Saishu

Sweaty

Satsuki probably burned all of his bridges. Also, Kyo is sleeping with the enemy.

Huh. I wonder if it’s one I follow.

Are JPU releases official? The fact that it’s only $18 and ships from the UK makes me think it’s a bootleg. Or is it an official euro release?

My go to for imports has always been CDJapan.

Well yeah, obviously I never really spent much time in online communities to pinpoint anyone, but to this day I come across fans that are pretty ridiculous. A lot of Gazette fans are really bad.

I bet you Shinya and Mana are all about it.

Oh. Well, I mean, that just sounds like a ton of people.

No idea who you’re talking about, but bring them on!

Did Kyo draw/write that? His handwriting is terrible.

I mean, honestly, I don’t really care about the visual aspect of visual kei other than to make fun of Kyo and Kaoru’s latest mid-life crisis outfits. But I know for some the visuals take precendence over the music. I’ve seen way too many Gazette gifs in the last few years. But then why would I get it? I’m a 41 year old dude.

I don’t know. Recently came across a video of two women who look to be late 20s/early 30s and they were screaming their heads off at L’arc videos because of Hyde. Made little to no comments about the music itself, just shrieked like banshees whenever Hyde moved. I think its safe to say we all know this scene has plenty of people that are here just for the music, but there’s also a vast majority of people hung up on the visual aspect. Then there’s that subset of fans that are fairly new to the scene, so everything they hear is new to their ears and sounds fresh and exciting. They can listen to Mejibray or 2010-2013 Gazette and not think any of that shit is derivative or uninspired because it sounds “different”. Like, motherfucker, don’t sit here and praise Gazette and DEG for being heavy in songs like Rage or Reiketsu Nariseba when they both rip off Slipknot, then turn around and say Slipknot sucks. I have attempted to break this down in my own head several times, and I really just think it boils down to people fetishizing. When your drummer wears a bear suit or whatever, you’re going to attract a few obsessed crazies.

Pretty sure Zippos can be refilled.

What

When Buchi quit I was upset, but then I heard Thirteenth Friday or whatever it was straight up shoegaze and I was excited. That was the last Plastic Tree song I liked.

I guess Japan still loves it

It’s a cultural thing too. If a western band has internal issues, specifically an American one, the whole world knows about it. Japanese people are more about keeping things close to the chest.

Yeah. People just assume that band members are BFFs. It’s not uncommon for musicians to not get along with each other, but they keep a strictly professional relationship because there’s creative chemistry that they value. Shinya has kind of hinted at maybe getting tired of it more than anyone else (something about losing ambition during tours, said he hated Marrow of a Bone), but also said the band is how he expresses himself. Hell, Aoi is on record as saying he considered saying peace out to Gazette at one point. Chemistry on stage doesn’t necessarily reflect how things are behind the scenes.

Probably the best way to be. They’ve been a band for 20 years spending a majority of that time together in the studio or on the road. At some point they’ve got to get tired of each other. This is exactly why you don’t work with family or date a co-worker (though I’m very guilty of the latter).

I also recall an interview where one of them said they don’t really hang out or talk outside the context of the band. You don’t need to be best buds to make music if the creative chemistry is there.

There isn’t any, just the “gore” I mentioned.

Well no, just saying that cover looks like it was ripped straight from an old Marilyn Manson album cover.

Well hello edge lord circa 1995.

Do they bust out their cover of Warsaw no Gensou when they play a show in Warsaw?

Spent $2 on this to see what dumb shit they’re censoring and I can’t even get it to play on my phone. EDIT: Oh okay. We can show naked people, but we can’t show them sliced up like deli meat via bad CGI.