Total Saikou

As weird as it sounds, I think the events in my life led up to me discovering and falling in love with VK. My mom raised us on 90s rock, I idolized my big sis who was a mall goth circa 2004, my older cousin introduced me to 2007 weeb youtube. It was only a matter of time tbh. So when I found out about VK (probably from stumbling on a pic of Bou lmao) I was like fuck this is everything I like all rolled into one concept. Loud, upbeat/ heavy music combined with OOT looks and makeup. 
 
A good chunk of why I like VK is the nostalgia factor. It got me through some pretty stressful times as a kid who was bullied and felt super isolated. I got an iPod nano for christmas in sixth grade and you bet that shit was FILLED with visual kei music ripped from those youtube to mp3 sites. I also used to print out pics of my fave bandomen and put them on my binder 😅 A lot of my classmates would ask about them so I was able to make friends that way. Just brings back a lot of fond memories.
 
Also I dig the way bassists are a lil more appreciated compared to Western rock. As a failed, shitty bassist, I love actually getting to hear the bass in the song. We stan a good rhythm section. 

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✧

Visual Kei was a taste changer for me. It came into my life after a period of darkness that should probably be left not talked about. It ravaged me so much that I kind of lost myself… I struggled to keep a sense of self together; I felt like a collage of failed expectations if anything at all. One of these facets was music taste. I didn’t have one anymore. I just listened to whatever was popular, because I didn’t care about what I listened to anymore. But popular music no longer really gave me the spark it used to during the darkness, and after. I just listened to it to be cooler, so maybe I could appeal to people and make myself… Into something I’m not, I guess. It was just crappy hip-hop, from artists whose names I’ve blacked out, but Chris Brown and Tyga still come to mind. Anyway, one day I was watching Black Butler (only watch a few anime here and there, I am by no means an anime enthusiast) for the first time (Netflix only had season 2, so I just stuck with that), I was really taken aback by how freaking awesome that OP sounded. I didn’t just make sure to not skip it, I rewound back to it like twice an episode just to hear SHIVER by The GazettE. After I finished with season two, I made sure to properly watch season one, and the OP for it was just as amazing to me. So I looked up SID and The GazettE’s music online to hear the OPs in their full form on Spotify, I think. They weren’t there at the time, but I felt this strange urge to hear what these bands were all about. The GazettE, they were my gateway band. As soon as I heard The Invisible Wall, I felt like something clicked; as I had just came home again after walking a lonely road for God knows how long. I heard something that didn’t go in one ear and out the other, but something that actually stayed with me, like I was whispering “sorrow made you” even when I was in bed trying to fall asleep. There was something about this music that, as the kids say, hit different. I never thought that music could be like this... I didn't know that music could do that... Maybe it was the emo-ness of it, as pop music and Hip-hop didn’t really explore those kinds of emotions (this was before the trend of “emo rappers” like Lil Peep and XXXTenacion became big btw… And back when Billie Eilish wasn’t all the rage), or at the very least the way Invisible Wall did.  I also did not have even a single iota of taste for rock and metal at the time. So I also listened to some of SID’s other tracks, and I liked them too. Then I began to go down the Spotify rabbit hole, listening to L’arku, GACKT, lynch., Kamijo, Kaya, you name it, I was listening to it. And I liked just about all of it, too. Soon, I tried to find as many new bands to listen to, new or old. I looked up band recommendations and once I saw a name that stuck, I’d go to Youtube and listen to as much of their stuff as possible. It was thanks to this forum (I think? Can’t recall MH by name as being one of the forums) and many others where I heard about my all-time favorite band, Malice Mizer. And after discovering the amazingness that is MM, I was naturally steered in the path of Kote Kei and began to find lots of new artists to love. I continue to search for songs that bring back that feeling of "Holy shit, I didn't know you could even do that", and even when I can't find something like that, I always find something that does something that captivates me or interests me. Now I listen to so many artists that even listing a top ten is hard for me.
 
Also can’t get enough of Jrock chords. Like, that shit really does hit different. Someone once described it to me as a "Question and answer" sort of progression, and that's why it sounds to nice to the ears for many people, it intrinsically aims to resolve itself in the best manner possible. I mean, a lot of the music is composed in a way you won't find in the west. It's western inspired yet still follows the rules of the homeland. Not to mention the acts that literally couldn't exist as we know them if they weren't from Japan (literally any Angura band). The use of Visuals to coincide or represent the meaning within the music is something that I really like. One example I can think of is how The GazettE changed their look to something darker to show their transition to metal and an overall darker sound. Lastly, I really like the lyrics in lots of VK songs. I began learning Japanese just a few months after I got into it, and throughout the years I can definitely say that my love for VK is one of the things that have kept me going in the learning process. I went from being able to understand  like one to two words in a song, to being able to understand the gist of a song and sometimes even the entire song completely without needing to see the Japanese lyrics at all. I’m still so far from being skilled at Japanese, don’t take this as a bragging session, but the amount of progress I’ve made in ~3 years is a lot more than my peers because of this (their words, not mine!). This has made me really appreciate the differences between Japanese and English lyrics. Japanese lyrics are so much more indirect and less centered on “me”. I’ve always adored the difference in focus. If I can make an example, LAREINE’s Metamorphose is about being sorry for messing up in a relationship instead of being like a western break-up anthem that blames everyone but yourself, I really grew sick of those in high school. I guess it's just individual appeal too, I've always been an oddball with gloomy mannerisms. Really, if VK didn't get to me then maybe emo or western goth would've first. Also, I love this community a lot. It’s pretty chill, and I’ve been treated really well by just about everyone in it. People have been there for me when times get tough, and I’ve been there for others when they need some support too. And so many people have shared rips and scans with me just to make me happy or make a new fan for their favorite band… I don’t know if it’s sad or moving that some of my real-life friends have done less for me than people on the internet that I’ve talked to for like 2 days. But maybe that’s the beauty of the community, we’re so small compared to others that we stick to each other and help each other out when we need it. I’ve made so many friends, and have bettered myself as a person thanks to this community. Honestly, it’s been amazing to me and I only want to be amazing back.

Compared to others on the forum, I only got into metal and prog-rock maybe a few months after J-rock (and then Visual Kei.) I was always interested in very atmospheric 80's/90's pop, AOR (album-oriented rock), R&B, and yacht-rock. It was a combination of my parent's music and "watching" MTV music videos all day as an infant that made that kind of music comforting & impressionable to me. Stuff like 90's R&B gospel synth sounds and chord progressions that were so prominent during that time were also popular in J-pop, so I'm not surprised that I would take interest in Japanese music. Also, J-music, and a lot of East Asian contemporary music, continued to roll with that melodic slant while Western Music would have more distinct, separate music eras/styles. Japan was also that main entertainment powerhouse in the late 90's ~ early 00's for most of us in that East Asian space, which meant exposure to anime, games, and the like at an early age.
 
Fast forward to about '08 ~ '10 I was transitioning from J-pop & trance to listening to rock bands like No Regret Life, UVERworld, flumpool, RADWIMPS, Last Alliance, Breakerz, etc. Got into Janne Da Arc pretty heavy and then an absolute flurry of Visual Kei stuff. I really liked the heavy soft-synth with the really visceral, raw instrumentals combined with the cool, effeminate ikemen visuals. Visual Kei became kind of my own space for a time because I knew almost nobody who knew about it, so it felt very special to me.

Being an otaku since age 7, I always had a small idea of what Visual Kei was. I was aware of Dir en Grey, Gazetto, L'arc en Ciel, etc., but I always regarded them as just "Japanese Rock".
From age 14, I got a huge interest in traditional Japanese music. I then found this group called CrowXClass, that called themselves Visual Kei, and used traditional Japanese instruments. From there, I found Memento Mori, Kagerou, ACE, Kiryu, and other bands.
 
I think what mostly draws me to Visual Kei is the mishmashing of genres, kinda like prog (in fact, a friend of mine who is a huge prog head, thinks Visual Kei has a lot of its origins in prog) but done without thinking. By the late 90's, bandmen probably weren't thinking "Oh, I'm going to intricately mix Post Punk and Thrash Metal", they probably were like "I wanna sound like Luna Sea and Kuroyume". Most of these indie musicians were unknowingly making some really cool sounding stuff.
Also, I just really like the Thrash metal sound, but I hate the majority of western Thrash bands, so 90's Vkei has got me covered. That's another thing I like about Vkei over western metal. In western metal, it's like a competition to see who can be the biggest, manliest, and most brutal. But in Visual Kei, there is none of that. You don't have those really rough vocals you find all the time in western rock, and bands aren't afraid to mix genres.

A big part of it is that I'm half Chinese and I grew up in two cities where there weren't really a lot of Asian people around, I suppose. Growing up, there were almost no Asian bands or artists on TV. There was like LOUDNESS on VH1 sometimes and the guy from Linkin Park, and that was it. I mean, I'm exaggerating a bit, but those are literally the only two examples I remember.
 
I was really into hair metal/glam rock, etc. as a teenager, and I was so excited when I saw that there was a whole genre that Asian people made that took influence from that style of music. That's a big part of it.
 
I'm also just kind of an introverted weirdo and an emo kid at heart, so the really over the top emotional side and quirkiness of it is also appealing. 🤣

Man, I remember seeing a picture of Versailles as a kid and just being amazed by their hair, makeup and costumes. I'm really girly now but back then I was quite tomboyish so I wasn't usually into stuff like that but there was just something... I dunno, different about it. Teru's hair in particular blew me away; I couldn't imagine how he'd done that! I was really intrigued so I checked out their music and again, it wasn't like anything I'd ever heard before. I can't put my finger on it since I'm not good with musical terms and whatnot but there's just something about the style of Japanese music that separates it from a lot of what I was used to. Soon after I discovered it, I went on a bit of a spree of finding VK bands and just being astonished time after time. When I got a little older, I started wearing makeup which wasn't anything I'd ever really considered before but VK showed me just how artistic you can be with it. It's got a kind of aesthetic beauty to it. I especially like the visuals/makeup of tanbi kei, partly because it's where I started and partly because it's really dreamlike and again, not like anything I'd ever seen before. Maybe I'm drawn to the new and exciting?
I guess you could say I like VK because it's opened my eyes to so many different possibilities both visually and musically. There's also the fact that diverse cultures/languages have always fascinated me and it's actually a goal of mine to become a polyglot so listening to music in a different language helps a lot with that.

It's hard to describe but I love the overall atmosphere/mood I get from listening to (most) visual kei, that is what drew me in back in the day. A weird clashing and mixture of various influences that kinda sound terrible in theory but somehow it clicks perfectly with me. Phased post-punky leads over thrash riffs that sound like they're coming from an amp used by a run-down punk band, ridiculous bass lines, clever or odd drumming, melodramatic vocals often made by singers who would have no business aiming for stuff like that... I know, this is a picture super-specific to just one slice of vk, but this is what first came to my mind when thinking about this.
 
By the way it's so strange, I can almost always instantly get on board with any old-school vk band drawing influences from old Western post-punk/goth/metal music (and I myself do love those genres), however when newer bands play music influenced by more modern extreme or djenty metal/core-ish genres, it's usually a turn-off for me except for a few examples (even though, again, I love those genres otherwise). Dunno what this has to do with anything, I just thought I'd write it down, lol.
 
Oh, and it doesn't hurt if the clothes/costumes are killer too.  

Since many users of MH are living under quarintine control since at least a month ago, I thought many of you would have the time to write down here your thoughts in a more elaborated way. So, I wanted to ask anyone here interested: why do you like visual kei?
 
The most common way of aboarding an answer to it should be 'because I like metal/punk/goth/post-punk music, etc.', 'because I like make-up', 'because I like X member'. Say, answering by remarking the presence there of the feature you like. 
 
Although this isn't a wrong answer at all, I would like you to elaborate on why you,  for example, when looking for metal music that satisfies your ears, would choose this kind of metal music that is VK (among many other features).  Say, what means those VK metal or make-up for you, what's its value in contrast with other metal of make-up artists?
 
I know this questions could look odd, considering the majority here moved from that high-school phase of "Oh, you like VK??? Me 2!!1, i thought i was the only weirdo in the freaking world!!!" at least ten years ago. But I was interested into asking it directly because, considering that when we talk here we do it leaving implicit what we like and what not, sometimes I wonder which are some users' interests after reading the post they make periodically. Perhaps there are some folks here who would like to take the chance to speak more words over their love for VK!  
 
I'll be reading you!
 
 

NGL the slap bass is pretty cool but on the flip side, although it's a pretty generic chugging riff it sounds awfully similar to:
 
 

Generic vk taking influence from generic WWFcore is such a cross-pollination of two extra potent brands generic that I can barely breathe here 

exist trace never sounded better

RESULTS!
 
On to the Results!
______________________________________________________________
 
Best Overall Artist/Band
 
Best Album
 
 
Best Single/Maxi-Single/EP
 
Best Cover Art
 
 
Best Look
 
Best Newcomer
 
Best Veteran
 
Best PV
 
Saddest Disbandment
 
Most Overhyped Band
 
Most Overhyped Release
 
Most Underhyped Band
 
Most Anticipated Release
 
Band that Changed their Sound for the Best
 
Band that Changed their Sound for the Worse
 
Band that you spent most of your money on in 2019
 
What the hell were they thinking!? Award
 
Best Revival/Returns 
 
 
Now I know what you're thinking: 2019 sucked for VK 😅.
I agree lol but thank you to those who voted this year!
 
Let's hope this new decade will be a return to form for the scene!

They are good. You should check them out sometime. They are on youtube
 
Some one my recommendations for active bands: 0.1gの誤算, Kiryu, Razor, Arlequin, Comodo Dragon, 零[Hz], xaa xaa, scapegoat, D(asagi), The thirteen, Zon.
 
There is a sea of disbanded bands/haitus my recommendations are: Dadaroma, Fixer, Born (If you like razor), Sadie, ペンタゴン (Pentagon), girugamesh, ∞INFi2TY(if you liked Ari),  R指定 , -OZ-, Mejibray. 
 
There are more but those are some of the bands id recommend. Glad you rediscovered V-kei 

I saw kisaki at a grade school in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how bad it was to meet him in person, and that he should probably leave or i’m gonna call the cops. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “yes, hello, police?  i would like to report a strange pedo at a grade school,” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my 911 call, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When the cops came to arrest him for being a child diddler, I saw him trying to walk away with like fifteen 2nd graders following behind him.
The cop that came out was very professional, and was like “Sir, you’re going to prison.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the school.
When the cop was handcuffing him, he radioed for backup to come take the kids back to class.  kisaki stopped him and told her to take them each individually “to prevent any pedo infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After he was cuffed, the cop started to read him his rights, but he kept interrupting him by yawning really loudly.

The only dick Kisaki is getting is the ones of small children. NO gay man would even want his buck rat ass teeth sucking their dicks 

KISAKI is gay is the most discussed in the media in the few years ago. Even it has happened in 2012, but some of the public still curious about what is exactly happening and to be the reason there is a rumor comes out about his gay. At that time he became the massive social networking rumor. The public, especially his fans are shocked. He just came out with his bad rumor which is spread massively. This time is not about his music career, but his bad rumor. The rumor is out of standardize of hoax, according the last reported this musicer revealed himself as homosexual. Do you still believe or not, this rumor is really much talked by people even in a person of his fans.

This. +1
---
 
Lo-fi could sound cool in some bands, but for the bunch of guys that just released one poor song I don't think they had a better choice, and still there are some good only-songs by bands that surely didn't exist at all. I mean, I take lo-fi as a natural thing in vk. The strange one is hi-fi lol

I'm talking either awful mixing because someone is a shit engineer or the kote kei kind where they deliberately make something sound like it's from the 90's when music production in VK was bare bones like La'veil MizeriA (might not count since Starwave record songs in an empty tunnel or something) or Crucifixion and the Matina label who did such a thing deliberately as it's a part of the aesthetic. I personally have times where I really like it and times when it's unlistenable compared to more well produced bands.

Absolutely love, because yes, AESTHETIC.
I was trying to explain my love for 90s vkei demo tapes and it ended up with conclusion that the main point of this love is nostalgic vibes. 

Hellew!
 
I joined here after some time. I recently started to get back in to vk. Some artists I have found interesting so far is Misui, nurie, Xanvala, and a few others!
I'm looking forward to making friends and getting to know other people who are still thriving in the vk scene. 
 
Also please make recommendations, I'll be super happy to listen to them~

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.

I'll regret this but do you have any links for this? 
 
 
I'm here for this.

@WhirlingBlack said: Mejibray revival but they only play 8P-SB songs

I wish