Miku70

they just deleted over 20.000 posts on the page of one of my fav blogs, and all they posted was illustrations from old pre-WWII books, the majority of the content wasn't even close to being risque or anything, what the fuck

the internet just isn't fun anymore, and adbux are to blame
discuss

our problematic faves have weave variety, kp*p bots can't relate x

kawaii_m*npha, for example

There used to be VK posters in German kids magazines along with beyonce etc. Lol lol lol 
That was the hight of vk

Agreed with colorfuljinsei about the synthesizers. Don't get me wrong, I love when a band incorporates lush synths, but the majority of 2010s VK that uses synth always seem to resort to that grating, cheap sounding synth like this. Lots of bands (Royz, anfiel, LONDBOY, i.Rias, 0.1gの誤算, and maaaany more) are guilty of it and it's an immediate turn-off for me.

access to recording equipment and daw's has totally changed the game. i think so much of the 'old indie' sound has credit due to the last era of straightforward recording techniques, before drum triggers, melodyne, and softsynths became the new staples of record production.
 
it hurts the most when i hear a new band who's got something interesting going on creatively, but its packaged in this gloss of fake drums, self-recorded and surgeon-ed production. atleast the cheap recordings of decades before had an essence of life and passion to them. maybe thats hopeless nostalgia....

As much as I like the current scene, I do think there's been an over-reliance on software synthesizers. When I use the term "over-reliance", I refer to softsynths being used as a crutch instead of an asset. I wish that budget bands embraced more traditional methods than trying to half-ass their way through default plugins (...but that requires talent :V).
 
Though, I will say that any sound, including this one, is subject to being called "generic" when it's used a lot. Idk, I guess it's just a product of the times. 

@Tokage I can think of a few reasons:
 
Buying music is expensive in this scene. People spend a lot of money to import CDs of their favorites and a lot of the time, that's the only way this music ends up in international waters. It is important to know that when this began, people were not just taking links but taking credit for them too, and then sticking monetization pages like Ad.Fly on top of it so that they could basically make money off of piracy. People like validation for spending money to bring joy to others. Whether that's a good thing is another discussion entirely. When people take links and put it on their blogs and don't redirect others back to the source, it fragments the scene. There are a lot of people in these visual kei groups that don't even know Monochrome Heaven exists, but if we were to go down tomorrow they'd suddenly have no place to get 40%+ of the music in the visual kei scene, because JPopSuki doesn't have everything to the degree that we do. Now whether putting our name out there like that or not is a good thing is, once again, a completely different discussion. On the other note of the same coin as #2, people putting links out there while crediting Monochrome Heaven amplifies the target on our back, and the backs of the uploaders. A small subset of releases that get leaked here weren't ever supposed to be leaked here, and those with connections to band members who gave them the music in confidence could get into hot water. I've been the target of this myself for uploading rare live distributed releases in the past, so I know this isn't just bullshit. Taking the link itself doesn't add any layers of redundancy. Once the link disappears/gets taken down/is otherwise unavailable, there isn't another place to go get that link because all 343 blog spots that track visual kei uploads from Monochrome Heaven were too fucking lazy to upload it to their own account, so in a flash all of the links for a release get taken down and there's no way to find it again. The value in blogs is that the links are preserved in multiple places. People who go through the effort to add redundancy to the scene are doing us all a service. People who just lift links and put it on their blog to stroke their ego suck dick and do nothing valuable with their free time. As an extension to 4, when a link for a very popular release goes online and that link spreads like wildfire, it endangers the account of the original uploader, who may have other valuable musics and personal things on that account. If that account gets terminated, it's not just one link that goes offline: it's multiple. This is how music gets lost to time. People who steal links are often lurkers who contribute little to Monochrome Heaven but owe a lot to our existence, which is why there is so little we can do about them. Hell, there's a chinese service which basically steals all of our links, hosts it themselves, and then puts ads on the site to make money. $cumbag central.  
This complaining can be annoying from time to time, but there are very real considerations underneath the hood that shouldn't be brushed off. On one hand, yes, people will always take music and you shouldn't share anything publicly that you would want to see publicly. On the other hand, there are right and wrong ways to share music, right and wrong reasons to share music, and the right and wrong places to do it too. When you lump all of these considerations into "this person just wants his dick sucked for promoting piracy", you lose a lot of the other aspects to the situation too. It's very complex, and the moderation team has tried (and failed) many different approaches to ameliorating the situation, but it is what it is.

I'm not sure what you mean entirely, but if I'm right about what you're saying, then I can think of several instances where there's a CD/DVD release where you can't find all the PVs on YouTube that come on the DVD.

Yeah, Kisaki left a huge gap there.... thankfully he is back part time! 🤣

Not interesting per se, but entertaining. 

opinions on old stuff is inherently biased because we tend to not talk about the stuff that sucked back in the day. but people that talk smack about new stuff will always exist, and telling them to go elsewhere isn't productive once you realize that those in love with 2008 visual kei (for example) won't find what they are looking for in 2018. they will be just as unhappy "there" as they will be "here".

ngl i don't listen to vk nearly as heavy as i used to and what i listen to most of the time are bands people don't really remember or listen to anymore. and as time passes, i have less and less people to introduce my favorite things to, and less and less people willing to talk about the same songs five, ten, fifteen years later. but i try my hardest to give new stuff a chance too and sometimes i am surprised. there's actually a bit more diversity now than five or ten years ago.

It gets the cynics' rocks off. If you go through said individuals' comment history it becomes pretty apparent that they've changed over time. Some people just look at vk w/ such objectivity b/c their favs define the genre for them. 

I agree with you. If a band  don't interest me, if see elsewhere ☺️.
 
But "old stuff" is not likely good , because we growned with and  their judgement is biased. So the "new stuff" gave a chance , because maybe in the future or now are interessing.
 

@Arkady Thanks so much for this 😀. This so funny 😁.
 
For me K-pop or J-pop are not rival for visual kei 😑.

Sex Pot Revenge was a big clothing line that made a lot of clothes for Oshare bands in the early 2000's, like An Cafe. Alice and the Pirates is another one that does lolita stuff: they made the costumes for Versailles' Prince / Princess single (Jasmine's crown even says the brand's name in gold letters!). I also believe Versailles said in an interview that it's super difficult to clean their costumes because they're oddly shaped / elaborate, so they don't 💀
 
Other than those two, I figured the scene in general hires amongst a group of designers since a lot of bands have a similar-ish look or aesthetic depending on the type of niche or locale they perform in.

👀👀👀

Yes, Labels or bands hire a costume maker to make their costumes. 
But also bands walk in brand clothes when they don't want to walk in a fancy outfit or have lesser to spent. 
 
Washing clothes? I think steaming?
 
But yes, if you want to know who made your band favorite outfit, just check booklets.   
 

The last one. Labels (or bands themselves) recur to companies that make costumes. ID Japan, for example. They are credited on the booklets.
@platy depending on the costume, they don't even get washed lol

I always wonder too. Are there costume makers specifically for vk? Also how do they wash some of these costumes? For real, I always wonder how often they get washed. 

A visual representation of quantity (not quality)