frayed

So basically him and Koichi are legit married now right?

The writing was on the walls for awhile; I literally ‘jokingly’ guessed this back as far as January. Tsuzuku used to go on tirades on those tweet-casts about why people actually liked visual kei and kept referring back to jpop, like, “Why is Arashi so bad? Jpop is awesome. Why do you only listen to visual kei? Is it just for the make up?” (Obviously this is super abridged.) And I remember wondering back in the November of 2016, “well why are you doing visual kei then?” I’d heard from other people that his anti-visual rants dated back way further than that. It’s like I don’t want to be pegged as close minded for not giving it a chance, because I am. I like a lot of genres of music, and I’m super invested in Tsuzuku as an artist. But it’s super weird to hear him use his voice like that, and it’s not like I hate it, but I don’t love it. And I’m not just a face fan that will just love anything he puts out because it’s him. I just hope that this leads to more experimental pieces in the future since Tsuzuku himself likes so many different kinds of music. I want to believe he won’t limit himself. Otherwise it’s kind of a waste.

Well, that was something.

Sounds like a catch phrase of a cooking show host.

I half-agree with this on multiple fronts. First off, while Koichi’s aesthetic surely brings in a hefty number of fans, that’s really underplaying Tsuzuku’s appeal both overseas and in Japan. For almost every live I went to, the spaces in front of them were what filled out first, and there would be a huge gap left in front of MiA. It’s funny, too, because it’s not like MiA isn’t good looking. But he’s not nearly as popular as Tsuzuku and Koichi, and I think a lot of that is due to his princely SNS presence and his own awkwardness with how he relates to the crowd at lives and instores. A lot of overseas fans I’ve talked to have the impression that he thinks a lot of himself (which may or may not be true, it’s not like I know him personally), and both overseas and Japanese fans poke fun at the plastic surgery angle. And as for Koichi neglecting his bass, you’re right. I’ve seen him straight up stop playing before. However, this is usually to engage the audience - and I can’t speak for anything before 2016 (anyone can feel free to correct me), but initially I found MiA to be a whole lot less engaged with the audience. He was pretty still on stage, maybe doing some cool guitar poses while he played, but generally just kind of doing his own thing. Then progressively throughout the year, he started grabbing people during Negator, he started seemingly throwing out more stuff, and just generally seemed to be trying a lot harder to captivate the audience. (Sort of too little too late? I didn’t really see him making any new fans at this point, but I digress.) Again, this is just from my own recollection, so anyone can feel free to shoot me down on that. Tsuzuku and Koichi never really had any problem with that as far as I could see, which yes, led to Koichi neglecting his bass more. He was also responsible for a lot of the merch designs, furthering playing into the aesthetic appeal box, and honestly a lot better at playing the popularity game than MiA. And then there’s Meto. Lol. He was silent and surrounded by big personalities (‘big’ for better or worse). Personally speaking I fucking adore him, and what fans he had were super devoted, but he flew under the radar for a lot of people I think.

Personally speaking, my biggest issue has been with jealous overseas fans. I’m a lot more guarded than I used to be. People have spoken ill of both me and my partner online. It really upset her, and frankly annoyed the shit out of me since I was never anything but kind and helpful to anyone I came across.

I don’t know if this is helpful, but MiA was the main composer with Tsuzuku throwing a few odd songs in here and there (Agitato Grimoire to name one). I’m also going purely by speculation here but given some of the crap observed, I do think the rigorous and really repetitive schedule they slipped into (or their label pushed them into) didn’t do them any favors when it came to putting out new material. Not to mention MiA was involved in I don’t even know how many little side projects, musical and not, all throughout this. Granted, generally speaking I stayed a fan of Mejibray’s music; I do think their music production suffered though. The last truly new song came more than a year before they went on hiatus (Nanaki), and it wasn’t even a formal single.

I just wonder if Mia is doing this to keep his name relevant, if he’s excited to be able to do any project he feels like since his full time band in on hiatus, or if he has a hard time saying ‘no’ to people because he wants to help his friends/colleagues out. Please no burn out, and please no more obnoxious YouTube antics. That’s all I ask.

I was hesistant to post about this because even if it’s been more than a month I was really hoping this was an April Fool’s Day home and posting was acknowledging it was real. It’s not that I hate that he’s working with someone foreign; I just personally find John to be super obnoxious.

I guess you could say posting it here made it an unpopular opinion ooooo meta

Too bad. They were really fun, but I sort of saw it coming. Hopefully the prevailing members go on to do something else.

God guys, quit clowning around already. Tomo looks good but I’m not really feeling the rest. It feels like Takashi took his last look (which I really liked) and then just made it worse.

If she was, who cares. If she wasn’t, who cares. It’s not like Eimi is important to the scene and either way. I could understand the fixation people have with her more if she was relevant/current, but she’s not. Bring on more gossip of Meto fucking the porn star, at least that one’s recent.

Good to see one of these missing musicians find their way home.

The live today was in Sendai and they also live there, should’ve been more clear :,)

Re: remarking within day of it happening, considering 1) the recent bullshit with Pitty and 2) the fact that they live in Sendai, can’t say I blame them. Especially if it was an accident or something.

I don’t even really know or care LOL. I’ve had some people throw that shit out there and other people ask if I’m staff. 9_9 It’s all very silly. It’s hard because yeah, it is something he’s seemingly marketing because in person he tries to keep that up because there are these certain expectations of him, but he’s honestly really, REALLY awkward and kind of a dork. In a sweet way. A lot of that is lost in the fact that overseas fans never get the chance to see that side of him, and some of those that do, because of that prior impression, are really rude to him. It’s unfortunate.

God yeah, I saw shit like that back in the Livejournal days. It’s ridiculous. People have literally implied that I followed the band because I wanted to sleep with them - meanwhile I’m quietly laughing my ass off as a genderfluid queer ass individual with my fiancée sitting next to me. It’s honestly like toeing a middle line between fans like that and other fans calling MiA a stuck up frog man or something because they aren’t into him. I wasn’t really that in touch with the overseas fandom because I only got into them when I was living in Japan, and frankly it kind of sucks that now after the hiatus and living here it’s really hard to find sane people to engage with.

SO MUCH THIS, yes, same. I really hate this attitude. It’s exceedingly festishist imho.

Yeah I completely get that. I think I pretty openly stan Mejibray, but not like that, lol.

Can’t speak for anyone else, but for me the appeal is they’re a really fun live band and good to their fans. I’ve said it before, but I can get why people don’t like them because I only really “got” the appeal when I went to see them live and had an utter blast. They’re not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. That said, personally I think they get additional heat for being popular with some very vocal face fans. Also of the mind that they got hype from the tart because of who they were; I mean I know back in 2009 everyone was shitting themselves over VanessA (especially Genki) and I couldn’t stop hearing about Toon Factory, at least overseas. So that could have something to do with it. I also don’t know that they’re as popular as people think they are in Japan.

It wasn’t all of a sudden, he and Tsuzuku came out with their faces painted black.

I don’t know. I feel like it was a damned-if-they-do-damned-if-they-don’t situation with regards to the collapse. If they cut it, they’re further censoring the band than they already have been, and that doesn’t work when everyone was already reporting about it and everyone knew it happened. On the other, leaving it on the DVD can come off as kind of exploitative; but it’s also the last release for Mejibray for the foreseeable future, so maybe they’re hoping it gets people to buy the DVD for one last surge of cash. I don’t really know how to read a lot of the shit that went down with Mejibray since May, but it felt like there was a lot of frustration and lingering sadness. If anything, if it -was- a PR stunt, I think it was more for the benefit 8P-SB. Forum (the label) really did not come out looking good in all this, and I know a good number of the regular gya were flat out boycotting the DVD.

Haven’t watched it yet, but I’ve seen gifs - it wasn’t cut.

Those prices are just gross