jiangshi girl

I feel I'm following 50+ series but I don't love mangas as much as before.

My current favorite is Mori Kaoru's A Bride's Story, her talent and patience is incredible.

Also like Shirahama Kamome's Tongari Boushi no Atelier, Ookubo Kei's Arte, because I'm in a warm-shoujo-mangas-without-too-much-romace mood

And Shimizu Aki's manga version of Kyogoku Natsuhiko's Hyakkiyakou series. Too bad only one novel in this series has been translated into English.

I bought a VIP on a local music APP

besides that, I bought MUCC's new album and a magazine yesterday, they would take a while to arrive.

Thank you for the review, it's very nice and beautifully written.

And I want to thank Yasu for letting some young people know the old classics.

Personally I have some different feeling towards Cloudy Heart and Flying Get. Maybe I'm biased towards Himuro, the feeling in his singing is often not very obvious, but the sorrow and loneliness is deep within. I think Himuro's voice is one of the most important things which have made Boowy much more than just a pop band.

And Flying Get, I don't know whether Yasu chose this song himself... Of course he is a better singer than anyone from AKB, but I think the only good thing about this song is it somehow sounds like an old pop Kayokyoku, so not entirely cheesy and boring, giving it a heavy rock arrangement has made it more insufferable to me.

Sorry that I tend to judge songs by personal interest.

Just began reading Robin Hobb's The Liveship Traders, it's an old series I always wanted to read, finally borrowed them yesterday. I hope it's a good story.

Need to give it a few more listens, I have enjoyed it so far.

I can't say I liked Classic and Killer when they came out, but I began to like them this time due to mysterious reasons.

Chorus of Myakuhaku is beautiful, EMP is good.

I thought I heard that paragraph of lyric in Billy very wrong on my first listen, but it turned out to be just that, lol.

hide's ROCKET DIVE, certainly it's not a bad song, but I can't listen to it again.

For BT, I choose Symphonic Buck-Tick In Berlin.

Rouage's Mune ni Furu Ame Mune ni Saku Hana, the title is beautiful, however I can't make myself like the melodies.

16 minutes ago, r... said:

 

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUE_BLOOD

Check the japanese wiki page.

 

And オリコン is unreliable for old releases and stops updating the sales number after a while (maybe when it drops from the top 500 charts?). Only JASRAC or RIAJ can help you, then. And RIAJ takes fucking forever to update the sales too. It's not uncommon to see an album being certified years after achieving the Gold Disc Certification, which is the first award you can get.

 

But hey, that info was printed in an old magazine (forgot which one). I'm pretty sure the magazine would have verified their source back then.

RIAJ's certification is for the number of shipments, not the sales.

For example, one of my old favs, Sound Horizon's 2010 album Maerchen was certified as Gold when it was still on Oricon, the Oricon number for it was 85k when it finally dropped from the weekly top 300. Same condition with many many other CDs.

As for magazines, writers write whatever they want, especially when the internet was not very developed or no internet at all! I have another example, I don't like to say it, but a famous critic named Ichikawa Tetsushi (nicknamed "father of Visual Kei" by some Japanese VK fans) said Buck-Tick's Aku no Hana had sold 570k in Rockin'on Japan Dec 1990, with no source mentioned, the Oricon number is something like 430 to 440k. Scan here: http://s46.photobucket.com/user/tigerpal/media/Scans4/ROJ9012_p66.jpg.html

Ichikawa was also in charge of the promotion for X-Japan in that magazine.

I also vaguely remember someone in a Japanese magazine said BLUE BLOOD had reached 600k in 1989 or 1990.

Of course you can say Oricon is so so so terribly wrong, X have sold triple what Oricon says. But just one thing, if what you believe is true, do you think Yoshiki and all his fanatical Japanese fans would be okay with Music Station, the NO.1 television music program in Japan saying things like what I listed before?

16 minutes ago, r... said:

I remember reading over 15 years ago that the original BLUE BLOOD album had sold over 1,5m copies. And that was in 2002, before the reeditions and remasters. For that reason, I actually trust the 30 million mark. Japan is incredibly cryptic about sales numbers.

If you google "オリコン アルバム 1989”, then 1900, then 1991, you will find that BLUE BLOOD sold 188 thousand copies + in 1989, 378 thousand + in 1990, not in the top 100 since 1991

1.5m is highly unrealistic.

Although I don't know how Billboard Japan works, Oricon numbers are not cryptic, nothing but physical CDs they have sold, only a bit lower than the actual numbers if we're talking about albums or singles which have dropped out from the weekly top 100 (top 300 since 2002), or if we're talking about the likes of AKB48 whose core fans could buy 100+ copies of a single (It seems even if you buy 1000 copies, Oricon would only count them as something like 50 or lower, but I'm not familiar with idol groups, so can't be certain)

17 minutes ago, desparejo86 said:

I've never looked into X's numbers, but 30 million is not even remotely kinda sorta possible. Not even kinda.

 

B'z are/were much bigger than X and have like a zillion #1 albums and singles, and they have barely cracked 30 million. They were passed by some pop group as Japan's biggest selling act of all time a while back, check it out there.

 

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2015/12/10/music/total-sales-akb48-singles-hit-36-million-copies-japan-record/

 

"The previous record for total single CD sales by the same artist was held by the Japanese rock group B’z, who sold a combined 35,809,000 copies." that's per Oricon.

 

EDIT: Okay, just realized that's for singles only. Apparently B'z have sold 35 million singles and 45 million album.  Holy fuck.

If AKB keeps going like this, they will eventually become the best-selling musician of all time in Japan, but I'm not sure they will.

Personally I think AKB's music is okay, most members are not good singers, but they have nice melodies composed by famous composers, Yasushi Akimoto writes fabulous lyrics for them occasionally.

46 minutes ago, Peace Heavy mk II said:

Are they factoring in digital sales too? iirc digital sales really aren't as important in Japan since they're super big on physical CDs, but internationally it's a much more feasible option and may be the cause of the inflated numbers.

Actually, in that Wikipedia page, only Ayumi Hamasaki, L'arc, Hotei and X-Japan's numbers are significantly different with the numbers from all those charts I listed. So even if their numbers include digital sales, it's very unfair.

Plus while talking about sales of Japanese musicians, people usually mean physical sales.

Also for example, according to RIAJ, AKB48 has a certification of about 16 million downloads, since digital music did not exist in X's glorious days, and I think it's safe to say X haven't released one single hit song since the digital era, I don't know what could make X-Japan 30 million except something like counting 5 youtube watching as one CD sold. 

The English Wikipedia says, X-Japan has sold more than 30 million copies, it seems many people believe the wikipedia numbers, do you think it's really possible?

If you add every number from this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Japan_discography

It will turn out to be just over 10 million.

Also, let's look at Glay. Glay is a miracle, they have 11 sold-more-than-1-million releases, six singles and five albums, their best album REVIEW is the NO.1 best selling albun in 1997, sold more than 4 million, their single Yuuwaku is the NO.1 best-selling single in 1998. they have sold 38 million + in total.

Then X-Japan, they have only one release which has nodoubtly reached a million, that's Jealousy, also their highest ranking in Oricon yearly album chart is of Jealousy, NO.12 best selling album in 1991, if I didn't remember it wrong, none of their singles have ranked higher.

And X is 30 million?

This is the Visual Kei ranking from Nikkei Entertainment, around 2012:

http://bakusai.com/thr_res/acode=6/ctgid=116/bid=643/tid=2688314/

It says 11.88 million

(bands which may not be real VK are not included in this ranking)

This is a ranking I don't know where it is from, therefore might not be very accurate, but I have seen it many times in 2ch and other sites:

http://nammyblog.seesaa.net/article/323401673.html

11.74

This is a ranking from Music Staion sometime around 2013.

This is a ranking from Music Station, comparing sales of artists in Showa and Heisei era, the sales of each one is divided into the two eras, so it's not a complete ranking of best-selling artists in Japan, for example Southern All Stars ranked low here because they have been active in both Showa and Heisei.

But Heisei started in 1989, so every major X-Japan release is in Heisei era.

The 25th in Heisei, Spitz is just a bit above 20 million.

By the way, Laruku is clearly not something like 40 million.

Someone in my country's J-pop fandom calculate Hotei Tomoyasu's sales from Oricon, it's not 40 million, only 12 or 13 million. The Oricon numbers are generally lower than the true numbers, becuase Oricon can't calculate every purchase in Japan, but it can never, ever be 10 or 20 million lower, in which case Oricon would be completely useless.

Also I remember Ayumi Hamasaki is much lower than Wikipedia's 83 million, maybe 50 to 55 million, here is the oricon news: http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2015631/full/

Here is a site for some Visual Kei Oricon numbers:

http://oriconv.seesaa.net/

1 hour ago, Tokage said:

Damn, I'm quite jealous. Would love to see her live some day.

Also quite happy she's still active. I do really, really wish she'd do some sort of Yapoos reunion or at least release a new solo album though, it's been quite a long time since she last released some new work iirc (outside of collaborations with other artists)

One advantage of living in Asia is that the plane ticket to Japan is cheap. I really need to see her before she retires, plus I always want to see places like Minami-Aoyama MANDALA.

I want a Yapoos reunion, too, but I don't know if it's possible.

It makes me sad that she is not as good as she was in the 80s and early 90s, her voice has changed so much. But I'm still willing to pre-order a new album made by her.

I don't like one ok rock because it's not my type of music, but I don't hate it.

About X-japan, I like most songs in Vanishing Vision, Blue Blood and half of Jealousy, also like hide, heath and sugizo, but I absolutely hate all those yoshiki sad ballads, I would rather listening to Nagizaka46. And I wiil never forgive yoshiki for calling kyo (D'erlanger) a bad singer.

Oh I hate almost every boy idol groups from Korea, and a few Korean or Chinese boy idols I really can't tell if they are Korean or Chinese.

Is it ok here to share other people's hatred?

My mother hates Hisashi Imai ("He looks like your grandma")

Jun Togawa ("Who is this horrible old woman? She makes your Acchan sound like an angel.")

Kiryu ("f*cking awful")

Sugizo's solo instrument tracks ("THESE are called music?")

Kyosuke Himuro in b. blue

Toshi in Joker

She is totally ok with most Black Metal and Death Metal, very strange.

Perhaps, it's hard to choose. Japanese people are generally richer, the air is cleaner there, the subway stations are better designed, but if I'm Japanese, I would grow up listening to all those horrible cheerful Jpop songs which made my head ache during my trip to Japan last year, and my English is likely to be even worse than it is now.

1 hour ago, Tokage said:

Damn, very nice taste!  Lots of good oldies bands there. Feels like it's become kind of rare to find Yapoos fans or ICD fans on the web these days, so any and all new ones are always appreciated lol

 

Hope you enjoy your stay here.

Thank you!

I plan to see Jun Togawa's concert in Japan this year. I feel grateful that she is still active, really wish I knew her earlier.

On 2016/10/21 at 1:39 AM, Takadanobabaalien said:

Yeah and also 

 

@sume7 dir are obviously not unknown... Within the rock community. While 50-60 year old obaachans who only listened to enka and jpop their entire life will still know who X Japan are. It's kinda like the blue hearts and bands like that. Even if they're not fans or listen to their music, they're still aware of who the guys are. 

 

Also to put sales into the perspective: X has sold over 30 million records in Japan. I have no specific number for DIR but they're not on this list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists_in_Japan#15_million_to_20_million_records) meaning they at least haven't sold over 15 million records.

 

also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_Japan#Best-selling_albums_by_year

 

is a list of Japanese albums that has sold over 1 million copies. X has 2 albums there, DIR has none.

30 million is a lie.

Over here X fans laugh at newer ones who believe in the 30 million myth.

The true number is about 12 million, I mean, according to good old oricon, they only have one release over a million, that means they have to make 30 Jealousys to reach 30 million, which is simply impossible. Also Wikipedia is untrue about L'arc, defintely Glay sold more CDs than L'arc, Glay is something like 38 million+, L'arc is likely 29 million+.(Wiki is also very wrong abouy Hotei Tomoyasu, defintely Himuro sold more)

all in all, don't trust the numbers in Western promotion news.

According to Nikkei Entertainment, DEG is the 9th best-selling VK band in Japan(10th if you think Buck-Tick is VK), sold over 2 million, I don't remember a more accurate number.

But sale numbers are not everything, the market itself changed rapidly since 80s, CDs are much easier to sell in 1995~2000 than 1990, and much easier in 1990 than now, so I think the positions in oricon's year charts are more representative than numbers.

On 2016/10/21 at 1:39 AM, Takadanobabaalien said:

Yeah and also 

 

@sume7 dir are obviously not unknown... Within the rock community. While 50-60 year old obaachans who only listened to enka and jpop their entire life will still know who X Japan are. It's kinda like the blue hearts and bands like that. Even if they're not fans or listen to their music, they're still aware of who the guys are. 

 

Also to put sales into the perspective: X has sold over 30 million records in Japan. I have no specific number for DIR but they're not on this list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists_in_Japan#15_million_to_20_million_records) meaning they at least haven't sold over 15 million records.

 

also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_Japan#Best-selling_albums_by_year

 

is a list of Japanese albums that has sold over 1 million copies. X has 2 albums there, DIR has none.

30 million is a lie.

Over here X fans laugh at newer ones who believe in the 30 million myth.

The true number is about 12 million, I mean, according to good old oricon, they only have one release over a million, that means they have to make 30 Jealousys to reach 30 million, which is simply impossible. Also Wikipedia is untrue about L'arc, defintely Glay sold more CDs than L'arc, Glay is something like 38 million+, L'arc is likely 29 million+.(Wiki is also very wrong abouy Hotei Tomoyasu, defintely Himuro sold more)

all in all, don't trust the numbers in Western promotion news.

According to Nikkei Entertainment, DEG is the 9th best-selling VK band in Japan(10th if you think Buck-Tick is VK), sold over 2 million, I don't remember a more accurate number.

But sale numbers are not everything, the market itself changed rapidly since 80s, CDs are much easier to sell in 1995~2000 than 1990, and much easier in 1990 than now, so I think the positions in oricon's year charts are more representative than numbers.

I had been seeing  advertisements of this project everywhere in the past few days, almost had a gestaltzerfall on the word androgynos.

But today internet began to show me advertisements of Bangtan Boys, srsly? Give Androgynos back!

I would like to buy a CD of this project, if there will be one.

Hi, everyone!

I have been interested in Visual Kei for 2 years, so I guess I'm a newbie.

The first VK band I like is Nightmare, because of the theme songs of Death Note and Mouryo no Hako, but I didn't get into the VK fandom at that time. Then I spent my high school time listening to Black Metal, Gothic Metal and Sound Horizon.

About 2.5 years ago, I rediscovered Buck-Tick and fell in love, now BT is my favourite band. I'm that kind of BT fan who found them through Trinity Blood and became a fan for Acchan-chan's face, but now I respect all five of them as musicians and people.

I still like Nightmare, other Jrock bands I like are: MUCC, Malice Mizer, Dead End, LUNA SEA, D'erlanger, Kuroyume, Der Zibet, Onmyouza, Kinniku Shoujo Tai, Inugami Circus dan, Yapoos, Zelda, DALLE, cali-gari, early Glay, etc. I'm not familiar with younger bands, but willing to try a lot of them from now on.

My favourite non-Japanse band is Tristania, my favourite female singers are Jun Togawa and Vibeke Stene.

I can read Japanese, but not good at it.

I decided to join this forum because there aren't many serious discussions in my country's VK fandom, 2ch annoys me a lot, and Tanuki has too many VK slangs, I have trouble understanding them.

It seems people here are really friendly.