R/O

Oh, absolutely. When you expect you’ll need cat pictures to recover from what you see on someone’s Twitter and instead the first post you see is this:
In case it refuses to load: concert schedule w/picture of extremely cute kitty

when Yoshiki was in British news because his scarf landed on the queen's shoulder during some horse racing event. half the publications called him "scarf lady"

All I will say is that there is a reason most of us will say what we listen to most are acts like X, MM, Versailles, GazettE etc...where are the newer acts that inspire us like those ones have?
But, this is largely because I feel there isn't a lot of genuine intent in it right now. Compared to having musicians that used vk as a way of self expression and adding a new dimension to the music,  you mostly have standard rock bands that want to dress up because of the history of its success. I also believe the imagery has grown really homogeneous. You get people dressing exactly like more successful acts before them with no improvisation. How often do we have to see a rhythm guitarist that looks exactly like Teru? The lack of creativity is born from a place of dis-ingenuity.
Visual kei has become synonymous with marketing gimmick. Of course, there was always a marketing aspect to it, but there was also a rebellious nature to it, a way of expressing one's inner self and rejecting conformity. Adults on the large seem really afraid to be this way these days. So it's quite sad!
But, I believe like all things, a resurgence will come. There are people who experience the artists I enjoy for the first time now and think "This is really interesting!" For example, that youtuber who makes all those reaction videos where he experiences Japanese artists and usually really enjoys them! This has been my experience showing Japanese music to others as well.
Anything that is or was a pop culture phenomenon will fade out for a bit and come back eventually in full force. Remember how vaporwave was 'ironic' at first, "haha it's so corny and 80s isn't that silly" and now so many people are creating new genres to tap into sounds and moods of the 80s and obsessing over cyberpunk themes and imagery. I don't think visual kei will be too different in the end.
Let's do our best to help it grow further!

https://images.app.goo.gl/97V471frruWRgryf9
 
What do you think of this guy? 
 

i ran away from home on my birthday once cuz i got scolded by my mom for watching lynch dvd lol

Certainly not as harsh as it was at the beginning. Mixed quality, not atrocious like someone else said but certainly inconsistent.

This one from Pokemon episode 45 

I don't care so much about the language. If the music is truly heartfelt, the feeling will be conveyed regardless.
If a video exists which I've seen, I'll usually default to that. Otherwise, I put images to music in my head, usually of other times and places. Combining visuals and music is something I think is really special and important. It allows the listener to immerse themselves fully. So I like to take the feeling I'm hearing along with the tone of the instrumentation, and create a story or image from that. For example, Malice Mizer's Apres Midi, I imagine Gackt in the park in the middle of Paris during autumn, surrounded by orange trees, sitting on a bench and watching people go by. One of the people is a woman he instantly attaches to, but she doesn't even notice him. All he can do is hold onto the moment as she fades from view. I feel very bonded with the artist when I think of things this way; perhaps this was the intent of many visual bands!

two recent dreams:
 
1) Lizzo was visiting some rural Polish village, and for some unfathomable reason my parents were supposed to show her around. And I remember my helpless frustration trying to explain to them what is she about and desperately hoping they would not offend her somehow~ 
 
2) I was once again in some small town, on some business. Some random dude and I got called over by a pair of siblings, a woman and a man, to investigate strange occurrences in the nearby village. The random dude was apparently my partner or sth. Anyway, we get there and it turns out that people are getting turned into rabid animals and eating other people. We find a half-dead boar, which we believed was once a man, bring him to a nearby dilapidated house and figure we need to open up his stomach to somehow prove that he was indeed a former human. The siblings believe that it was once their cousin but they reluctantly agree and I cut the animal open. Fuck but it was gross. There were human remains, and also some kind of parasite growing inside, presumably causing the change. My partner left to wash his hands in the bathroom and I turn to the siblings only to see that they're both bleeding from their eyes and noses. Somehow I knew that it was a symptom of the change, I go to tell my partner only to find him in the same state. And then I woke up. 
  

Ok this one was weird af. Also really fun.
 
I was in the Ocean House Hotel from Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. There were a few other people there, most but not all of whom looked pretty nondescript. I think it was for some TV thingy or something. Anyway we had to explore the hotel (to anyone who hasn’t played the game: it’s haunted and an early quest requires you to investigate the haunting), then (minor spoiler) the stairs gave way like they do in the game (end of spoiler), and I wound up trapped underground with another person who bore an uncanny resemblance to a certain long-dead VK icon, improbably styled magenta hair and all. That bit is not particularly unusual—random people in my dreams tend to resemble real people (people I know, people I see on the news, people I listen to)—but I remember noticing it and thinking “oh ok there’s no way this is a coincidence, most likely scenario is that this person likes the same music as I do, so we might be able to chat about it and keep each other sane down here”, while I normally don’t notice those resemblances until after I awake. But we didn’t really talk about music, we mostly talked about getting out of there. We were down there for a while actually, and I remember we talked about whether the others were down here as well or if we’d just been unlucky. Music did end up factoring into it, mostly when the other person pulled out a music-playing device (looked like an aging MP3 reader, but I’m not really sure) and started playing The Doors’ “When The Music’s Over”. Then we managed to get out of there, but the ground floor was filled with such pleasant critters as spiders, worms, moths, cockroaches, maggots, etc. We just looked at each other and went “to hell with the prize, we’re getting out of here!” before doing exactly that. Outside of the hotel there was the TV host, and the other person screamed something rather uncouth (I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it involved the words “motherfucker” and “go to hell” among a string of profanity) at him before we just ran all the way back to Santa Monica (the game’s main setting). Then it kinda became a little blurrier, but we were at the Asylum (which is a nightclub in the game) talking about the whole ordeal, mostly laughing about it. Then we kinda started talking about the sea for some reason. Then I awoke just as we were finally introducing ourselves after the whole misadventure.
 
Edit: a few additional details
 
 
tl;dr: a suspiciously magenta-haired person and I had to get out of a haunted hotel in a videogame. I probably shouldn’t listen to “Rose of Pain” and play Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines immediately before going to sleep. Or maybe I should, because that dream was fun as hell.

Probably just a coincidence lol... Quite a funny one though!

We should organize a scavenger hunt of references in Spawn

Was playing apb reloaded. its a online multiplayer shooter game, and on world chat someone was trashing talking and guess what was that player's name? Kisaki.
 
Not even kidding. wish had taken a screenshot :l
 

Underrated af. I swear, it’s such a good song—the melody, the bass, the drums, the guitars, the vocals, the clever insertion of distorted backing vocals, the chiptune-y thingy which you might hear at some points if you’re careful and lucky, and the bells.

Underrated af. I swear, it’s such a good song—the melody, the bass, the drums, the guitars, the vocals, the clever insertion of distorted backing vocals, the chiptune-y thingy which you might hear at some points if you’re careful and lucky, and the bells.

..? Is there something I’m missing? The guy’s a damn good singer. 
 
I would see. It would be funny asf.
 
 
Lololol

Would be twistedly awesome. He doesn’t sound operatic at all... but that might be what makes the idea of him singing over opera great.
 
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! One VK vocalist turned into a mechanical abomination is already one too many. Nonononononono... let this not happen...
 
 
 

Lol, after reading the posts in this thread I just imagined like a montage of YOSHIKI headlines.
 
"Long-awaited X JAPAN album finally released - hits number 30 on the Billboard charts"
"Legendary rock band X JAPAN collaborates with Oprah, crafts a line of best-selling home decor items"
"Meet YOSHIKI, the head of X Decor, the brand taking it to IKEA"
"X Decor's YOSHIKI is now one of the world's richest living people"
"YOSHIKI transfers brain into mechanized body, so that he may live forever and 'escape the pain of his past'"
"Mecha Emperor YOSHIKI promises that his new album is finished and will be released 'once all the details have been worked out with management'"
"'While I can no longer physically die, making this album was so tough that it almost killed me' Emperor YOSHIKI confesses"
 
 

Mana announces a super amazing world tour with Moi dix Mois, on the tour final in Paris he walks up on the stage, undresses and takes a huge poop and starts screaming and then collapses.

I haven’t yet heard all of them, but WHY SO LITTLE LOVE FOR DSS??? It’s one of my favorite albums honestly. It just paints this picture of being in a forest, chased by some Lovecraftian being... and then that ending. Did you get out? Did the monster kill you? Who knows. Yeah it’s a bit dense... but it needs more love imo.
 
TIW... eh. It’s their weakest of the ones I’ve heard yet, but it’s still a good album. It would be way better if not for the brickwalled (and generally atrocious) production.
 
By the way, what do you guys think of “World of Mercy”? I think the song itself is up there with Macabre and Vinushka. The production is eh, but oh well.

Not necessarily unexpected because it’s Final Fantasy, but I believe Kuja deserves a mention.
 
https://images.app.goo.gl/WS4PCdy2yMAdYu8s7
 
Right down to the faux-angelic smile.

I saw a ghost once but then I realized I was just looking at myself from the mirror before I had gotten my morning coffee

Tl;dr (tl;dw in this case): The bassist has had a Dracula persona since forever, one of the guitarists enjoys mixing fanservice and nightmares, the other guitarist is a statue, and the singer looks like the protagonist of any Gothic horror movie. Someone thinks that it might be a good idea to run with it and make a movie. Despite the special effects unit probably being an average laptop computer (in 2001!), the acting being all over the place, and the mostly cliched plot, the movie inexplicably and actually turns out good. As in, legitimately and mostly unironically enjoyable. Probably because it’s highly stylized and because it takes itself with just the right balance of seriousness and lightheartedness.

*Yeah, wrong thread

It helped that a big VK shitposting page made a bunch of memes about it and viralized it further.