Komorebi

Yeah, every single interaction I’ve had with him tells me he’s... atypical. I won’t push a label on him/her/them(?), but most gya agree he’s not straight, based on the whole way he acts, talks, moves, etc, not just looks. 

This is Retsu’s fault. 

Después de escuchar esto, estoy más entusiasmado con la banda Nazare ... seguro de que su nuevo álbum Menophila pateará traseros
https://fnd.io/#/us/album/1495498241-misc-by-dimlim
 
the samples sound almost the same, they look like a progressive funky rock band. I prefer its raw sound more than before .. a soft song is fine but the samples sound very bland for my taste

How come no one has mentioned the absences that 2 instruments really made in that PV? 
 
I admire their decision to move forward as 3 members, but this lacked any character and with sho being the only color to the bands sound, I can’t see myself getting into this until they manage to find replacement members. 
 
I’ll agree that it sounded just like Rijin, just missing a huge chunk of sound, almost like listening to it with only one side of a headphone lol.

It sounds like everyone in Sokoninaru and Develop One’s Faculties are playing at the same time while falling down the stairs 

Yeah, every single interaction I’ve had with him tells me he’s... atypical. I won’t push a label on him/her/them(?), but most gya agree he’s not straight, based on the whole way he acts, talks, moves, etc, not just looks. 

As far as I know/have seen it’s kinda obvious to some gyas but they don’t really talk much about it other than the fact that he has no devoted gachikoi gya unlike the other members and that he is “cold” towards them (probably because he isn’t flirting back). It’s also common knowledge that Zyean is hot for his legs lol
He’s the only bandmember I’ve met that gives me such a strong non-straight vibe. Idk about full drag on the street though. If someone did it it might be perceived as cosplay or something like that. 

As far as I know/have seen it’s kinda obvious to some gyas but they don’t really talk much about it other than the fact that he has no devoted gachikoi gya unlike the other members and that he is “cold” towards them (probably because he isn’t flirting back). It’s also common knowledge that Zyean is hot for his legs lol
He’s the only bandmember I’ve met that gives me such a strong non-straight vibe. Idk about full drag on the street though. If someone did it it might be perceived as cosplay or something like that. 

MEME is looking for new members
 
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GOTCHAROCKA will release a new album this summer. Details TBA.
 
 
Their schedule is usually pretty predictable. Album will probably be released early June.

A easy example about how the looks don't necessarily reflect the person of a visual kei artist is the usage of the hakenkreuz by the earliests bands. We don’t see as much nowadays, but the SS caps always appears, sooner or later.
Of course that there was some classic japanese punk nationalism in some bands here and there, but core of V系 was about shocking after all. So, the imaginary of the nazism is aesthetic, therefore should be used. 
 
As @薔薇の末裔 pointed out, understanding Kabuki is a good way to understand this theatrical musical scene. 
 
Kabuki in its first days was a female theater, a more accessible branch of Noh. But it was just too sexy for that confucian society. “A woman's place is in the kitchen”, said the Shogun (or it was my dad last night?). And then, the boys took the place of the woman, doing woman roles. But the boys turned out into fuckboys. “Notto disu shitto agen”, said the Shogun. And then, old man were doing woman roles. “Hmm”, long and deeply said the Shogun. Keep in mind that everyone was killing everyone in the past sengoku century, so the Shoguns could not fuck around (ha).
 
“Ok, ok, And so what?”. Well, since being really sexy was not an option, the onnagata dudes started doing their own shit to emulate the woman sexyness. First come the fancy wig, then they started showing some little skin and so on. Little by little there was no more “man” or “woman”, but onnagata. A woman that no other woman could be. 
 
At that point, Kabuki without man doing female roles is not Kabuki. Visual kei without man doing female roles is not visual kei? I don’t think so, exist†trace showed their shit and we digged it hard. But I would say that is highly expected to see a man doing female roles in the visual rock scene. D’s “Ouka saki some ni keri” is my pick for today. The contrast of Asagi manly vocals with his woman clothing is a perfectly example of why we love it the way it is. They do it with passion (or for money), and we love them for it, not because their sexual preference.
 
The whole pv setting is a love letter for their culture. And it is just one example, there is so many other bands with pvs with that scenary (and probably there is a “something-kei” for it too). The pompous and bold Glam Rock found it’s home in the japanese costumes and evolved into the coolest thing.
 
To be deeper into to sexuallity stuff we could talk about how Japan society potentially repress the sexual preference of their people in order to have things working “in the right way” and how the west really needs to “talk about it” and not let the individuals be themselves without pushing some agenda into your fuckin throat so it’s fuckin hard to understand these japs using lipsticks just because they like it, but that stress me too much so fuck it.

Talking about another interest of mine, while looking up for old VK dedicated web sites, I've found a translation done for an interview with SOFT BALLET. Here's a quotation that put me into deep-thinking, in which Ken Morioka (their keyboardist/guitarist and, I suppose, their leader), when asked about his thoughts over his flamboyant looks and stage performances, talks about his interest in gender-trascending aesthetics in spite of him "not being gay". 
 
When I saw the stage I thought of how you were the weirdest one Ken. Is that because you were thinking of that visual aspect?
Ken: Ah, well...(laughs). A large part of that comes from where I'm a narcissist and I'm all like "Lookie, lookie! Look at Meee!". And then there's the part of me that really loves and adores appearing to move in a state that's transcended gender, so I suppose that's where I'm coming from....
 
Meaning?
Ken: It's that I've gotten a lot of influence from various people, but I've been like this from a long time ago. I really wanted to become a woman, and I never really thought to deny that feeling. It doesn't mean I'm gay though. There's a sense that I was building up and developing my own preferences.
 
(If you don't know who Ken Morioka or SOFT BALLET is, next I'll leave a video of them performing live:)
 
 
This quotation made me revive an old interest of mine on how gender or sexual orientation identities circulate particularly within the people of the VK scene. Till today, there's enough been written about that topic, but taking Japanese society as a whole or some of their products (as anime/manga) as the unit of analysis, but I've never came across something related to VK although I've defintely did a specific search. What always triggered me is that, if we keep in mind the obvious fact that VK aesthetics rely essentially over challenging gender/sexual orientation performances, then it can't not come weird or suspicious that 99% of band members since VK was born --that 1% goes for Kaya and Ao Sakurai-  don't actually talk about the matter, while at the same time they are always straight-supposed within the logic of selling out as idols for their gya. And the few times they do so they have the urgence of make clear that they are actually "not gay" -and then in the commentary section fans support this statements by remebering the doubting fans that said bandoman actually has a kid "so he is definitely not gay!!!". Actually, I've read very, very few comments of Japanese fans supposing/acknowledging the LGBTness of their favorite bandoman and nontheless supporting them as artists, but maybe that's because I have a hard time looking up into Japanese web sites and translating. (Also, perhaps many bandoman actually talked enough about the fact in a serious way, but I  still don't have the chance to read them since only 5% of the interviews made up being translated).
 
Of course, I've been aware since the beggining of my stay in the weeb fandom that Japan, while not having serious persecussion issues towards LGBT people -at least in their last 50 years of history-, definitely don't finish to get politically open about it, and that's why society decided to treat the matter in a don't-ask-don't-tell fashion. I'm also aware that this fact takes place in a more general tendency of Japanese people to obssesively keep their lives and relationships actually very private, too.  But I can't not ask myself if it isn't at least a bit fool of someone, fan or not, to assume that naturally that every bandoman is "not-gay", in a scene where artistic creativity emerges from fantasies of "men" transforming into "women", or even into un-gendered beautiful creatures, even involving into sex with/as them?  (On a personal note, although I don't actually know their reasons behind, I always liked @nekkichi and other users attempt here to call every bandoman by "her").
 
What are your thoughts on this topics?

What if the person who said "what's up?" is like one ok rock thinks one ok rock is heavy as fuck and we are getting ahead of ourselves based on one person's testimony?
I hope if they are going in a "chillhop" direction they do it for just some songs so we can see what it sounds like but the album also have things close to what they used to sound too so its a more comparable experience of past and present DIMLIM.
I also hope I am not in a denial stage even though the album have not even dropped yet lmao

I have loved DIMLIM from the beginning and even sought out some of the live limited stuff and paid a ridiculous price for the actual CD's, but I'm not risking this either. Definitely going to try before I buy.

Yeah... I'm gonna snatch some DL link and see if it's even worth buying. This is no longer a band I can blindly trust with my money. And I can see a lot of people doing that too.

Yeah... I'm gonna snatch some DL link and see if it's even worth buying. This is no longer a band I can blindly trust with my money. And I can see a lot of people doing that too.

I'm willing to buy both vynil and CD if they give us infos about the goddamn release...

New aesthetic, same tired Ruki compositions. 

Thinking about this thread again because I tried to find 蟻‘s (Ari) singles on Cdjapan and it returned only Ariana Grande in my search, confirming that she really is the one responsible for vkei being unpopular 

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.

@ this whole thread
 

Here we are yet again, the beginning of a new decade. Are we at the 5th year now? I forget.
 
This thread is dedicated to Japanese releases in 2020 that the MH Community will listen to and would like to keep track of throughout the entire year. It’s a nice way of referring back to a list, should you forget if you’ve listened to a certain release yet or not. I know I forget sometimes haha. These ratings can also help those who may want to see which releases are favoring well or not, based on each individual user who you may have similar tastes with.
 
Feel free to set up your own rating system (Stars, ?/5, ?/10, Best to Worst, Oooh to Eww, etc.), but try and use spoiler tags to save room in your post, and save room on the page for the other members’ rating lists.
 
Keep this list in mind in the event that we, the MH staff, host a JRock Awards at the end of the year  .
 
Let those who participate know that we need to come back to this topic a few more times than we did last year (I did pretty bad lol).
It could be our New Year's resolution or something 😂.
 
Last Year's for reference:
2019
 
Yuyo’s List for 2020:
 
 

So, that's how they punish us for pirating Kidoairaku?