Milayou

I was convinced that they would finally click because i'm craving this sort of stuff right now but all I hear just falls uncomfortably flat. Looks like it's Madeth Gray'll time again after all for the hundredth time this month

I think i've officially lost patience with DAS:VASSER, I tried giving their stuff a chance for years but they simply don't do anything for me. A lot of VK is derivative by nature but most bands manage to save face by having a little something special to offset this. I just don't get what that special something is supposed to be for them (and to make things worse the production on their albums sucks). Also this could probably get me beheaded if I told the wrong people, but it makes me furious that the more elitist fringes of VK fandom will hype up middling crap like this yet deliberately overlook an album like Missa because they wouldn't be caught dead listening to DEG. I don't consider myself a hardcore Diru fan at all but "Kiri to Mayu" and "Aoi Tsuki" alone blow anything DAS:VASSER have written out of the water.

Things probably wouldn't be much different if we all collectively gained the ability to read into people's minds and went insane as a result

If we're gonna do video games, Shin Megami Tensei is well known for using japanese youth subculture as an inspiration and Persona 2 (1999 and 2000) happens to be pretty heavy on the VK. One character is a struggling bandman and another one is a gothy girl who sports a classic kotekote era hairstyle (I think Nao from La'mule is most famous for wearing it but you see it on a lot of other guys as well) : Bonus video :

He can do much better than take on his copycat: he can take on himself.

This is psychotic and I love it

Rose Smell Mode

There are some VK cosplay websites from 2000-2005 that are still up out there and it always made me laugh how the girls that are showcased always seem to take their screen names from real VK musicians so you get cosplay credits that go "Sugizo by Toshiya" "Hide by Sugizo" "Emiru by Emiru" and so on

Had to do a double take when I saw this one at the mall. I never found a 1:1 reference picture for it but it obviously takes very liberal inspiration from "No Pains No Gains" Mana

They're one of those bands I never really got until I saw them perform on video. I used to think their songwriting was too simplistic to be interesting but getting a feel for their candor on stage really brings the best qualities of their music across. Also I totally get the hype around Kazuki now. How could you possibly hate that kid?

I haven't actively listened to any new VK since 9goats disbanded, they really were a very special band. I looked through your posts real quick and didn't see a single mention of Plastic Tree, if you want shoegaze inspired VK you really ought to do yourself a favor and check out some of their stuff. They always had a history of flirting with shoegaze and taking elements from the british alternative scene but the most recent music I heard from them really cranked those influences up to 11.

Macabre kind of feels like it suffers from being indebted to Gauze, like at that point in their career they were still concerned with keeping the wind in their sails and replicating their previous album's success instead of letting loose and allowing themselves as much creative freedom as they wanted. There are some less inspired moments on it where the similarities are really hard to overlook, like I could swear Myaku and Riyuu were written to pack the exact same one-two punch as Schwein no Isu and Yurameki. At the same time though, what makes Gauze so notable in the first place is how diverse it is and Macabre pulls that part off just as well imo. They're perfect companion albums because Macabre covers all of the ground that Gauze couldn't cover, and i'll always maintain that they're the BEST window into what was happening in VK around that time as a result whether you're a Diru fan or not.

What are some albums you neglected at first and ended up falling in love with much later after giving them another chance? This happens to me with VK more than with any other genre so i'm interested to see how many people share this experience. The latest one for me is La Féerie's "La Berceuse" which only grew on me after I realized how much it sounds like old Raphael (especially the vocal lines which sound like they were written to be sung by Yuki). The first two tracks in particular feel like a more mature take on what they were doing on Lilac before they started really cleaning up their sound. I guess the key idea here is that I stopped trying to approach it like the generic kotekote album I thought it was (and Raphael never really fell in line with that style of VK to me).