platy

ahhh, man

let's be honest.

The idea of visual-kei is to sell a perfect image of somebody that doesn't exist.
Same with all of the pop-idols. This is an industry, first of all, music comes secondary. We have a target audience of 18-year old Japanese girls, most likely obsessed with androgynous male image and who read a lot of josei and shojo manga.. They are not gonna buy music in general - they don't give a shit about that. What you can sell to them is an image.
 
as it was once put:
"No, they’re sexy, but they don’t exist in the same universe as the fans. They don’t have chlamidya, they don’t worry about child support payments, they don’t have girlfriends or baby-mamas. They don’t have a stinky van. The fans don’t want to think about that! They want a dream, (not a man or a woman), they want a higher being, a look out of a fairy-tale. That’s why we do all the makeup and hair. It’s not about the guitars or playing A-flat in a Lydian mode."

In case you didn't notice - it's the same thing with anime. It will always cater to the male audience, because we tend/are willing to spend whatever money we have on our obsession - be it motorbykes or fuck-pillows. And if you take socially awkward males who had no success with women and life in general, and sell them over-sexualized image and play on their instincts - oh boy, you get a really good chunk of revenue. So you can see the similarities with the visual-kei approach here.
 
So, the visual-kei's target audience just does the same - spending whatever they have on their obsession. The difference is that visual-kei found its small (really small) niche of fans who are ready to do that. If we take population in general - it will not work. But it just takes whatever mental image/ideal the fans have, wrap it in a nice way, add a little bit of consumer psychology/evolutionary psychology and neurobiology (yes, it's the thing, I highly recommend reading material on how the last two infuence what we buy and how much we are willing to spend) - and you get your revenue =)
 
Hence, we have a situation, that mostly females go to visual-kei gigs (because it was created for them), mostly (hungry/semi-virgin) males go for female pop-idols' gigs (because it was created for them), and etc. Which is fine.
It's all about money, not the art.

The band members market themselves for women. It's like the female idol industry, I went to an idol live once and there were only men watching, not a female in sight apart from the group performing.  
Hot men in make up who seem readily available = mostly female fans
Cute girls who seems readily available = pretty much just dude fans
 
Metal/rock/etc. attracts all kinds of people in the west, but these niche groups in Japan (VK & Idols) market themselves in such a way that I think it 'segregates' who can enjoy the group to the fullest. (Lives, taking part in the community, instore events, etc.)

The band members market themselves for women. It's like the female idol industry, I went to an idol live once and there were only men watching, not a female in sight apart from the group performing.  
Hot men in make up who seem readily available = mostly female fans
Cute girls who seems readily available = pretty much just dude fans
 
Metal/rock/etc. attracts all kinds of people in the west, but these niche groups in Japan (VK & Idols) market themselves in such a way that I think it 'segregates' who can enjoy the group to the fullest. (Lives, taking part in the community, instore events, etc.)

Is it weird that the new It movie's design for Pennywise makes me think of one of NoGod's old looks?

When a vk dude is legitimately handsome and not just a miracle product of the Holy trinity. (make up, photoshop and good lighting) 
 
 
 

When a vk dude is legitimately handsome and not just a miracle product of the Holy trinity. (make up, photoshop and good lighting) 
 
 
 

It's because it doesn't affect them and they don't have the brain capacity to take two seconds out of their day and put themselves in someone else's shoes. Call them a bunch of slags or whores and watch how fast they "get it".

I'm a pisces and I always identified 100% with being a dreamer, always spacing out, etc. But it wasn't until recently that i realised that I'm not a badass with no feelings, I'm actually such a emotional mess I find myself getting teary at cat videos. I think I went more emotional as I got older and I hate it. 

That look  alone has enough entertainment value to last me for the rest of this year. Thank you TZK.
It's never  a boring day with Mejibray.

Tzk is going to places with his new look

Like the sound of most of that. Really like the AIKAWA cover. Not surprised by the reactions tho... People have a difficult time understanding the concept of a cover album.
So he's singing like Ryutaro then...

Sick. has announced that 3 members - Pf.吏 (tsukasa), Ba.Avel, and Dr.豪 (takeshi) - will leave the band after their live on November 1. Afterwards, the band will pause activities.
 
https://ameblo.jp/sick-official/entry-12309595143.html

There's a fetish for Band-Aids. 

Let them brew for 6 months~1 year and then some good stuff should be out. 
It's okay, I think there's potential. 

Seeing all the comments on social media makes me wonder why the average visual kai fan still blindly hopes for gigs at provinces when in most countries it's 90% certain it's going to be at the capital, unless you're Germany. 
 
"Oh, not in my unknown little town. Not gonna go then."
Dude, it's pretty obvious if they go to the UK IT'S GONNA BE LONDON. Plan ahead and be grateful they are going to your country at all or just shush. The band is not going to magically invest more money in more dates within a single country, unless they're Sana or Satauki. 

There's a fetish for Band-Aids. 

The scene has been lacking random-low-quality-promo-kei for a few years now.

There's a fetish for Band-Aids. 

I already wrote about this dude in the random thoughts thread.
Pigeons made a nest on my balcony and now there's a 4 week old baby. He's not noisy and at first he was super ugly but now he's turned really cute and I can't stop peeking over at him.
Yesterday it was raining heavily and I felt very sorry for him  I think I'll be sad when he flies away. Today's sunny so he sits on that little glass pot and sunbathes while falling asleep (eep).
 
[sorry for shitty pics, I can't get too close or he'll get stressed out]
 
 
This was when not long after Pidge was born
 
 
Took these today
 
Edit: he flew away during the night :'(

There's a fetish for Band-Aids. 

I think a lot of people I talk to in person think I'm slow or maybe slightly special needs, but in reality I just have ZERO idea how to talk to people.

poor guy must be having his life energy sucked right off him by the creep of a vocalist, damn
 
jk hope they don't disband anytime soon ):

Post your recent Japanese shoegaze discoveries here, whether they're old or new~ ^^
 
COLLAPSE - These guys a pretty recent and dropped a new single earlier this year. They may be another shoegaze band with sugary female vocals, but they sound good!
CURSE/DROP by COLLAPSE
 
溶けない名前 (tokenai namae) - A neat little band with both female and male vocalists. This is an older song of theirs so the composition is a little rough but I love the young and sweet-sounding male vocals here, which you don't hear very often in Japanese shoegaze. It's quite unfortunate that he does more of the back vocals now, it seems.
 
雨の中の馬 (amenonakanouma) - This was a random find on soundcloud. The quality is pretty low and fuzzy, but that's shoegaze/noise and self-recorded music for you. It's a rather simple song but surprisingly pleasing at the same time. I love it.

 

Hi I'm Khouji, I've been a fan of J-rock since high school which was 12 years ago. I do like the soundtrack from Gundam Wing, Samurai X, Hunter X Hunter, Ghost Fighter etc. Please welcome me!