ghostpepper

DADA from VELVET EDEN. His Double Twelve album is amazing, but he has done so much questionable things.

Y o s h i k i 
 
Also Gackt but he's reached meme status now so he doesn't count.

Totally agree, he is still a maximalist silly child, like most of the lefties in this world. Anyway his music is great, though it's not very original.
 
Also... Yoshiki? He is a greedy egomaniac, but well, he is really awesome as a composer.

Was going to say Kisaki, Phantasmagoria was great, Matina and Undercode were cornerstones of the industry as far as labels go; gotta give the devil his due.

I think it's more rational. It's what people do anyway. This way, they tax it 😂

Well ghost writing should happen a lot, since so many bands sound the same, as if one person would write all the songs.
 
 
But, we all know that most of bandman are bandman because they want attention... and woman love to pay for getting love.  ( *・ω・)ノ
Even if you get hurt afterwards anyway.
 
 

You have to use your brain when dealing with customers but there is nothing intellectual about the host or kyaba industry here tbh. The talking aspect is different to strip etc. In the west but honestly in ways that makes more sense in ways compared to the masochist nature of money spending for a fake relationship with lots of bs talk in between or just wanting to show off. 
 
Clubs here are not really themed but the feel of minami (osaka) compared to kabuki (tokyo) is different and same for countryside too. 

It is always a question of how far I can go without pissing some key figures off. Recently I tweeted in Japanese about these feelings towards the current seen and got around 600 likes, had lots of people DMing me saying they feel the same, but one person who does ghostwriter work got angry, can understand, we all gotta make a living. 

It is always a question of how far I can go without pissing some key figures off. Recently I tweeted in Japanese about these feelings towards the current seen and got around 600 likes, had lots of people DMing me saying they feel the same, but one person who does ghostwriter work got angry, can understand, we all gotta make a living. 

It is always a question of how far I can go without pissing some key figures off. Recently I tweeted in Japanese about these feelings towards the current seen and got around 600 likes, had lots of people DMing me saying they feel the same, but one person who does ghostwriter work got angry, can understand, we all gotta make a living. 

It is always a question of how far I can go without pissing some key figures off. Recently I tweeted in Japanese about these feelings towards the current seen and got around 600 likes, had lots of people DMing me saying they feel the same, but one person who does ghostwriter work got angry, can understand, we all gotta make a living. 

I'm really interested in this topic of the lack ofart spirit within the scene. If it existed since always, I think it is patent that is reached whole new levels in the last ten years. During this time, which for me still is a time of much frustration over discovering good artists in this scene, I've been digging a lot older bands, and kinda started to understand some threads tied to its origins, differentiating key acts, waves into the scene, and also looking profoundly for an understanding of the many Western trends that inspired VK since its very proto-eras when even the "VK" label didn't existed. Unfortunately, English is not my mother tongue, so writing down all my thoughts over these matters could take me a very hard time in order to make things meaningful and not weird at all, lol! But perhaps I could try to do it in the near future!
 
In the meanwhile, feel free to make posts about your thoughts over this stuff! I think many of the users here are interested in discussing much more things than liking A or B band's scheduled new release and PV...
 
@ghostpepper I will definitely read an online "diary" of your work behind the curtains! 

That guy is a bit more oldschool in ways, overall top guys in kabuki are a bit different. One thing I can say is the image that the vice video and this video too give of the host industry is like a 10% view. Ive thought of doing a youtube video explaining what it is really like but kind of do not want to be mainly known for that if it blew up tbh. Now I do designs for host clubs in our group and help newer guys who come into our group so I still see it from behind the scenes everyday. Honestly lots of parallels to how vk guys do mitsu eigyou. 

That guy is a bit more oldschool in ways, overall top guys in kabuki are a bit different. One thing I can say is the image that the vice video and this video too give of the host industry is like a 10% view. Ive thought of doing a youtube video explaining what it is really like but kind of do not want to be mainly known for that if it blew up tbh. Now I do designs for host clubs in our group and help newer guys who come into our group so I still see it from behind the scenes everyday. Honestly lots of parallels to how vk guys do mitsu eigyou. 

Not innocence, most of those guys are A-holes but hey, that is what the girls pay for haha. 

Haha oh god, to make it simple: non suit wearing i.e. regular clothes (shifuku) cute look? Like how vk bands have a more cute young makeup style if that makes sense, does not drink alcohol often, sells on face instead of talk abilities. Hard to explain all in english terms in detail. 

Like this video?

Cute face, no substance. Going for a more youthful/innocent kinda thing? 

Haha oh god, to make it simple: non suit wearing i.e. regular clothes (shifuku) cute look? Like how vk bands have a more cute young makeup style if that makes sense, does not drink alcohol often, sells on face instead of talk abilities. Hard to explain all in english terms in detail. 

of newer groups? I am not really into any new groups and honestly was surprised by one of the newer groups I  saw my coworkers acquaintance  had made demos for. Basically an easy way to know a band is really doing it 100% themselves is like how I said before, do they have a gradual buildup in their work? Demonstration singles etc. and do the members who are "writing" have previous band history with similar sound?
 
Now talking about current VK is like talking about WWE wrestling, the stuff behind the scenes is more interesting than what is going on at face haha.
these times are just a phase hopefully and will die out or VK will become some shitty menhera appeal idol johnnys fake rock thing mainly forever.
Hosts being in the scene has been going on since Yoshiki haha. But even Host culture has changed alot within the past decade. I had fun doing host work in the past but the whole "neo-host" wave is really bad @_@ ;; changed quite a bit in the environment.

This discussion brings back some memories of the time the tokyo damage report about the inner workings of the VK industry was posted on the net and so many overseas fans were in total disbelief and denial. Most of us overseas fans never had been to a live in Japan and most of had no idea how the scene truly was in its home country. So it was really hard for many to stomach to hear that their beloved oh-so-perfect and "better than plastic, mass-produced 'murrican pop music" bands were just as fabricated by labels and couldn't write their own music or play their instruments. 

Even then many new VK bands were just talentless hacks who wanted to get their 15 mins of fame and easy access to pussy, and that was maybe 8-10 years ago? Around that same time LUNA SEA's Sugizo and Dir en grey Kyo commented on the then contemporary scene, that the newbies are not passionate about making art and music, but only care about attracting chicks. I remember how much hate and flack they both got then, with some fans accusing Sugizo to be jealous of the young bandomen, because they were hotter and got more girls, lol. How naive we gaijins were back then. Ofc we would also believe that there are no kusomen - our fav bandomen are all perfect, because they are hawt!

It's good that the scene nowadays is more open about discussing what's going on inside and that we are not foaming at our mouths because someone "insulted" our fav bands by pointing out the obvious… like Kisaki's misdeeds. If that would have become public ten years ago I bet you there would have been at least a small army of people defending this guy. At least now most people see him for what he is.

That said, VK always rubbed along with a bit of delinquency and depravity. Since the hosts entered the scene that got even more amplified, but that transition has taken place since a whole decade. I think we reached a point where almost none of the "original" spirit is left behind. Ofc you get the occasional band that's truly concerned about doing art, but for every honest group you get 10 forgettable ,mass-produced trash ones.

Off the top of my head the one that impressed me the most is L'eveil en Roseraie

Same. The whole prefecture of is sacred as far as I'm concerned haha. Pretty much everything I obsess over comes from Osaka. 
 
At first I thought it was just a coincidence and I was underexposed. But yeah, now I'll  take three days going through new artists, come up with a few new bands out of 50 that take, and they're generally all formed there.

Tell some names!

Yah Osaka is way stronger for sub culture in everything now. Some great bands have started recently there!