriously cannot stand Korean boy bands & girl bands. I hate the weird focus on the girls' legs. The way the guys wear makeup bothers me, too. The dark eyeshadow with short boyish haircuts is just not appealing to me. And I find it very odd that this type of Kpop has become so popular in Western countries. I know so many people who don't give a shit about non-English music BUT they somehow know all about BIG BANG etc and post that shit all over facebook/twitter. I cannot stand stuff like AKB48 and any group made of pre-pubescent children.

Can't wait for payday to come, so I can use all my money on CD's then complain about how I have no money.

yay finally some samples!! Nice to see they've polish the video presentation. Sounds good, can't wait to have my copy. Am I the only one who actually love THE BEGINNING??

To break it down: Rock vs. Pop Rock made the most profit when culturally it became a part of Pop culture. This started to die off in the 80's but hair metal became a sensation. Hair metal was then killed off for the next wave of acts that were assimilated into the record industries more reliable formulaic machine for hits. Record labels like Mercury began purposefully killing off hair metal bands. Eventually pop punk, grunge, nu metal and other genres were manipulated in the main stream to become represented by the producer controlled music making machine. Why have a band completely in control of their music and writing what they want when they want? Would you not make a lot more money having an inner circle of producers who have mastered making hits, and creating the mainstream landscape of what a hit is? Instead of investing in bands who may go any which direction, it is more lucrative to hire performers who will treat it as more of a job, and sing the songs written for them, dance to the choreography created for them, endorse the products your sponsors give to them, etc.. And if some kind of rock is popular, we'll study the trend with a focus group, then get the producer to hold their hand through a simple track, we'll get a director to come up with a topical video to get attention, the lyricist's will come up with a catchy provocative line that will be repeated until it gets into people's heads, then the people will repeat the lines and memes to advertise for us, for free. Wardrobe will get them something trendy, then we'll get PR to get some interviews, and create some kind of juicy scandal for the group. Then we'll pay stations a lot of money to play us often, iTunes to feature us heavily, Youtube to recommend our video, etc... Then we'll make a bunch of money, give a good chunk to execs, producers, lyricists, then pay off all the marketing, and other costs, and we'll throw a few bucks at the band. Oh wait, we 'advanced' the band all sorts of money when we paid for that new guitar, the gas in the tourbus, their catering, etc etc... Better cut down how much we gave them. Then compare that to moderately successful VK bands filming a PV in the parking garage a thousand other bands played in, in some flame retardant outfit that 99 percent of people would not be caught dead wearing, and a bass player who looks better than most girls, playing a song in a low drop C tuning, over vocals still high pitched as hell, in a style of music that is no longer popular or never has been popular in the mainstream. Then they take that PV, and include it as a bonus for the limited edition, cd only release not on iTunes, and not uploaded to Youtube unless somebody decides to do it against their wishes. And the majority of viewers are international viewers since Japanese have their own sites and ways of digesting media to choose from as well. And they compete in the second biggest music market in the world, with a huge amount of other independent visual kei artists, many of them producing their own music, and not having doors opened to them, no big funding, and a lot of bands still survive somehow, and bands like Royz, Kiryu, etc.... enter the top ten of the charts repeatedly beating tons of major produced and marketed acts, despite being the antithesis of worldwide pop culture and trends. Then you have bands like SID, and lots of older bands like X Japan, Luna Sea, Dir en grey, who have made more money than most pop artists, have been around longer than KPop was a 'thing', and will be referenced as long as there is VK. But in terms of Youtube and worldwide presence, Korean Pop has a very large presence, has several connections to worldwide pop culture where it isn't such a huge step, they are just rapping and twerking in a different language. The Korean government has also heavily funded Korean media on the global stage, from the Korean Wave of film that had a regrettably short life, to KPop now. Japanese individuals and companies have actually complained about not representing Japanese workson the worldwide stage, I even remember Gackt talking about how they are failing to promote Japanese work outside of Japan. But at the same time, Japan has a much more insulated subcultural make-up, and is not AS rapidly molded and influenced by Global and especially American trends. So I definitely think certain cultural exports from Japan are hard to find an audience for, while some others, like anime, games, manga, JDM, etc... have been some of the most influential things in pop culture and subculture history. Not sure if I answered the question or even tried to, but ah well.

Wonderful news. As a big CindyKate fan I was hoping Yuui will be back someday.

Some new ones:

Blood on the Dancefloor, Brokencyde and Black Veil Brides. Basically all of the faux-screamo and scene kid shit. Their delusional fans too.

YUUUUUI MY HONEY <3 <3 <3 What is Misasa Sami doing that prevents him from drumming for this gig? (googling) Hmm, guess he retired..

A new single regrouping old songs as Bsides and sold as a full album. Ok. So his last album still is DIABOLOS.... 2005..... LOL

My buddy has been getting into An Cafe recently. We do song rotations while we drink, and the other night he played like 10 songs from them in a row when his turn came up. I WANT TO GOUGE MY EYES OUT AND PIERCE MY EARDRUMS WITH A HAIRPIN

This tracklist is as insulting as Laruku's Butterfly album, lmao. Ridiculous.

So much hype for Project Diva X since it's coming out exactly in a week! Live Quest Mode is going to be interesting . Also, SO MUCH HYPE for the new livetune track in this game!!! AAAHHHHH!!! *runs in circles*

bullshit coderebirth was more metalcore and signal's song ha, they were no better honey

CD-only version = 3800 yen +tax? really ....? Can't say I'm enthused about that track list.. I didn't really even like any of those singles much.. also, he kind of looks like he's got a lazy eye in the promo pic.

I literally cannot believe that Returner made the cut. Like, its a great song for sure and seems to fit the theme of what the album is going for, but it was released nine years ago. I really would hope that they revamp it a little bit. I feel like the album will be a great one to listen to for first time Gackt fans, but long time fans will be (and obviously already are) pissed about this track list.

Not his best look by far, but I can go with it. Loving the hell out of the dvd+cd cover though. Anyone have eyes on the "MOON TYPE SPECIAL JACKET"? That and the booklet if they're the only differences between editions drive up the price by a lot...

i love it too! then again i liked everything they did after CORE XD this sounds like it will be their best album since their debut one

SET-LIST at 2016/02/07: SE.iNtO the mARkeT 01.NOnsenSe MARkeT 02.「東京」 03.青春ノイローゼ 04.絶望 05.Zombie Paradise～地獄の舞踏曲～ 06.暗闇にピンク 07.青年秘密倶楽部 08.首吊りロンド 09.Hide-and-seek 10.平日の女-A面- 11.Station 07 12.千代田線デモクラシー 13.オリエンタルBLサーカス 14.Midnight Shangrila 15.Carnival 16.ジャパーニーズモダニスト 17.梟 EN1 01.不均衡キネマ 02.自意識過剰型木偶人間 03.T.O.P 04.Happy life EN2 01.Unreachable Voice 02.平日の女-B面- 03.陽の当たらない場所 EN3 01.群青

Since all of my other social media accounts are dead, I often find myself opening another tab to go to said accounts and then unconsciously type in "mo" to bring up Monochrome Heaven. I've been doing this for months now, sometimes I'll open atleast 2 or three tabs of MH and just stare at the page before snapping to and closing the tabs, I feel like a defunct robot, Lol.

Hopefully he can use his tax evasion voodoo to bring back Hisui from eternal sleep

pretty rude of kisaki to have his pizza delivered to a bar

I was just correcting that part because Kpop took from Visual kei; not the other way round. I cannot provide a very detailed explanation for your question, but if you want to compare Visual kei and Kpop in the west, I think there are a lot of differences that keep them separate and experiencing different realities. Kpop is basically western pop, sung in Korean but the basic melodies are in the western style, a bit of English here and there, a bit of skin from both men and women for the sex appeal factor and that's how they made it. Kpop doesn't want to introduce people to something new, instead it gives people the same thing but a bit refined. Now, I'm not convinced Kpop is THAT popular in the west, I might even dare say it may be declining a little bit because it has become repetitive and too westernised. Visual Kei, on the other hand, even in its most mainstream expression is still something that basically appeals to "outsiders", it still retains many attributes that keep it from being totally mainstream such as androgynous looks that basically defy gender roles, thought-provoking lyrics, the melodies themselves are many times an acquired taste, they are not necessarily conceived to appeal to the mainstream, etc. Two different uncomparable genres, one is pop and the other rock and rock isn't as massive as pop is.

If NB were still doing their non-visual deathcore thing they would be an obvious choice for me, but the way things currently are: D.I.D. all the way! They manage to keep me entertained (eventhough it sometimes borders on the ridiculous), while Nocturnal Bloodlust I find terribly soulless and run-of-the-mill. It's funny because I loved that new PV preview of theirs, so I went back and listened to the VK stuff I've been missing out on from them but just...nope.