Himeaimichu

5 minutes ago, emmny said:

this is all incredibly bizarre

To be fair, I got the whole idea from a Gigguk video xD

2 minutes ago, Tokage said:

I feel the whole "true angura" thing (I mean acts like Strawberry Song Orchestra, Guruguru Eigakan, Inugami Circus Dan, Dagashi Kashi, Ningen Isu)'s mostly about bands drawing their influence from retro aesthetics from the period between like... the '30s - '80s or something, possibly some degree of nationalism, and also works of authors/artists such as Edogawa Ranpo, Shuji Terayama ( + other stuff connected to that whole Tenjo Sajiki gang), Suehiro Maruo etc. + I guess in some cases acts connected to the whole  80s new wave scene, especially the Nagomu Records label, also had some influence... Groups like Zin-Say, Karate Bakabon or Uchoten for example seem to have had some impact on the bleep-bloop side of things and I guess they could arguably count as some sort of pre-VK predecessor to the angura scene in a sense.. I see some influences from those groups in acts such as Muchi Muchi Anago, Shinjuku Gewalt, Metronome etc.... And of course a part of it is also just kind of arbitrarily determined by means of the bands certain bands mostly play with, I guess. Probably something like that whole funky white raccoon face aesthetic's a better indicator of "trve" angura-ness than kimonos, although I guess angura bands do like their uniforms from time to time.. Still, I'd definitely not consider acts like R-Shitei, Memento Mori, Orochi, Kagrra, or Kiryu to belong to the sublabel. R-Shitei's mostly just flirting with the retro aesthetics from time to time but doesn't really reflect any of it in their music or lyrics from what I've seen and heard..

 

The whole "darker and more formal" thing's sort of been memed into existence by people who somehow consider acts like Deathgaze to be angura or eroguro, and it's not really accurate, because some prominent and essential angura acts like Guruguru Eigakan or their offshoot Taiheiyou Belt, and even acts like Shinjuku Gewalt aren't actually all that dark or formal when it comes to the music. If anything, ''nostalgic'' would be a much better descriptor for the genre as a whole..

 

Im 1000% sure i could probably write a longer and better post about this but i'm sort of half drunk rn lmao sorry, i hope you caught my drift though.... maybe sb else will swoop in as well and add to this

I get your point. I guess though we should all take Vkei subgenres with a grain of salt though because, we all realy define them differenty.  Though I'll always argue that Memento Mori is an AnguraKei band because for most of their time, they did have the nostalgiac aesthetic, especially in the lyrics. In fact, they didn't even wear Kimono when they first began. Ai's outfit actually resembled Meiji Era military uniforms, although more lacy. And the original recording of "Sakurabi Awaki Samidare Ni" used a Taishogoto (A harp from the Taisho Era that used typewriter keys) They did delve into general Kimono Vkei during their first 2 mini albums, but with the release of Fuyu Shogun and Ozashiki Asobi To Iki Na Taboo, went back to their more nostalgic roots. Also, some of their songs would begin with old recordings of traditional Japanese music. For Kuroyuri To Kage (The band that the former members of Memento Mori are in) you could say they're definitely AnguraKei influenced, but are really more of a cross between Neo-90's Vkei and EroguroKei, as they began associating themselves more with Eroguro Art, and talked about more modern topics, but keeping the elements of horror and nonsense that both AnguraKei and EroguroKei are known for. 
For R-Shitei, I guess the stance on them being AnguraKei is kind of ambiguous because, well, while they do play around with nostalgiac aesthetics, their lyrical topics are mostly about issues like Mental Health in Japan, Domestic Abuse, etc. 

You know way more than I do though, because I've only been a part of the Vkei scene in general for 2 years xD

1 hour ago, Tokage said:

fuggggggg :-DDDDDDD cant believe its 2k16 and people still believe that ''kimonos = angura kei'' meme........................

To be fair, there is no one definition on what AnguraKei is. Some say it's all Kimono Vkei, others say it's a subgenre of Eroguro. I go with the urban dictionary definition "Angura is a shortened form of the english word 'underground'. This is a cultural movement in Japan that dated back to the 1960's and had a great expression in independent theatre. 
It is a movement who influenced many manga artists who tried to find a unique identity for their own cultures. 
It also linked with the Eroguro style, but the main difference was that angura is darker and more formal. The use of Japanese uniform, kimono, or other traditional garb is very common in angura-kei bands." Which means that bands like Memento Mori, Inugami Circus Dan, R-Shitei, Orochi, possibly Kagrra, and Kiryu can fit into the definition, but an OsareKei band that wears Kimono wouldn't

47 minutes ago, saishuu said:

Yeah, I get that you're new and that's okay, but you definitely shouldn't be creating a thread to basically promote your FB page.

I'm not trying to promote. I just am too lazy to copy and paste the entire thing and put it on the thread. If I would promote, I would say "HEY! CHECK OUT MY PAGE!!"

First, sorry if this is in the wrong section. I'm still relatively new, so, sorry xD. Second, this is a semi-serious, mostly joking top 10 list of the 10 Vkei bands everyone needs to listen to that I posted on my facebook page. Feel free to read and have a laugh. (And I'm sorry if it offends anyone. I'm mostly biased toward AnguraKei and EroguroKei, so I kind of got serious about those since I love those. But most of it is just joking.)

Link: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=334537240257991&id=322201821491533 

Edit: First off, I would like to explain that I'm NOT trying to promote my page. I just simply thought you all would find the list funny. I originally was going to post it here, but I decided why not post it on my reviews page and link it here? I'm sorry if it looked like I was shamelessly promoting. I would never go as low as to try to promote myself because I actually do find people who shamelessly promote themselves to be annoying. 

So I just randomly got this idea of a worldwide tour featuring a lot of the really good EroguroKei and AnguraKei bands. Specifically, I'd really like to see Inugami Circus Dan, Caligari, Sex Android, Kuroyuri To Kage, Ningen Isu, Orochi, Kiryu, and R-Shitei. I mean, all these bands have seemed to have influenced eachother, and use similar elements (Yes, I have found similarities between Kuroyuri To Kage and Ningen Isu xD) so why not all tour together?

19 minutes ago, JukaForever said:

VK is a guilty pleasure, a very pleasurable one at that

That perfectly describes how I am with VisualKei xD

Especially since in class, I openly watch crazy music videos on my Chromebook

7 minutes ago, doombox said:

I don't know if it's a guilty pleasure or more of just a band I don't think people would expect me to like because I tend to like darker/heavier bands. But I think Smileberry are just adorable and fun. I don't really have guilty pleasures because I'm not embarrassed of anything I like? lol But they are probably the closest thing I guess you could say.

 

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Same. I've always preferred heavier stuff. Though I must say, for an OsareKei band, Smileberry is quite good. 

Memento Mori: The GazettE, but much less generic and more traditional Japanese

Inugami Circus Dan: Corpse Paint is really just edgy Kabuki makeup

Kiryu: Oh, this isn't too bad *sees the music video for Aien Kien* WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT??

Plastic Tree: What is this? The Cure? You some edgy Goth or something? 

Sex Android: Doctors by day, spoopy spikey haired punks by night. 

My Dragon: Is this Sailor Moon?

Kuroyuri To Kage: Combine Mucc with Dir En Grey and every Eroguro band ever, eat it, chew it up, spit it out, eat it again, swallow it, and puke it out, and somehow get a masterpiece. 

Kagerou: The best band by a ded boi ever thought of

Guilty pleasures, we all have them. We all at least have one guilty pleasure Vkei band. Personally, mine is Grieva, because I'm a Dir En Grey fan, and I know a lot of Grieva songs are copies of Dir En Grey songs, but some I just can't help but like even better than the original Diru version. Like, the song Wish, I like it better than I'll simply because when I'll was made, Kyo was at the stage where he sang through his throat, which just didn't sound right. 

So, which band is your guilty pleasure? I won't judge. 

(Also, may I request, please don't flame someone or say mean things to them because of their guilty pleasure band. Let's keep things peaceful!)

So since the download subforum, which had the section for image scans, is gone, I'm going to have to make my request here since I don't know where else to ask xD

I'm looking for scans of Memento Mori from before their first drummer left. Basically, I'm wondering if anyone has HD images of when they looked like this, in layman's terms: 

Ok, so I'm using Twitter's horrible translate feature, so the details are very vague. But apparently, Kebyou has released their first single. Anyone here who speaks Japanese, please inform more for us. 

Kebyou's official Twitter: https://twitter.com/kebyo777

33 minutes ago, inartistic said:

 

IIRC, Aka-ON was founded by the same guy (SMILE vocalist, I think?) who owned Dear Dolce, after that first label went under. As far as recording quality, etc., we might assume that he was lower on funds, as Dear Dolce didn't seem very successful (and had like a million bands for no reason).

 

Speculation: Yukika saw Memento-Mori, saw that they had potential, and offered them a contract on his label (which had more money and more recognition). I doubt that they were “forced” to change; I'd guess that they just expected to have more success with the Kuroyuri style.

Oh, also, it's worth mentioning that Memento Mori originally disbanded because they felt like they were "At their limit". They already had lost 2 drummers in their history as a band and resorted to drum samples after Yue left (Though, tbh, they're better drum samples than the ones I've ever heard from any other band xD). 

I speculate the reason why Dear Dolce failed as a label is because they spent a lot of money on making full length music videos, only to release a small portion. This is proved pretty much with the PV for Memento Mori's Joroya, which remember, was originally to be released under Dear Dolce records, but was released under AKA-On. They used all the leftover footage from filming, and even takes that never made it into the Dear Dolce "Digest PV" (As I'm gonna call it xD) that they tried to cram a bunch of footage into.  Dear Dolce basically wasted lots of money on stuff they would never fully release.  Therefore, it led to them possibly going bankrupt. 

So I have a question. We all know Kuroyuri To Kage used to be an AnguraKei band signed to Dear Dolce called "Memento Mori", and Grieva was signed to Dear Dolce as Reload. But before forming Kuroyuri, Memento Mori was signed to a label called Aka-ON after Dear Dolce dissolved. During it's run in Dear Dolce, Memento Mori switched from a regular VisualKei band with AnguraKei influence, to a full on AnguraKei band with the release of their first album, and the release of "Sagamiya" on an omnibus I can't remember the name of. (The song was rereleased on the band's second mini album). They were going to release Haikei Haranbanjo Biyori on Dear Dolce, but it closed down before it could be released. Does anyone know what the deal was with Aka-ON, though? They had lower recording quality compared to Dear Dolce, and had a few former Dear Dolce bands. You can compare the recording quality in the original preview of Memento Mori's "Joroya" with the version of the song that was released. The version that was released had weird drum recording as the kick drum was barely audible, and a lot of reverb on the drums themselves. Was Aka-ON lower on funds? Or did they just have really bad sound engineers? Or did Memento Mori have a recording error, and they decided to just keep it the way it is, because they were rushed, and because they refused to resort to drum samples and wanted an authentic sound? (Refusing drum samples by the way is very bold for an amateur band).  Moreover, why did Memento Mori have to disband and reform as Kuroyuri To Kage? The only real difference is that Kuroyuri doesn't wear Kimono or use traditional instruments, but the songs still talk about a lot of the same topics. Were they forced to abandon the AnguraKei style and decided to settle on a mix of neo-90's Vkei and EroguroKei? Just so much that I wonder.

I do know this one thing though. While many may connect how Grieva is a cover band of Dir En Grey with the hate that Memento Mori got for apparently "copying Kiryu", I can assure you Memento Mori wasn't a copy of Kiryu. Kiryu had a mix of metalcore, post-hardcore/emotive hardcore, and Alternative Rock, meanwhile Memento Mori was mostly Metalcore, Alternative Metal, and Numetal. Also, Memento Mori formed around the same time as Kiryu's first album was released, and they weren't popular enough at the time to be copied. Also, Memento Mori had influences from Eroguro bands such as Inugami Circus Dan, while Kiryu seems to be influenced from Aicle's old stuff.