Komorebi

The gig in Chile is going to be terrible, mark my words.

Retsu did confirm they are no longer visual kei.

It wasn’t much different when I saw them in Japan either.

I’m seeing the same 12 people hyping this since Mexico was announced...

We just have more people making noise on social media that never actually show up for the gig.

Chile’s gig is going to be in a crappy joint, with shitty audio quality and 40 people tops.

There was a shift in genre and I’ve noticed most people tend to blend sounds they aren’t emotionally attached to in their minds. You might say every BTS song sounds the same while to a fan they all sound completely different. Most 90’s and early bands are totally cookie-cutter to me, it was just a different cookie-cutter. And if you ask me a ton of European epic metal bands sound just like Galneryus xD

I’ve seen elitism regarding clothing style and shit like that, which is far more stupid.

As much as we would like that VK worked like western pop in terms of marketing it's never gonna work and it's pretty futile to argue over a what if. That is the reality of Japan's culture and we've seen how reluctant they are to mingle with the west, much less adopt their customs. As an example, Dobe did it right when engaging with the fans and easily supplying their music to the international fandom and for a while everyone was super vocal about them. Then the second Suica was fired no one was hyping them anymore. Merch or no merch involved, teens just don't get invested beyond a cute member and/or lyrics that speak about their struggles (hence why they get popular easily among menhera chicks in Japan). As someone who has co-organized tons of fan projects that require little to no monetary effort, what I've experienced is all those social media fans who talk non-stop about X or Y bandman disappear once you ask them if they want to take 10 minutes to write a message for a fanbook they won't even have to pay for. They generally don't care for any fandom activity beyond hyping looks and that drives away newcomers interested in music. Is there any way for bands to market themselves (while remaining VK) to make people interested enough? I doubt it. Even for popular artists the fans who are a little bit more invested are a lot fewer than the ones who just comment on who was on Taylor's latest videos and leave it at that. Kpop artists do thrive on sales and western ones I'm willing to bet they live off advertisement rather than their music since everyone streams it to the point where music is their platform to jump to some unrelated brand to sponsor them and actually give them cash. I see your points, however I disagree with artist seeming more unattainable. They are FAR more attainable and approachable than any mainstream artist. I'll agree with you on the elitism part, but not quite regarding sharing rare material. Edit: something else came to mind. Most of the world is pretty casual about listening to music and won't go out of their way to even go to a gig. What makes people care on a deeper level about it? Habit. An early exposure and thus attachment to artists. Some sort of connection and/or the music somehow filling some void (hence why people tend to get harder into bands during their 10's and 20's). I think we can all assume that the more attached we are to an artist (whatever the genre, think about beliebers and directioners) the more fucked up we are somehow. It's been widely debated in other threads the common 'fucked-up-ness' most vk listeners had when encountering it and getting themselves attached to what we all agree is mostly crap we hate to love. That might just be another barrier. The rest of the world just doesn't have that hole in their hearts (mental health) that fits VK perfectly.

I don't quite get the obsession with teasers tbh.

In my experience interacting with VK fans outside this forum this isn't really getting them much sales, just horny teens collecting photos who can't discuss the band's releases when you ask them to. That works well for the bands in Japan because those horny teens go to lives and spend a shit-ton on merch. Try offering merch to 'Murican teenage fans and see how many actually want/can buy.

I translate for my fandom and no one reads nor cares and tbh it's too much time and effort I've invested over three years with 0 results for the band. VK culture seems to be a huge turnoff for metal fans. I tried to lure a girl who kinda knew about MM and gazette bus is focused in western metal into modern VK and she got hooked on Dadaroma, Diaura and JLK. Lasted a few months and last night threw a tantrum after watching a few lives and claimed she was quitting altogether and when I tried to reason with her her reasons were "yelling encore is so tacky and I just can't with it" and "fandoms expect me to comment nice things on the members accounts and participate in fanprojects". Upon further reasoning as to why join street teams if she didn't want to engage in fan activities the response was "I wanted drinking buddies". Every other male into metal I've tried to get into VK backs away as soon as they see the aesthetic, right after drawing every comparison possible with any Western act. There's just too much stigma currently around Japan's pop culture for normies to want to step in and a good portion of metalheads are apparently just too closed minded and stay within their own sub-sub-sub genre of metal (I've gotten complaints about bands blending genres and not sticking to one variant of metal) to want to give VK a chance.

I contacted them to offer them a producer to work with and they ignored me lol I haven’t heard back from the interested producer either so idk if they contacted him.

My mother outdid herself. I changed my phone number and she is now sending me emails with the classical abusive “you are nothing without me and no one else loves you” discourse. How do you deal with toxic exes? Because this is basic “I’ll belittle you until you take me back” shit.

Another drummer falls to dystonia :S

Guys, there’s not much science as to why these bands are popular. They are fun and charismatic live and that is it. No one wants to see a boring, insipid artsi-kei band perform coughDimlimcough, but if you have a blast live who cares is they are “repetitive”. Yes, marketing can be a thing, but ultimately it’s the band that sells themselves live.

Just a heads up to everyone who is expecting br00tal stuff... keep waiting. Sena stated in a recent Barks interview that JILUKA will enter a third “stage”, so to speak, and this is the direction for said stage, with more emphasis on clean vocals.

I was thinking the exact same thing.

Well, well, that might explain why they were so heavily promoted at Pure Sound when I went. I swear they were playing them every single time I went.

I’m wondering about the title... But I’m excited for a new relese 🖤

Issei looks older in person imo.

What I heard was that the new song sounded like new Dezert.

Yup. Kinda short if you ask me.