jaymee

I live in Japan and have a MerCari account. I might be able to help you out. More details or DM me? (I used to run a lolita SS way back in the day, but don't normally do SS any more. Feel free to suggest a rate you think is fair. )

ViViD who? I'm perfectly alright believing this the only Vivid that has ever existed in VK.

Agreed. I appreciated TicketCamp’s buyer protection and their easy to use templates for people not used to buying/selling tix. Twitter is harder because other users may not sell to you if you’re not in their FFs or a regular enough fan. Or if you’re like me and basically use Twitter to trade/buy/sell, it’s easy to miss a good opportunity not being on it 24/7. Like I dunno I hate scalping and all, but scalpers are like cockroaches and they always find another platform to take advantage of other people on, so imho in the grand scheme of things shutting the site down does very little to address the actual problem.

TicketCamp announced earlier this month that it was momentarily suspending its service, but in its latest update today, it says the service will close permanently on May 31, 2018. Until their suspension, TicketCamp was by far the most popular service for buying or reselling tickets, especially for VK and other music concerts. The decision seems to be a result of its recent legal troubles, assumably in light of its recent inaction toward cracking down on ticket scalping. I’ve personally been a TicketCamp user for a few years now and until now often bought/sold tickets on it. When first I signed up the rules clearly stated that the site was for personal resell/purchase only, and I felt like (at least for the bands I was reselling/buying for at the time), they were doing a adequate job of weeding out scalpers and other suspicious sellers. But with each passing year, it seemed like they were getting lazier and less was being done about it, to the point that most of the tickets I bought through their app this year arrived from ticket reselling companies (scalpers) in Tokyo. And as you can see in the tweet above, it was really getting out of hand. So I guess while not surprising news, until a new outlet (or old outlet like Yahoo!Auctions, etc.) (re)surfaces, it might be harder to resell or purchase tickets, especially for people overseas. In the meantime, if you are looking for tickets to a show and can’t buy thru Lawson, Pia, or eplus, try Twitter, MerCari (Japanese ver.), or Yahoo!Auctions. I’d link the actual news announcement but I can only see it in app on my phone atm. I did a quick search and didn’t see anything about it, but apologies in advance if there is already a thread for it.

I didn’t look her up or anything before posting, but can’t say it surprises me that she’s a shitty person all around D:

GD some foreign fans are so insensitive. Kozi’s talking about how he’d never imagined that his reunion with GAZ would be at his wake and RIP and then you have this dumbass commenting, “Next year (at Deep Sanctuary) sing with Klaha.” And you know it’s def a foreign fan because of the icon and unnatural Japanese. Like gtfo with that shit

Kind of related, but quite a number of non-VK acts I've seen here (Western indie and some Japanese indie) will often have live-only or special vinyl vers. on sale, and on numerous occasions the artist will come out to sign it after. I don't collect vinyl but sometimes just buying a large record of it at a show to have a large signed copy has been tempting. Tl;dr if there's a non-VK indie artist you like playing in Japan, def go b/c there's a good chance they will be selling vinyl (often signed) at their show.

Looks like you got a lot of cute stuff! I've been thinking about getting an Instax camera but I think I want it more for the novelty and the cute film than actually putting it to good use, so I've been lukewarm on buying one for the past couple of years. My husband and I don't really exchange presents in the "traditional sense" anymore, but we went on a Christmas date that he paid most of, and while on the date we saw some winter items he could use so I bought that. Yay memories over stuff. ❤️ A few weeks before I'd put in an order at Sephora to get some stuff for friends, and added the Kat Von D Saints & Sinners palette to my cart. It has a lot of colors I'll get a lot of use out of at lives/events and the packaging is brilliant. 😍 (image credit @gothicbrat on Reddit) My family, for the most part, didn't exchange because we'd already pooled quite a bit of money to attend my mom's wedding the month prior, except for my grandparents, who shopped for themselves and then sent us the bill lol... (But then later gave us double that money as our present.) Overall it was pretty win-win since I didn't have much wrapping or international mailing to do, and Christmas was pretty stress free.

My fave Christmas songs (and about the only really traditional ones Japan has) are both kinda sad lyrically but I dunno can't have Christmas Day without them. Merry Christmas to all!

I knew I would get shit for not adding my fam on Facebook, but I have them on a special filter and have unfollowed most of them because I don't need to see their religious or conservative/Trump posts. All of my family members seriously know zip about politics or anything they post about, will readily admit it even, but are still 100% convinced their opinions/beliefs are totally sound. Otherwise, my mom likes to tag me in random stuff she thinks I'll like or hijack a post I made to compliment me and it's really annoying. I've told her to stop a few times and she will for a couple of months but then start up again. I'm too lazy to make a separate Facebook though. I don't even know why the other family members even added me since they never bother to visit when I visit the States. Admittedly I get some satisfaction about them having to bask in how happy my Godless, "heathen" lifestyle is while they're all stuck in miserable, dead-end relationships, broke, and consider going to Olive Garden a fancy outing. My husband and I just tag each other in memes and cute cat gifs/vids. His parents don't use Facebook that I'm aware of. Even if they did, neither of them speak enough English to understand what I post.

I also want to add that girls that like VK are usually not seen as "desirable" by your average Japanese guy. The general image of a VK fan is crazy, mentally unstable, unemployed, and in some cases, someone who works in the mizushobai (hostess, escort, or sexual service) business. And to some extent, these stereotypes are not completely off as there are a lot of fans who cut their wrists, were/are mentally unstable, were/are involved in mizushobai because they can't hold down a regular job and/or doing mizushobai allows the to go to lives and make enough money to support their hobbies/lifestyle. I feel like a lot of the gyao fans either a.) were/are VK fans from a young age, b.)were/are particularly interested in rock or the history of rock and this particular scene, c.) were/are involved in alternative punk or goth fashion and the two kind of go hand in hand, d.) a mix or all of the above. You also have the instance of say, a band like Golden Bomber, where the members were originally hosts/involved in the mizushobai business before debuting in the VK scene, although I'd say this extends more to members of VK bands than their gyao fans. Some gyao fans be looking pretty rough sometimes...

I'm not that knowledgeable about pinning posts etc. on this board but is there a way to make the most relevant replies show first? Or maybe I should update the first post with subsequent info as an ongoing mega-post?

Generally bigger bands will have more events decided ahead of time because they need to play at certain venues that may require reserving well in advance, and/or doing staggered ticket sales for fan club first, pre-reserve, general, etc. sales. Smaller bands may have a more “on the fly” schedule or only announce a month or two in advance. Re: ticket purchases @Duwangpretty much covered the basics. If you aren’t currently in Japan, and the live may sell out before you get here, I would consider having a shopping service get the tickets in advance and mail them to you or a friend in Japan.

My apologies! At first I was like "is this a troll comment or..?" lol

I looked nowhere near even half as good carrying my husband's grandma's funeral portrait when she died lol.

Wait what? Dir en grey and Kagerou were both around long before The Gazette. I think you have it backwards... Honestly this song is one of the better debut tracks I've heard in quite awhile. Not a fan of the screamo vocals in the middle personally, but it wasn't the worst I've ever heard and everything else was pretty good.

It's not the first one and they've never invited him, so I guess not lol. I know where I'm gonna be on 9/8/2018 tho.

@lichtluneWhat Bren cheekily failed to mention is that doing so will probably give whatever member you address it to the wrong idea about why you're supporting them Unless you do it anon/to the whole band with no contact info included. Tho seriously if you did it, anything less than a couple of man of new bills in a money envelope would be pretty laughable. Either way they'd probably just get smashed on it and that'd be the end of it. Might as well blow a few man on buppan, and recoup some of the money reselling to the community

I think it really did more in the past, when they were just about the only retailer selling and shipping official VK CDs (YesAsia was always a hot mess of official releases that may or may not be in stock/out of print and bootlegs mixed together) overseas and people wanted them to continue doing that... There are other options besides CD Japan now, but with the sales decline of physical forms of music, I'm sure supporting them helps ensure they'll be around for overseas fans in the future. So I guess if you look at it as contributing to the overseas scene, then yeah sure. Otherwise I've never known CD Japan to have special ties to artists or contribute to their royalties personally, except for the few times they've exclusively offered artist goods to the overseas market, like with the Moi-Meme-Moitie pieces they had listed yeaaaars ago.

CD Japan is just a general music retailer so probably not much, but ordering from or shopping at VK specialty shops like Brand X, Like an Edison, Jishuban Club, Pure Sound, etc. does a lot to support the scene since these stores host signings, handshake events, talk events, and other opportunities for fans to interact with bands outside of concert and fan club events. And I guess to some extent, buying from Closet Child... Not because Closet Child sponsors or hosts events themselves, it keeps them in business, and they are one of the most iconic stores of the VK/goth fashion scene.

Unfortunately (Or fortunately?) not everyone is Kisaki lol

Arca has been taking over my playlist D:

Jealous of you dude. D:

Went to see Mitski last week at Ebisu Liquid room. (Not my recording D:) Was pretty surreal and I teared up during "Your Best American Girl", but since I was front center standing right in front of her and didn't want to be that girl ugly crying in the audience I managed to suck it up and hold it together. D: