Triangle

I don't know man, I was so happy for them and literally made my whole day better. What a great way to start 2018 ;A; ! Surely they know better what's best for their band and their music.

Hahaha same ! Even at school people would trade posters and someone would buy one number of the magazine and would get passed down to everyone in class XD. I miss Popcorn XD

I think we are talking about the same magazine. It had the same name and most of the interviews were from when bands toured in Germany and I think our ghetto people here just translated every number of the magazine and would sell it like that XD. Maybe that's why they stopped releasing it at one point /copyright got to them eventually XD/.

Dude, I wish I knew this forum and this thread before going to Japan. There are so many gold nuggets in here, I loved reading everyone's experiences. Last year when I went to Japan I was literally a n00b. I never knew there is this certain "etiquette" to follow at concerts. Night buses were my best friends at one point during my year abroad. I'm usually super car-sick and it gets ugly, but I don't know what magic Japanese buses use, but I wasn't sick at all in them. The prices are kind of tricky, the sites I used required some "hunting" for cheap tickets XD (I used this little fellow here most of my year abroad http://willerexpress.com/en/ and also this bad boy : http://www.jrbuskanto.co.jp.e.wn.hp.transer.com/ ) They were really easy because you could either pay at any conbini or by credit card. Also the bringing little gifts to other fans at the venue was so foreign for me. I felt so lost when some girls came up to me like "Here have these candies" XD. But good thing I came to Japan with some Romanian sweets and I impressed everyone with "exotic" treats XD. If you're good at drawing you can gift people little drawings of the band you're fan of or something related to the concert you're seeing (I saw people all pros and printing them on nice paper and all that ). And I liked the idea of giving bands little gifts or letters, to be honest. I used to find amusing the fact that there were boxes in the venue where you could put your presents. But it's cute nevertheless. I would mostly stick with traditional sweet treats, letters and maybe small things like I don't know a key chain or whatever. But I've certainly seen expensive gifts there like clothes of big brands. My exchange student ass didn't have that much money, but by all means, do you boo boo :). Oh and other concepts that I can't wrap my head around even today are "irimachi" and "demachi". Basically waiting for the band to come in and out of the venue before and after the concert. I mean, I kind of get "demachi" (waiting for them to come out after the concert) because it gets all exciting and you get to squeal around with everyone else, but "irimachi" (waiting for them to arrive at the venue) is so tiring to me. But I get the excitement I guess? I mean you get to wave at your favs and give them letters and presents if you have the chance. It's really cute if you befriend some nice fans and you get to chat with them. Another big tip for me was to make friends with older fans, because if you're nice enough and you like each other's company, they might give you some rare old merch that you never though you'd ever get your hands on and also you can find some old insiders facts and stories about the band XD

I've literally been surfing twitter for the whole day between other things and what made my heart break the most were the fans who were so strong and believed in him this whole time, waiting outside of the hospital and others cheering up people on social media with warm words. I know kpop has had its downs for a while, but really the music and the beautiful friendships I made by liking some groups are what's keeping me to love kpop. And they were the first kpop group I saw in Japan. I really hope things will change in the music industry.

It's been a while for me to feel so confused 💆

Having all sorts of feels ;A;

Oh yeah for sure. That's really the main reason why some of them were nice with me, because I was the child gaijin, who doesn't know anything. Yeah, many people told me that Japanese people are more narrow-minded than others. I don't know, some people in my country are kinda on the same level too, so maybe that's why I didn't feel it that strong there. But I do understand the point of view from people coming from countries with rich immigration culture. It's really interesting to hear all sort of perspectives and experiences. Speaking of being treated as a rare animal I remember being asked if you could travel from my country to another one by plane. Or if my eye color was real XD.

Naaah, I'm good with who I am. I love Japanese culture and music and I really am missing Japan very much, but, to be honest every country, culture, person has their own positive and negative things so, instead of wishing to be something/someone else, I'd rather stick with myself. Yeah, I would love to live there again, as a foreigner though. To me, it seemed easier to live in Japan as an "outsider" rather than a Japanese person. Maybe it was because I could get away without being judged for everything and without people being too awkward around me. Not all of the Japanese people are narrow-minded and stuff, but to the core they still give that kind of awkward vibe. Maybe it's just me, obviously I've yet to meet all the Japanese people on this planet, but from my short experience of one year in Japan this is what I came with. Not to take Japan's side, but we all have our narrow-minded side, because really, it's kind of natural to think about something that you haven't seen/experience before as "weird". The people I met in Japan who were Japanese they were very welcoming and open to new cultures and new views. Even the people I worked with and met while being a part-timer at a traditional restaurant were super nice, even though I stood out a lot and would make way too many mistakes haha XD. But, in the end, we all have different experiences of the Japanese culture. I've talked with people who had it worse than me and I felt really awful hearing stories like that and at one point I would feel kind of labeled as the "innocent mascot gaijin", but I tried to see the positive things in everything. Or I may just be lucky enough to encounter nice people.

I freaking loved An Cafe in 2008. I don't even know how I found out about them, but I remember I bought a magazine that had bands interview and one of the bands from that month's publication was An Cafe and at first I thought they were...cute girls XD. And then I looked them on the internet and got so into them, I started watching a lot of videos and had all the discography and basically that's how I found out that all the anime songs I've been listening until then were from the "jrock" genre XD.

I literally got into Lynch. because of "Creature". I'm so here for this song and that made me search for more songs from them and currently I'll admit Sorrow won a weak spot in my heart. I'm all about that bass in that song unfghh Lynch. makes me sound so trash and I love it. They became my guilty pleasure in few days XD.

Hey ! I've been a j-rock fan for almost 4 years. I've been a solid anime fan since I was a kid but never knew what the hell j-rock was except for anime songs XD. I stopped listening to j-rock for a while then got back into it because of a friend XD. I'm generally a MUCC fan and have gone to too many concerts for my budget while I was studying abroad in Japan but I am always open to new bands. For the past few weeks I've been really into Lynch. because Hazuki keeps popping on my twitter feed and I can't escape this boy and their music is nice XD. I always enjoy me some Sid, LM.C, BUCK-TICK, L'Arc en Ciel, Baroque and others XD. It's been a while for me to join a forum, but this one looks old school and cozy so here I am :). Nice to meet everyone ! : )

Name: Beatrice Age: 23 Years studied: 3 years of university, and one year in Japan that helped me more than I ever expected XD Estimated level: I'm calling myself Moderate XD Knowledge of Hiragana/Katakana: All. I'm still struggling with katakana sometimes, like how to tell "tsu" from "shi" apart XD. Kanji: Oh my god this is a hard question XD. 1000-ish I guess? I mean I did pretty well so far, but I'm not going to cocky until I pass N2 and graduate from university XD. What is your main goal with studying Japanese?: Well, to be honest, I only decided to learn Japanese 4 years ago when I was deciding what major I should pick to study in university. 4 years ago was when I discovered MUCC and made this big goal of learning Japanese to understand their lyrics. Then, I continued studying it and I found a lot of fun and interesting things and now my main goal is to become as fluent as possible so I can go back to Japan and live there and ride unicorns into the sunset. What materials have you used before?: All the textbooks my teachers have provided me with (Minna no nihongo all the way and some others that I can't remember), a lot of N3 and N2 books, a book that was recommended by my teacher during my one year abroad in Japan called "Ryugakusei no tame no kanji no kyoukasho" (please excuse my romaji, the original title is : 留学生のための教科書) for intermediate level and I liked it very much, especially the illustrations in it XD . Oh and online dictionaries like imiwa, jisho-shirabe and good ol' google translate XD. I tried translating some lyrics, and when I watch anything in Japanese I try looking for words I don't know and kinda save the word somewhere on a piece of paper or on my phone. I tried keeping a notebook with vocabulary but failed to update it. And making Japanese friends on twitter helped me too.