GreatNorthernVK

I’m on the fence on this one. Denver is the only date that makes sense for me, but it’s so damn expensive. I’m going to wait it out a couple weeks to see if they announce any last minute Canada date.

True, it’s important to consider that a handful of these guys may have come from money in the first place, and that’s what bankrolled their bands. Their parents want them to have fun while they’re young, then retire and start working their “real job”.

“Guitarist Lin joins Nocturnal Bloodlust - and has been arrested”

20 hours ago, itsukoii said:

i'll sum up the gist:

they attempted to turn an innocent twitter tag (lesbiansforreita, a joke from the lesbians in the fandom saying he was our protector/leader, can't remember why or how it started but it was some innocent fun) into a bully tactic against wlw and claiming my ex was a pedophile (she wasn't, i was 17 and we had a strictly romantic relationship) before doxxing her, saying that tag was a "cover up" for these pedophilic assumptions of theirs. there was a whole gc behind it that didn't like my ex for one reason or another, so they teamed up and did all this, feeding into the vkeifanexposed that claimed to "expose bad fans" but it was extremely biased and seemed to only go after this one person, who (imo) had done nothing wrong. it's all kind of a blur to me now but i THINK that's the gist

I was following that too. Sorry you and your ex got harassed by that asshat.

Honestly, they made a huge deal out of nothing. Claiming that Reita’s feelings would be sooo hurt by “Lesbians for Reita”. You want to know how most straight guys would react to news that lesbians are stanning him? “...Cool!”

I highly doubt that Reita loses sleep at night because “Oh no! Not lesbians!”

On 7/29/2019 at 8:16 PM, Komorebi said:

It is, I'm just multitasking and I half-assed my reading lmao.

 

All of this reminded me of the kawaii person here who wanted to pay a certain noodle to "meet him". I was always under the impression that it was a dude and couldn't help but wonder if he thought said noodle would go for it lol.

 

Btw, is it common in anglospeaking countries to see girls "joking" about raping X or Y noodle? Cuz it is really common in the hispanic side of the fandom and the double standard gets on my nerves.

Mm, “common”, not really. Does it still happen from time to time? Sure. 

Generally speaking, if a teen girl is talking about “raping” a man 10+ years older than her, most people will just roll their eyes and move on. It’s become more common for people to interject and tell them to knock it off, as awareness has increased.

1 minute ago, Himeaimichu said:

I've posted about this before, but a crazy Mamo (R-Shitei) stan from Japan harassed me because I was joking about him being a kusomen. She sent me threatening messages and shit, and when I asked my friends who she was, someone ratted me out to her and she sent even more harassing messages, so I blocked her.

According to a friend of mine, she was creepily obsessed with Mamo and she actually did meet him a few times. Whether they actually talk is not up to me, but hey, they seem perfect for eachother. A Kusomen with a Kuso Bangya.

I wonder if she was the same girl who sent Mamo the “period diary”.

I think part of the issue here is that they are pricing for the Japanese market. Namely, for the fans that are nostalgic and will drop that kind of money on MM merch, because they don’t really follow any bands besides M10M, or maybe one or two of Kozi’s projects.

They aren’t really pricing it for our market, which are the people that might be nostalgic, but if they’re still paying attention to VK at all, then they’ve moved on to other bands (usually multiple ones). Most of us simply don’t have the dedication to pine over a band that disbanded almost 20 years ago, and be willing to shell out $150 US+ Shipping for a blu-ray.

It’s a complicated situation, because this entire international fandom exists because of piracy, rather than in spite of it. Sure, we could choose to be uptight about copyright infringement, but we wouldn’t be here without it in the first place.

Not much to add, but average age of fan could have something to do with it. When I see pictures of crowds at X-Japan or Luna Sea shows (post 2000), it’s pretty mixed. Possibly, the younger the average age of fans, the more likely that it will be gender segregated. This applies to multiple genres, not just VK. 

Part of the explanation could be that when VK was being heavily promoted, plenty of talentless fuckboys thought that it was the easy way to fame, so they aimed for that. Even when VK started falling out of favour, those guys were probably too invested to leave. Now that it’s been a full generation since the initial popularity, less of these guys are hanging around the scene.

Streaming has its uses, but also plenty of limitations. Nothing more irritating than your internet buffering during a song, or your significant other hijacking Spotify to troll you with Backstreet Boys and Chumbawumba (true story).

I’ve decided to listen to most of my western music via Spotify, while keeping my storage for VK and other stuff that can’t be found on Spotify.

I have some CDs for collection purposes, but the only physical music I sit down and listen to is in LP format.

For Japanese artists, it’s difficult to determine what the “right” answer is. For one, many of us don’t read Japanese. Relying on translations for gossip boards can’t always guarantee reliability of either the translation, nor the validity of the rumour itself.

Things of this nature are also kept more “hush hush” in Japan, especially if the artist in question is popular and well liked. Things are slowly changing, as they are over here.

As for separating the art from the artist, sometimes that is possible, other times it bleeds through. Some are what I like to call “hiding in plain sight”, and see no problem with making their intentions known in their art. Mamo from R-shitei with his edgy lyrics, and talking about his attraction to teen girls. For an American example, Dahvie Vanity advertising what he likes to do to teen girls/young women in Blood on the Dance Floor’s lyrics. Oh sure, we all thought they were joking at one point. Until we realized, no, they really are serious.

As for whether or not to continue financial support...honestly, there are several free ways to enjoy art nowadays. If someone doesn’t feel right supporting an artist for personal reasons, it’s probably for the best. Especially if you look at how they are using that money.

13 hours ago, Masato said:

I think it's even worse for the likes of Satsuki, Mikaru.... where they get ~15-25€ entrance fee from 10-35 people per gig... plus goods... but they have to pay the venue, transportation etc. .....

 

I mean it's a nice passtime to go to these shows, but I don't think you can make real money from that.... 

Save on hotel costs by sleeping at your friends place/in a van?

Or with a mitsu...

30 minutes ago, TheZigzagoon said:

“Hey guys, Yoshiki here! I’m gonna teach y’all how to get away with teasing an album for literal YEARS and keep people waiting on nothing haha yeeeeeah!”

Step 24: Show up *everywhere*, and create photo ops for the camera. Preferably when there’s royalty nearby.

On 6/17/2019 at 11:12 PM, psychonnect_rozen said:

They have become the very thing they swore to destroy 

Eehh, kind of?

I mean, for *me*, the whole purpose of the downloading boom and the increasing diversity of music taste that it resulted in was to “get away” from the boybands, girl groups, and kitschy Euro-pop that dominated the charts in the mid to late 90s. So I personally can’t understand why a person would un-ironically listen to the Korean version of that, when that’s what they were trying to get away from in the first place.

Then again, the friends of mine that did switch over never explicitly hated *pop* music, they just didn’t care for most of the stuff in the 90s.

My friend circle was brought together by VK, but since then, most of them only incidentally listen to some VK. Half of them have switched over to Kpop.

I’ve been to only two J-rock shows, Miyavi and The Gazette, so my experience with cringy fans is limited. If anything, I may have been the slightly cringy one at Gazette, as I was drunk for that one.

VIPs aren’t something that most of the bands *want* to do, it’s something they *have* to do, to make international tours viable.

As for whether or not they *should* put more effort in, that’s up to them. Don’t expect it to be without consequence if word gets around that you’re a dick. It may result in fewer people opting for VIP, therefore making future international tours infeasible.

1 hour ago, AwesomeNyappy said:

I mean, it might change the scene a bit. I quite enjoyed going to vk stores in shinjuku, it's always nice to look at a physical collection of CDs, but that is just the 90s kid in me. However, the rest is basically going to stay the same, I guess. People are just going to download the music.

However, I think this'll take some time. You talked about the west, saying that record stores are a rarity there. I can honestly not say the same about Europe. While sales of physical CDs have been declining, there are still huge record stores here. And since Japan loves places such as book of or twoer records, they will continue buying it + I think companies in Japan have their ways of attracting people to buy physical albums.

 

Take k-pop for instance: in Europe, people often download the songs illegally, and then buy the physical CD. Simply because they like the design/want to support the band/want the special features. VK is the same in that respect.

There is a definite distinction between *CD* shops, and *record* shops.

CD shops are tanking in the West. Record shops still do pretty decently.

I’ve been joking for a while now that if VK bands want gaijin to buy their music, just release something on LP. But if too many bands do this, we’ll just run into the same problem. Market gets saturated, and there’s only so much money to go around.

Eventually, they’ll have to adapt. CD stores are going out of business, even though they held on decently compared to the West.

The bands will always have their core gya that throw money at them. Physical releases are only one of the ways that they do this. With the CD format becoming less popular, i wouldn’t be surprised if many of these lay untouched, as collectibles more than anything.

I can’t predict the popularity of vinyl in Japan. Luna Sea’s LP re-releases all come with English translation booklets, so i’m pretty sure they knew their audience here.

Many of these bandomen, unless they’re quite well established, or have enough mitsu patronage...can’t get by on music alone. Most of them have day jobs that they need to keep affording outfits and recording sessions. This will effect their availability to write new music, record and tour.

Setlist in Toronto was great, but i’d say raw playing time was ~70 min, with 10 minutes of yelling for “encor-eh”.

Good experience, but wouldn’t travel twice.

I remember someone asking for links to files back on inertia’s board, what must have been 14-15 years ago.

Someone honestly responded;

”Why don’t you just buy the CDs, instead of being a leech?”

Yes, because someone back in 2004 can just walk to the store and buy whatever VK CD they want, or just go on to Western iTunes, and have the whole world at their fingertips. Or, they could blindly buy a $40 CD. Amazin’!

14 hours ago, Neigedesmannes said:

I don't see the appeal of k-pop.

I don't like their attitude, the stanbase. They all look and sound the same. 

Especially the modern style like the great BTS; The music so overly perfect produced  that it's uncanny, the overly flashing visuals with no theme but just to be 'flamboyant as possible', and don't get me started on the copy paste bowlcuts(nothing  personal against bowlcuts) hairstyles 👀

It sounds really arrogant but i can't feel the soul in their music, even when they sing about emotional topics because i know there's a huge writing and production team behind it sooo it kinda dulls the message...(i know, some vk bands do this too) 

 

And while people have freedom over whatever they like, it's kinda sad seeing so many ex-visual kei fans converting to k-pop, but never the opposite. 

 

 

The answers that I’ve heard from my friends is basically “it was more accessible, and they actually *want* our business”. The fact that K-pop groups also know the “right” thing to say regarding social topics among western millennials, instead of being edgelords also helps.

I like Seo Taiji, and Big Bang/BTS have a couple of listenable songs, but i’ve never really seen the appeal of most K-pop. Especially for people who never really liked American or Japanese pop, but still listen to mainly K-pop nowadays.

*Shrug*, a shitty tereko on YouTube resulted in them earning an extra shirt sale via my husband, who was impressed with Ruki’s Vocals. It was too late to fly him out to Toronto specifically, but had the concert been a few hours drive away, he certainly would have bought a ticket based on the footage.

This is the reason why I don’t think VK will ever regain the momentum that it had 10-12 years back. The fan base spreads according to Western methods of promotion, like file sharing, magazine scans, concert photos/videos, and sharing PVs on YouTube. 

Then once the bands actually get here, they ignore all of those methods that created buzz for them in the first place and pretend that it just happened overnight by magic. And from there, it just fizzles.

1 hour ago, psychonnect_rozen said:

But Japanese fans don’t care. Any band can have rules at the concert. Like or not, just respect them

Japanese fans don’t care, because they see their favourite band so often that they wouldn’t even remember which concert each individual photo would be from.

If a particular concert is a “one and done” for any given foreign fan, you’ll have to forgive them for wanting a full concert experience according to the concert norms of where they are.