monkeybanana4

hi all :0
i've been aware of vkei/jrock scene since like, 2009, thanks to my older brother listening to bands like alice nine/a9 around that time HAHAH
i had my entire emo + anime vocaloid japan phase until like, most people, i discovered kpop! despite it being my main interest i did still listen to lots of jrock and whatnot though
 
i guess i'm wanting to fall back to my roots (if u can rly call it that) and really get into vk now, kpop is kinda boring after you turn 18 if we r honest LOL
i've been lurking mh for some time and finally decided to make an account and i'm keen to do some deep diving !! 
 
gazette is my favourite band, so they're really the only band i've realy kept up with. mentioned before a9 is ofc on the rotational playlist, but some newer bands i really enjoy so far are diaura and nocturnal bloodlust, and the few songs i've listened to from deviloof are great!!
 
if you have any recommendations, please let me know! otherwise its nice to meet everyone and i hope i can make some good friends within the vk scene (ง •̀ω•́)ง✧

Nice, same here. It's a great series. How do you like Ultimate? I love the wide selection of stages and characters. It's amazing how far Smash has come ever since its 64 days. Haha, I played a lot of Melee on the GC.

Ultimate! I'm so glad that everyone came back. Sometimes I play Smash 4 on my old 3DS and I used to play the 64 version a lot on an emulator. 

Neat! Which Smash Bros were you playing? Been a huge fan of the game ever since Melee.
 
Tales of Vesperia and Mario Odyssey - both super addicting and fun

Neat! Which Smash Bros were you playing? Been a huge fan of the game ever since Melee.
 
Tales of Vesperia and Mario Odyssey - both super addicting and fun

Dunno if VN count but I've managed to read up to Higurashi When They Cry: Minagoroshi these past months. Amazing series really, the best psychological horror experience I've ever had. Every chapter has been great so far (chapter 6 was a little weak though) and I'm excited for what the grand finale will bring!
 
Other than that, been playing some Smash Bros., Guilty Gear (XRD and Accent Core), and Jojo modded M.U.G.E.N. too.

Neat! Looking forward to listening to more music this year. (I hope I can keep up better than last year ^^;) [Opinions =/= quality~]
 
Ratings List
 
Release List
 

I didn't see a topic made for nurié in this section and wanted to make one to see how many of you out there are in to them (and possibly be friends)
 

 
LET'S TALK 
What's your favorite song? How'd you find them? Favorite member? Have you seen them live before?

I'm playing Tales of Berseria right now, I'm reaching the final part, been playing 80+ hours by now, what a great story, super fun combat system, great characters, this game is a masterpiece.

Two lovely Ghibli soundtracks <3 
 

Nicolas is having a livestream now

ダウト (D=OUT) - Mandala A
Nicolas - Umbra

Tomorrow is Clack inc.'s live stream. They're gonna start at 4 PM JST and possibly go on all night since they're planning to drink 100 drinks in order to cover for the livehouse expenses😂Watch bandomen getting shitfaced (LIVE!!!)

I was in a few local bands and some of our sets got decent turnouts (bare in mind we lived in a small city) but I was always late to join bands so I could never really make their sound my own. The best group I was in was called 'Flock North' and we played political fuelled rock...I had no interest in politics so it was a bit like how The Smiths sang about meat being murder but Morrisey was the only vegetarian.
 
As for now I'm a small time hobbyist producing lofi hip hop and Breakcore although I did have a breakcore track released on a compilation a few years ago which is my crowning achievement. I'm trying to incorporate VK somehow but I'm still finding the best way to do it.

From 2007 to 2011 I played guitar in the band Dark Cherry, formed by a group of friends. We made kinda poppy emo/alternative rock/metal with electronic elements (implicitly influenced a bit by D'espairsRay, Abingdon Boys School, L'Arc and stuff like that). Home-recorded a bunch of crappy sounding demos, studio-recorded two better sounding singles and played a few dozen gigs mostly locally, it was fun.
 
From 2006 to this day I'm in a hobby/"just for fun" music project with my vocalist friend (who is also ex-Dark Cherry) under the alias The 21st Cherry Boys (the name came from BUCK-TICK's song, lol), or T21CB for short. We record stuff at home, in totally random styles that come to our mind at the moment. But usually it's some kind of silly weird pop/rock music coupled with electronics (for a while a friend of ours joined too, he played the cajon). We're doing a 12-month single release campaign this year, tho dunno how far we'll get due to the virus scare, lol.
 
We also had a short-lived project Sunshine Demons with the guitarist cousin of said vocalist friend. We recorded an EP in 2012, kind of a mixture of punk, post-hardcore and pop-rock. We also have an album's worth of unreleased and mostly unfinished tracks recorded during 2018-2019, which we are slowwwwwly working on getting finalized. So far it seems like it will have somewhat of a Latin flair in the music, and it will be a concept record telling a story about cowboys, crime, ghosts, revenge,...stuff like that, lol.
 
From 2007-ish onwards I'm also doing some solo stuff here and there under the name JigsawJohnny, but I'm super lazy so I haven't recorded that much music. Genres range from noise, industrial to hardcore, death metal, post-punk, whatever I feel like. My latest release was a dark ambient record with a dystopian cyberpunk concept last Halloween.
 
Most of the music that isn't totally terrible to listen to for even those involved can be found on Bandcamp.

There was a time I recorded random snippets of melody ideas I had, most of them being on piano. Last year I revisited my library of recordings and found one I really liked. I put on a chillhop rhythm to it and then recorded a guitar part for it just a couple weeks ago.
 
Still learning how to mix and produce so it's definitely not professional, but hey I'm just a bedroom hobbyist doing something he enjoys.
 
 

Thank you! Getting the perspective somewhat accurate was the toughest part as the reference I used didn't show scales. Had to use a bit of imagination there.  I'm glad you said that, it's the vibe I was going for 😊 
 
Thanks! 😄

The drawing looks really good! I think the work on the koi fish's scales paid off; they are beautiful ❤️ Love the peaceful aesthetic in the drawing; the pink/light purple(?) feels easy and nice on the eyes

I wish
 
 
 

Been working on this one since the beginning of this year. The scales on the fish took forEVER.
 

 
 
Some close-up details on the plant and koi:
 

obsessed over this in high school, lul
 
 
 

NICOLAS is going to hold another YouTube live! Usually it's them working in the studio or just low key backstage stuff chatting, but they already finished recording. So I think it's going to be an actual livestream live??? but I'm not sure. Judging by the bassist's own comment, it might be a live. They're still rehearsing and everything too so i'm hoping- 😭😭😭
 

It's penis music lol. Okay, I'm not here to talk shit about pop music, especially not Kpop. There's more artistic merit to it than some give it, and many perfectly sane Kpop fans get unfairly lumped in with the Stans. 
 
But man, I used to be really neutral and happy towards Kpop back when I first got into VK, y'know, being like "Hey guys, let's all get along and talk music and have fun 🤗" but then some of them got into my DMs and completely disrespected my music taste, insisted that "It's all Asian, it's the same, so you should love BTS too or something's wrong with you weeb" and I even got into a fight with one because she said some super ignorant things about--not VK or the band--but just metal music in general (didn't help that she attacked Insanity Injection whom I really like but she said "this isn't music, it's people screaming into the mic" and so I just reversed the logic with "[Kpop] is not music, it's meaningless noise created for brainless consoomers"). All of this shit wasn't even on Twitter, it was on fucking anime Instagram posts and random or VK Youtube videos. And nothing, not even saying "I don't like western pop" or "I'm not fond of Jpop myself" calms them down. I've been called racist against Asians because I don't like Kpop--never mind the fact that I'm on this forum so that says something about what I think about Asian people--I'M FROM ASIA. I don't even pass for white more than like 25% of the time... Honestly, it just makes me more and more irate as the years go by, because I was so open minded about it and willing to be friendly and actually listen to their damn band recommendations. At this rate I'll be an unironic Anti before I'm legally old enough to pour my own drinks. 
 
That background is needed to understand my current stance. I did genuinely try to get into Kpop; I started with BTS like they all tell you to and I listened to about 5 different releases of theirs.
 
 I was far from impressed. They sounded behind the times. Not in a charming way, but in a way that made me feel... Uncomfortable? I recognized the electronica-infused choruses and hip-hop inspired verses from Western pop music and even some elements from 2010s fads like tropical house production [God I hated that fad] and asked myself "Why is this any better than the white people stuff?" I don't think it is. I think it's on par, personally. I think this stems from an issue Kpop fans have. They can't just call a mediocre album a mediocre album, or even acknowledge a bad song/album because of hype. It's all got to be amazing, flawless, like the second coming of Christ. Honestly, even bands I consider to be absolutely amazing have some songs I don't hype because they're a step in wrong direction or have questionable production choices, but when I say "Yeah, this album is pretty great, but stay away from track X Y Z, they're not the best" the person receiving my recommendation often finds it funny and listens anyway, and then we can have a laugh about how weird it was for a VK band to do Ska or for the vocalist to think that now's the time to try opera vocals for the first time in his life. Sometimes I even completely shit on a band I love because they're an acquired taste or have an endearing charm and originality that lacks any and all technical savoir-faire. 
 
 
Personally, I don't understand how anyone from any counterculture/alternative music group (wassup punks and Goths) could be really into something mainstream at the same time, I thought we gathered around this stuff because it was alternative and had messages in it that differ from the mainstream.  Sure, you could remark on all the Oshare bands that aren't particularly deep or meaningful to say that VK in general is artistically bankrupt but it also wouldn't be fair if I pretended that this whole scene is just deliciously layered social/political commentary like Diru or idiosyncratic cultural experimentalism like Guruguru Eigakan.  On the mainstream aspect, I mean, the mainstream kind of defines the space that creates a counterculture. It's not what they are. Well I mean, what's not mainstream is the they, and mainstream is the us. I think this sense of othering VK bands and fans experience is central to the culture's structure, as something that exists as a byproduct of failed standard conformation. 
 
 I don't know how some VK fans can up and leave for Kpop so quick. Maybe they just liked the Oshare stuff, I guess, but I can't believe they would leave behind all the great post-punk, experimental, speed metal, alt-rock, etc. groups behind when Kpop doesn't offer anything similar. When I listen to pop music, I long for that missing guitar solo, or lack of Jpop chords (if it's Western pop music). Also the PVs are completely different--least from what I see. Every Kpop group I've seen is good at dancing. Hella good. And I've been doing dance for 8 years of my life, I know good technique and stage presence when I see it. When I say that, you might be shocked to know that I still prefer VK PVs where the bandomen just stare at the camera and sulk, or dance around while playing guitar or something. There's been masterful executions of this simple formula, like in cali≠gari's 歪んだ鏡 which legit gave me nightmares of Hage Shuuji staring into my soul.  Might be a false positive because that song dredges some mental trauma other than his face but my point still stands. There's also a lot of PVs that don't have killer dance moves but have a lot of creative spirit to them, like BUCK-TICK's EMPTY GIRL or literally anything Malice Mizer filmed, and that's the stuff I like the most. I've lost interest in big-budget MVs, and prefer a smaller scale spectacle.