Biopanda

I've been following this thread for quite a while and many things came up in my head while reading through it. Many people already mentioned things I wanted to say or made valid points, but I'd still like to share a few things from my own point of view and experiences. (and sorry if i repeat some things already stated because i read kinda fast and have a short memory...)

To me, LJ played a huge role in the VK international fanbase and was what really made it feel alive (especially for people who lived too far to attend lives and such and could only rely on the net for the experience). It was very interactive and people shared the shit out of things. Jrock scans was one of the best LJ communities ever and I must've spent hours browsing through their directory just trying to save scans of all my favorite bands. I still have them in my hard drive today and my only regret is that I didn't spend more time on it because all the links from there are dead now (lol). I was one of those people who made a shit ton of graphics and icons so scans were pretty important for me yeah...For a movement that's all about the visuals though the idea of making pretty graphics felt interconnected and made the fandom more fun as a whole. Now that it's practically not a thing anymore the whole appeal of the visuals feels more boring? Another thing I liked about LJ was that you could read your friends' journal entries and learn about their favorite bands, other than the ones you already share. People wrote about their favorite bands all their time, posted PVs and pics, and shared live reports, which I found very fun to read because they were very casual. Around the time LJ died out was around the time everybody's favorite bands started disbanding and a lot of people just left. With the transition to tumblr, like most people mentioned already, it's only reblogs and it feels a lot less interactive, making it hard to find/talk to new friends. (thankfully there's still MH though :>)

Seeing that all my vk friends were leaving even I was feeling the pull of leaving vk forever. I even left my fav band Plastic Tree for a while (probably sometime after their ammonite album released). How dare I, I know. But in between those times I was out of vk I still found myself checking back in the scene once in a while out of curiosity, and found interest in a few newer bands. I just wasn't as crazy active as I was during LJ times. It wasn't until I went to Japan when I attended my very first vk live, which was AvelCain, that I regained all that vk-ness back in me. After seeing such an amazing and fun performance I realized how much I still loved vk, and that was pretty much how I woke up (and here I am now). It's probably different for everyone, but I feel like those who say that it was a fad might just a need a little something to make it all come back again, as it did for me.

Also, I feel like the attitudes of fans might also play a role in the decline. You see a lot of people complaining about the low quality of music these days and that vk is not the same anymore, which I KNOW is very true in many cases and I do this too, but at the same time it puts too much negativity into the fandom and makes everything seem less attractive, and so people leave. The sharing aspect also feels increasingly dead--music sharing wise the reasons are pretty obvious, but even just the talk and spread of vk feels increasingly dead. Again, this can probably lead back to how tumblr is all about the reblogs, not much interaction or discussion. That's why I'm very glad that MH still does what it does today (the monthly recommended tracks, reviews, and great threads like these and the awesome recent oshare and nu-metal kei threads, etc. where we can really discuss and share about vk), because maaaan the vk fandom feels so dead everywhere else.

With the changes in mainstream culture, and Kpop still a thing, I don't see how the newer generation will grow into vk. The only way they'll ever get into it is probably by the influence of a friend. So with that said, keep spreading the vk love people, as cheesy as it sounds lol.

lmao visual kei is far from dead in japan. if someone manages to believe so then you are definitely looking for shit bands on purpose in a haystack of bands. or like, don't attend gigs at places like shinjuku urga on purpose just to find bands with 10 fans. truth is, the scene has never been big except for a few bands. ikebukuro cyber is a small shit hole that shouldn't cap more than 50 ppl, yet madeth gray'll and bands who we in the west consider ~*legendary*~ giged there a lot.

hello, it me?
 
 

long live warble-kei

I somehow didn't see Hikarito's YT channel until just now and... fucking wow am I blown away. He is so insanely talented and it's just bumped up my hype for this album to 11.

If only  VKDB closed registration for editors many years ago to keep out dirty shitposting gaijin.

If only  VKDB closed registration for editors many years ago to keep out dirty shitposting gaijin.

couldn't you hypothetically shitpost places like vkdb or visunavi by adding hundreds of fake bands and musicians like they're discarded sonic the hedgehog OCs or something?
 
or make up fake turborarez releases for oldies bands or smth

how do u shitpost visunavi tho
 
***asking the important questions***

Yeah I'm a man. Many people here know who I am but have never seen a full face photo of me so yeah.
 
 

Turn RarezHut into a multi-million dollar empire that would make papa yoshiki proud and prob lose some weight too idk

Another day, another round of goodies for my li'l babbies. We have added a bunch of cool stuff which can be checked out below or at the Newly Added Items page. We'll also be finalizing the schedule for the February livestream soon, so keep an eye out for that!
 
CDs
RONDE - Cinemascope  $4
ゲノ(Geno) - 零式～さくらさくら～  $8
LADY - 無我  $5  *Unopened*  Limited to 2000 copies
PIERROT - パンドラの匣  $8  Second full-album, first CD with KIRITO as vocalist
Syndrome - 兎と羊  $4  Live-distributed single limited to 5000 copies
pleur - La premiré porte (Single)  $5
コドモドラゴン(Codomo Dragon) - WARUAGAKI(Type B)  $5  Comes with multi-angle PV DVD
Romance For～ - Memories  $4
SEEK OF LIBERTY - Etoile  $8  Live-distributed single. *previous band of FoLLoW's vocalist and Smileberry's drummer*
ALSDEAD - Distrust  $13
 
On a closing note, if anyone happens to be in the New Mexico area(or wants to travel!) RarezHut will officially have its very first vendor booth at Sabaku Con 2017! So if you happen to be around, come check us out~

Expecting much from this tbh. BFN was great imo.

Our shipping manager just sent out individual orders as of tomorrow (they were closed today).  The German post and customs have been terribly slow because of the holidays, and didn't even contact us until a week after it had arrived. 
You should have your stuff within a week!

Rimo (D4C, リモ☆with SAVANNA P.K. ORCHESTRA) new solo project "Re:move" has formed, and he will release his first single, "不徳ノ致ス処" (futoku no itasu tokoro) (1000 yen, live-limited) on January 27, 2017 under VIS☆UNITED RECORDS.
 
twitter
ohp
 
 

Our shipping manager just sent out individual orders as of tomorrow (they were closed today).  The German post and customs have been terribly slow because of the holidays, and didn't even contact us until a week after it had arrived. 
You should have your stuff within a week!

Our shipping manager just sent out individual orders as of tomorrow (they were closed today).  The German post and customs have been terribly slow because of the holidays, and didn't even contact us until a week after it had arrived. 
You should have your stuff within a week!

AFAIK, it seems to just be a general decline in Japanese things. In the 00s, anime (and Japan in general) was a lot "fresher" and interesting to people. I think it was around the end of the 00s that interest really started to fade. Others can probably qualify this better, but around that time there were a lot of people going to uni with a major in Japanese who had jumped ship around that point to study Korean instead. I feel like Japan themselves has noticed this as well. I've seen a much bigger push in the last few years for trying to get people interested in traveling there from their tourism bureau. 

I changed my hair color and i'm really happy with it. 
 
 
 

My face is super red from the cold outside, but I tried to dye my hair a brown red color! It came out a lot lighter than I was hoping due to the lightness of my hair.

long live warble-kei

long live warble-kei

please, if goatbed released that y'all would be stanning rn

long live warble-kei

long live warble-kei