Nagisa

*drum rolls*
 
@The Reverend 

 
for his ingenious cosplay of Pitty from Morrigan!!
We will be contacting you via PM soon about your prizes.
Thanks so much for entering! 

 
Voting was unnecessary this year since we only received the single entry.
But we're still stoked anyone joined in while we tried something new so thanks a lot for giving it a shot @The Reverend. You've made MH history!

1) Why are we still caring about Engrish? I have yet to find the positive record of someone utilizing COMPREHENSIBLE, FLUENT english in vk anthems around here - and since it's all about the voice of the masses: "why would they sing a song in a language they are not familiar with" is a very lazy and lethargic excuse.
 
2) Sure, preferences vary whenever it's about Manson and/or Gaga influences feeding upon new Gazette but let's stop for a moment and ponder this: isn't it basically palatable that Gazette has been one of the few mainstream VK acts to actually "break" the stereotype of visual "backwardism" we've been witnessing throughout these years...could one even fathom the fact that we still have VK bands that look like 2016 but sound like 2009 quality AND mixing-wise? Come to think of it anyway - even these oyaji groups have been discovering ways to "get with the times", whereas VK indie scene is being infested with so-called "cool" kids and their ideas of dated melomaniac pleasure a la mid-00s VK revival with no "revolutionary" progression whatsoever?
 
3) I am not gonna touch "rubbish, terrible"-comments without any elaboration either. Perhaps Gazette is not your cup of tea? So what was your contribution in this discussion again?
 
4)
 
- Wikipedia
- Easily modifiable resource pages
- Still cares about genre wankery
- IN A GODDAMN VISUAL SCENE/FANBASE
 
5) So you are saying that cancerous fandoms are EXCLUSIVELY and SOLELY related to Gazette? Wew, lad.
 
6) Even the most eager critics tend to agree with the notion that Gazette has gained recognition due to their easily recognizable antics and almost "genderbending" tendencies - just like with other Japanese genrebenders inside and outside of our beloved visual scene. Why would possibly westernized individual care about symphonic power metal outfits like X or Versailles,  low-budget mix flares of Kiryu and D, and stagnant animoo glory of Naitomea? As much as we would sympathize towards these acts as long-time VK weebs - is it really that hard to adopt opposite, "biased" views for a moment? Could you at least delve into details and convince our possible (albeit disinterested) non-VK (but yet Gazette-fanboying/girling) public that why these acts matter more in the context of international fanbase?
 
I do admit that I had my on/off-times with Gazette for a decade already, but imho it's really hard to argue against the well-functionable, internationally palatable soundscape of mostly mashing Slipknot and Luna Sea influences together. In that sense Ruki and co. were smart enough to realize what exactly was relevant for those times aside from minding their own biases.
 
 
 

Pretty interesting story. Hope you keep writing more!

I wish i was a mod so i could perma ban any bad talk about GOATma.
 
Y'all weren't raised correctly it seems.
 
And y'all need to be punished.

Here's the thing about vk news though: there's no 'original source'.
 
For major and relatively well known bands you can rely on visunavi, NAVER, various 'matome' and news purveyor accounts on Twitter. But otherwise it's down to stalking thousands of bandmen - something which I have literally attempted on my main Twitter account. The result was me getting spammed with 30 tweets every 10 seconds, and THEN I had to sift through the crapload of awkward selfies and useless tweets talking about weather and food. I don't recall, but maybe 0.01% of the feed was useful news? In any case I abandoned that account shortly after because it was unusable.
 
There are also other avenues like LINE accounts, bandmen's ameblo, and 2chan as mentioned. Or you can try typing 始動 and 解散 into twitter search and refresh it every 10 seconds.... if you have that much time. In any case, what a lot of people don't seem to notice (and this is the point @filth_y was making) is that Trombe also posts news that don't "officially" exist on the Internet except maybe, in a bandman's private reply to a fangirl's tweet (I've witnessed this at least twice), or as a casual afterthought in a label staff's ameblo post. (In the latter case, I talked to a band's shikiri and even she wasn't aware that the band would be releasing a CD that day..). Yes, some MH members may have done this before - but to do it consistently for an insane number of bands is a whole different animal.
 
All of this aren't even considering the facts that: (i) these news are in Japanese, so let's not trivialize it as as copy-and-pasting. Translating and formatting it into a news post is a bitch if you consider the volume of news Trombe puts out; (ii) Trombe posts news of bands he doesn't even care about on a regular basis, some of whom comprising members that no one here has even heard of, much less having an interest to follow and post news of.
 
I'm on no one's side at this point. None of this is a defense for what Trombe did, nor is it a suggestion that he should be immune from punishment if he has contravened the rules. I just wanted to provide a corrective to previous comments suggesting that by picking 1 or 2 bands each we will communally be able to cover the ground that Trombe did, as if it was as easy as sitting together and doing some Ctrl C+V while having cereal in front of your computer. Let's just say I'm not that optimistic, because I can't imagine someone, or even a group of competent and extremely free people, going to the lengths Trombe did. Hopefully more people can appreciate the scope of the dirty legwork he has done for MH ("appreciate" as in "understand clearly", not "prostrate yourself"). And before any accusations come my way: I have contributed news of bands I like (including translating full-length interviews of them), and will happily continue to do so. Let's just see what happens.

Yes. If you're a hardcore batman fan (and I don't just mean the movies) Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are considered the best batman games to ever come out and the best super hero video games to be released. If you're not so much a comic fan and just maybe have a mild interest in batman, maybe seen some of the movies, but are a action game lover then I would still say that they are worth playing through because they have one of the most addicting and fun  combat and combo system in gaming as well. If none of those things interest you then it might not be for you.
 
 
Play 1 first and then 0. Normally I would recommend playing them in order of release and not timeline, but that would require you to play 2 and 3 before 0 since that's how they we're released. I'm assuming though that is not an option, so the next best thing is to just play 1 first and then 0.

So today I'm here to introduce you to an online manga The GAS.
It's something I've drawing every now and then, whenever I feel like it:
 
 

 
 
You can find all the chapters so far from here:
https://tapastic.com/series/The-GAS---Shokuchi-Family-Feud
or here:
http://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-gas-great-anime-story/list?title_no=12947
or there is also a tumblr site:
http://the-gas.tumblr.com/
 
any feedback/criticism is welcome ~ arigatou gozaimasu ^^
 

Well, 滅びの美学 (horobi no bigaku) now belongs here:

Enjoy the cross between mechanical grinding noises and a toy dinosaur roar.

I have never been in a relationship before and haven't seen anyone I was attracted to in years. But I am fine with that. I think I would have a hard time balancing a relationship with graduate school. A lot of my friends from high school are in relationships though.

This thread is amazing.

Finally!

the Gazette - Regret, Filth in the Beauty, and Hyena

 
Seriously debating whether or not to open these. I wouldn't listen to them otherwise, and I don't have any plans to sell them. 

Set list of yesterday's concert 
 

 
 
It was a bit chaotic at first but still freaking awesome my neck still hurts lol
I think the highlight (beside the meet & greet) was when everyone sung Happy Birthday and a stuff member bought a cake on stage and put a crown on Uruha's head 
his accent when he said something in german was so cute 

Me on the day of the GazettE's Taiwan live on Black Friday. It was an awesome live!

the GazettE's Taiwan concert! It was amazing! No one took out their phones during the performance, everyone was so disciplined. During Ruki's MC, he "Shhh"-ed on the mic and everyone in the hall went quiet, then he said we're awesome then everyone went "Yeah!" and some laughed. My neck still hurts after 3 days but it was worth the fun!
 

 

In regards to the latest singles, a nice lil' conversation with Jig and Orange enticed me to take up on Gazette once again after my months-long hiatus (lol). I decided to go with latest ones and backtrack from there - well, guess what:
 
Post-DOGMA singles are not bad at all (disregard my earlier statements)! Whereas I am not still the fan of Ruki's current patchwork songwriting, their attempts to patch some things up together ever since BD has helped them to discover a lot more chemistry between each others' ventures after almost monocomposed/arranged pieces that were TOXIC and DIVISION, respectively.
 
I am not the fan of strictly loyal direction on DOGMA (hell-bent on being -coreishly heavy), but my opinion still stands: they did their homework well. A few drawbacks in their new songwriting and producing procedure still exist, however. I am not gonna discuss them here since all of you might already guess my points of criticism.
 
Will make separate posts on UGLY and UNDYING sooner or later in case something interesting springs to my mind. But I couldn't resist writing some says off my spins here:
 
- Aoi is my new found favorite in terms of compositions and technical experiments. Look forward to my reviews in case you want to understand my idea of "patchwork songwriting" and composer roles.
- Kai has improved a lot, especially in heavier songs (?!).
- Ruki doesn't sound goofy anymore when screaming/growling.
 

Finally!

I did an outside today.
 

Today was my first live and it was great!

From what I remember, they played

NIHIL
DOGMA
RAGE
VORTEX
FADELESS
DERANGEMENT
SUICIDE CIRCUS
UGLY
BIZARRE
WASTELAND
BLEMISH
UNDYING
OMINOUS
FILTH IN THE BEAUTY
 
The order is different.

Encore:
LEECH
HEADACHE MAN
TOMORROW NEVER DIES

The venue was smaller than I thought it would be, especially compared to what I have seen on live DVDs. The staff removed three people who were taking pictures. I really liked that they played a couple of songs from DIM. The opening with NIHIL was epic. The lighting and other effects showed me a dimension of the music that I never experienced before. I can't wait to listen to UNDYING when I get my CD. I liked what I heard from the live. I still can't believe that I saw the GazettE live. It was an experience that I will never forget.

Today was my first live and it was great!

From what I remember, they played

NIHIL
DOGMA
RAGE
VORTEX
FADELESS
DERANGEMENT
SUICIDE CIRCUS
UGLY
BIZARRE
WASTELAND
BLEMISH
UNDYING
OMINOUS
FILTH IN THE BEAUTY
 
The order is different.

Encore:
LEECH
HEADACHE MAN
TOMORROW NEVER DIES

The venue was smaller than I thought it would be, especially compared to what I have seen on live DVDs. The staff removed three people who were taking pictures. I really liked that they played a couple of songs from DIM. The opening with NIHIL was epic. The lighting and other effects showed me a dimension of the music that I never experienced before. I can't wait to listen to UNDYING when I get my CD. I liked what I heard from the live. I still can't believe that I saw the GazettE live. It was an experience that I will never forget.

The NYC was show was everything I wanted and more. The setlist was a nice balance of DOGMA and older material so everyone's fancies could be tickled.  Ok lets get back to the DOGMA songs for one sec. @emmny said it best, those songs are something else live.  As much as i loved the earlier songs, those were my highlights, especially DOGMA , and OMINOUS. Holy crap. The band seemed to enjoy themselves, and nailed the tracks flawlessly. The crowd, despite a few minor incidents that I wont bother speaking of, was well behaved for the most part.  I feel like this US leg was a test run and we passed. Ruk kept saying "WOW, YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY!" haha And that they will come again. This was a dream come true and also, I got to meet @jduv86 who's a super cool guy in person (Best of luck on the album man and sorry if i was a lil too rowdy haha).  

Aside from the girl fainting from whatever the hell she was on, and the numerous people recording the event, as well as the person  trying to crowd surf (who the fuck was that guy?), the people thrashing and the random mosh pit that this douchebag decided to start, my friend losing her jacket (luckily someone found it for her).
 
Luckily there was this cute Japanese Girl  who thought I was Japanese , and was not all objecting when I told her that I was going to hold her by the waist for "leverage" . She unfortunately lost her phone (I found it later and it's at the Lost-n-Found, if you are on here, or if someone here knows her).
 
I agree with most of Stall's points and felt that these lives were exactly what many of us needed. 
 
I personally didn't feel we deserved an encore, but we did. the GazettE are more kinder than I imagined.
 
Overall a very amazing experience, and I hope these little incidents don't deter them from thinking twice about coming back.
 
Best part of my night was when I said "Holy Shit..." over and over for the first 2 minutes when Ruki came up to us above the crowd from the stage, he was so cool! I am in love with them all over again.
 
 
Oh and it was HOT AS FUCK.