Biopanda

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

^ Pandas don't need to lose weight; otherwise, you aren't a panda anymore. x)

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

it's gonna be klaha's new band bookmark this post

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

But what if a spent counterculture is actually more subversive than an active one?
 
For me, there are two very different ways of thinking about countercultures and the transgressive work they are performing. The first is where you try to build rapport, get more people interested in the subculture, then flag it up as some kind of collective protest. In practice, this has always been the mode by which identity politics operated in the public domain--through aggregation, coalition-building, and ramping up the numbers. There are good reasons for this, but there are problems with it, especially for its cultural parallel. Some of us here might be familiar with a book published some decades ago by Dick Hebdige on British youth subcultures (punks, mods, etc.), in which he observed that every subculture that has historically evolved in ostensible protest against popular/mainstream culture cannot elude the inevitable fate of commodification by social and cultural institutions. This spells the death of that subculture either because the ‘transgressive’ force has by that point been entirely neutralized through its absorption into mass culture, or because the “angry young men” who are in them just to make a deafening aesthetic/political statement about themselves have migrated to another fledging subculture en masse before that could happen. I have a hunch that the "scene culture" today that Disposable alluded to might be linked to precisely this. Just look at how cultural scenes have become increasingly dispersed, and interest groups increasingly fragmented (and alienated from one other) since the last decades of the 20th century.
 
The other way of thinking about transgression, I think, is to simply not concern oneself with it. This might sound somewhat counterintuitive but I’ve always been struck by how it’s actually incredibly difficult in this day and age to be totally useless. Think of NEETs who are sitting around at home relishing how they aren't contributing to society; but by being held up in the mass media as exemplary negative "case studies" that parents ought to dutifully warn their children about, they are nevertheless serving an important social function. All of this is a very laborious way of saying that even as we admit to ourselves that it's no longer possible to be radically transgressive in the way most of us had hoped to be at some point in our lives, at least the Wildean decadent who doesn’t give a damn whether the subculture he’s participating in is still relevant or subversive wouldn’t rehearse the problematic we encountered in the first case--where, by reacting violently against the mass culture we absolutely detest we’re in some sense being held hostage to it and playing by its terms. Which reminds me of something Slavoj Zizek said: sometimes, doing nothing is the most violent thing to do. He isn’t taken very seriously by most of his colleagues within academic circles, but I think there’s at least a grain of truth in what he said there.
 
In any case...
 
If nothing else, people who stick by visual kei even after it’s no longer the fad are usually those I enjoy talking to the most. I had an uncannily similar experience in classical music: over there, the same handwringing we’re having now in this thread had taken place approximately half a century ago and by this point everyone I know has basically given up trying to ‘make it relevant’. Thankfully, it’s always more fun associating with people who consume a cultural product because they genuinely enjoy it, and not because they want to appropriate it (consciously or not) as a proxy to make a conspicuous statement about themselves.
 

Time moves on and irrelevant art forms and their instruments get thrown into the very crowded dustbin of history. If you have any doubt about this, I'd like to ask you to name the top 10 premier bebop musicians today, or how about something that sounds like it was from the paradise garage? how about poodle rock? is anyone playing like Weber lately while painting like Monet and catching the salon by storm? They're all gone from the popular consciousness and live as mere perverse retro curiosities ( new post-punk and goth rock fucking eww ) for a handful of people. Scenes, genres and movements always come, go and never come back in the same form. If you ask an enthusiast he'll no doubt tell you about all the killer up and comers, but that's all bunk and they know it too. Nobody's touching Billie Holliday, there's not going to be a new Beatles, nobody's turning back the clock and doing nu-Bach in a manner that won't be scoffed upon by anyone who's serious and in the know. Visual kei in that regard is, to be quite honest, finished. I'd say its creative, artistic peak ended right when the turn of the millenia labels dissolved, and the European boom was caused both by the hot air from that period and the aptness of visual kei musicians to appropriate the emo/scene stylings as mentioned before (see the mallgoth act D'espairsray and nu metal Girugamesh for proof of this ). Visual kei's adaptability has given it such a lifeline for sure. There's not a whole lot of genres that can keep moving the needle and making money both domestically and internationally the way that it has. We've literally outlived and survived the deaths of hair metal, goth and mallcore. Probably only the general metal subculture can boast such a staying power, and they too have been struggling to stay on the surface since all that Anthrax skate metal and the alt-rock Metallica boom faded away. Now even big names can't sell out in fucking _Finland_ and underground classics struggle to pull. In my pessimistic thinking we are at the tail end of this rock guitar saga, and it's due to the gradual withering away of rock music's cultural and demographic base. 
 
I have my own fantasies about the evolution of visual kei as an active counterculture as opposed to a dull consumer culture. Agendered danger lurking in the metro stations near you; they'll know us by the trail of blood and the smell of hairspray. It's all complete fantasy however that I entertain with like three people max. In reality I know we're over and done with as a seismic cultural force. This however doesn't mean that everything is lost. While I don't think MH contributed to the fad beginning or ending, I certainly think MH has contributed massively to the staying power of visual kei on the internet in an age where everything else is disappearing. That Japanese indie analogy is an apt to make, because there's no reason why we shouldn't be in that same position had there not been these stalwarts of vk culture like MH have withstood the storms of the passing time. This was achieved by the unending dedication and efforts of the core-group that keep coming here year after year after year. If there were double the people with as much heart, perseverance and ability, who knows where we would be. Could the boom period had been extended by the valiant and most importantly of all, smart and applicable endeavors of a few dozen dedicated enthusiasts? I don't know. Bless this website either way and all you people who keep coming and contributing.
 
I won't dare to wager ( but i'll haughtily speculate ) why the laptop took over rock 'n roll, but stuff like the global demographic shifts were just too much for it overcome. The popular sphere has drastically diversified both nationally and racially. The stuffy dadrock crowd is losing their death grip on the entertainment zeigeist and big festival lineups are a testament to this. The rock bands pulling the big crowds are really fucking old, and the audience is only a notch younger. Sure the vk bands can draw a garage-full of people and enjoy the company of a few snappy young women — that's it though, no one else cares. The faucet has dwindled down to a point where it is increasingly harder for bands to sustain themselves. It just happens to be a form of music that doesn't speak to the majority of people anymore, not to the young person in school or the higher cultural crowd either for that matter. Electronic music is thriving both commercially and artistically, even hip hop is still doing a fabulous job of innovating itself; all the while one of our biggest newcomers ripped off a decade old deathcore album just last year. Even selling CD's in this day and age is dated, and labels are dying to adjust before the inevitable fall. The electronic underground, even hip hop has managed to adjust and evolve to a degree in the way music is released and spread ( a lot of the big names aren't even releasing full LP's anymore. Just songs, for free on youtube and whatever ). 
 
I'd honestly like to know what kind of social factors contributed to the rise of scene culture. Remember those bands like BrokeNCYDE, BOTDF and etc.? Where were we at the time, as a culture, that stuff like that was tapping into our consciousness. Nothing happens in a vacuum and people don't just decide what to think, feel or do out of the blue. There are reasons for everything in the social and economic fabric of societies and It's an interesting question fo' sure.
 
 I know my way enough that if I want to make an impression, I wouldn't go telling a cool stranger by four euro latte's that my taste in music is essentially the Japanese Poison and Coal Chamber. I'd embarrass myself either way if I left it at that or started nervously flinging my hands and explaining how deep down this culture is really gr8 and transgressive art. My heart stays true to bijuaru kei either way. I'm going down with the ship and I'll keep on making-a-fool of myself on a daily basis. So that's why this is my favorite thread, because I have a hard time of letting go of the glory days of my youth and its music, endlessly try to rationalise it by intellectual gymnastics. While my death slowly approaches and even the last patches of grey hair are falling out, in my mind I'm still young and full of cum, ready for adventure. 

omg
remember lovetrick

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~

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 realized I once promised to post a live report of this gig here as well, I did post it on my tumblr some years ago when I was still in Japan... So I'm posting it here now. Enjoy (don't mind the typos lmao).
 
Just 2 weeks after this I went out for beers with Yayoi, Kenzi, Ruiji (ANti feminism) and the bassist from Youya or Youka (old anarchist records band). I could write about that as well if someone wants to read it.
 
Deadly Circus Vol.1 Shinjuku BIRTH 21/11
NOTE: Pictures at the end of the post.


I arrived at the live house about 30 minutes before doors open. I was surprised by only seeing 8 people waiting inside. I love the look you get as a foreigner when going alone to a visual kei live (I do that from time to time when I want to attend lives that nobody likes :v )  the look on the bangya’s faces is like “you must be lost or something…”. 

Anyway, there were some free distributed CD’s at the entrance (didn’t see what band, but it wasn’t Deadly Sanctuary so I didn’t bother to take any of them). As it got closer to 18.30, we were about 25 people in total, and most of them being women in their 30-40’s lol. I was really surprised, but since the bands were ANTI FEMINISM (been active since 92?), THE PIASS (also 90’s?), GELLONIMO (also 90’s!) and Deadly Sanctuary, I guess it’s natural. It was weird seeing everyone drinking beer, chuuhai and other alcoholic drinks, as most people usually drink melon soda or water (since they are underage most of the time). Also, all around the stage there was fluorescent leaning against the grid (there was 14 to be exact).

ANTI FEMINISM

At 18.40, the background music got shut of (thank god, it was slipknot anyway), and the lights got dim and the first band was about to enter stage. At first I just saw the drummer, guitarist and bassist, and I really couldn’t figure out what band it was. It looked like PIASS or ANTI FEMINISM, but I wasn’t sure since both of them have shitloads of memebers and neither Takayuki or KENZI was on stage. As I looked closer on each member, I saw the drummer wearing a ANTI-FEMINISM shirt though, so I figured it was them. And well, just as I came to that conclusion, the backstage door opened (not at the stage, it was closer to the merch booth). And out comes Kenzi in a hat, blazer and addidas pants, carrying something that looked like a homemade raft, made out of fluorescent. He put them on the ground in the middle of all the fans (basically we made a ring surrounding him), ripped of his blazer, shirt and hat, started screaming to the music and made a front flip, bareback into the fluorescent. 

He got a lot of glass stuck in his back, but he crawled up again, took a fluorescent, broke it on his head and took the rest of it and started eating it. Then he took one more flourescent and went up on stage. They played two songs (for people who are familiar with ANTI FEMINISM, all their songs basically sound the same so I really don’t know the setlist). Anyway, after the two songs, he had a MC. I was really surprised as he was speaking in really really polite japanese (teinei and keigo), I assumed that he would speak casual Japanese because… well, he seems like a guy who would do that. 

Anyway, after that they played about 4 songs, and then Kenzi grabbed a bottle (looked like a water bottle but was obviously gasoline in it) and jumped down to all of us. He stood in the middle and filled his mouth, spat out gasoline and used a lighter so he breathed fire. He did that a couple of times, then he went back up, and the drummer came down instead and while he was doing the same thing, Kenzi was putting on what looked like a Pikachu mask with half of the face of a devil. He brought up a porno magazine and started jerking off (not taking his dick out though lol), while reading it. 

And then the drummer spat fire on Kenzi, so he was sat on fire for a little while and his book burned up. As the drummer went back up, Kenzi told us that they want to show us their feelings now. So the entire band came down from the stage, the drummer last and holding a bag of banana’s which he seemed to have bought a family mart. So Kenzi started handing out bananas to everyone, it seems their fans are scared of him as well, because when he gave a banana to one of the girls he said “BOOM!” and pointed it like a gun, and she got so damn scared lol.  After they finished giving out the bananas he started talking about how banana’s are a good fruit because they contain a lot of energy. When he had finished his banana, he said he wants to make a song with us. So from the speakers, “What’s up people” by Maximum the hormone started playing (lol), and the entire band started head banging and trying to get us to join them… Quite frankly I think most people was scared of him more than anything. 

They then went back up on stage and played most of the setlist without saying anything (no MC’s). Just KENZI doing a little selfharm (scratching himself etc). During the last song he went backstage and came out with a new “fluorescent raft”. This time he put it on the floor, and put a pillow next to it where he put down a pickachu teddybear. He then put his hand on fire, and set pikachu on fire with his hand. Then he did a front flip into the fluorescent again. This time he did run for water afterwards though, so I assume the fire started to hurt lol. After that he went back up on stage, said thank you to everyone and hoped that we would have fun watching the rest of the bands. 


GELLONIMO

There was about 15 minutes time to wait before the next band came up. I really didn’t do anything besides check out the merch. Anyway, next band up was Gellonimo. I don’t really have a lot to say about them, except that the vocalist (Miyabi) don’t pull of visual kei at all. He is too old and looks so tired lol. He was also wearing something that looked like a persian carpet rolled around him with a vest on top of it, which I guess didn’t really help him. The drummer and bassist was fairly young, so I think they are not their original line up. 

During the MC he talked about being a bandman is tiresome and tears on you a lot. So he prefers just running his shop (which is a visual kei bar in Kabukicho). He told everyone to please come by after the gig. And then the guitarist asked if we would get nomihodai from him (free drinks for a fixed amount of time). He was thinking for a while and said something along the lines of “… well if they pay for it” followed by Bakkayaro. Their music was fairly OK though, I had only heared one song from them some years ago on a compilation album. Their music was kind of a mix of punk and thrash metal (bands like Kuroageha comes to mind). So it was still very nice to listen to, even though they looked like crap. Their set was very short (15-20 minutes) and I know for sure that they played “HUMAN REBEL” and “NO”

THE PIASS


After Gellonimo, there was the obligatory “wait for the next band”-time. So I checked out the merch more, and decided to buy Anti feminism’s best of album. I really liked their performance, and I really haven’t listened THAT much to them. Anyway it was 3000 yen and I payed her with a 5000 yen bill. She didn’t have change so she had to leave for a little while, only to come back with Kenzi lol. It was kind of fun because he seemed super appreciative of me buying his CD, so he gave me a lot of stickers and photos (which actually was sold at the table for 300-500yen each) for free. At one point I thought he was done giving me stuff, so I went off only to hear him call me back (lol) to give me some more. It was quite amusing, and very different from how I saw him as earlier (from seeing him live). He seemed like a very kind and nice guy and I will probably visit his bar some time soon. 

Soon after I was done at the merch table the next band took place. Sirens started shouting and PIASS came out on stage. Of course last was Takayuki. And 80% of all people there seem to have come mainly for THE PIASS. Sadly, they did not play any songs I was familiar with. So I can’t say I was very impressed… Takayuki was cool, and had a nice stage presence and I like that he use a megaphone to shout in. Also their outfit’s was really awesome, especially Takayuki’s. He wore a white “La'mule-ish” dress with blood. A blazer looking thing on top of that, white shoes and brown/purple-ish hair. As I already wrote, I was not familiar with their songs as I have only listened to their first album which was released… 20 years ago? And they didn’t play songs from that album so.. They had a lot of fun furi’s, and they were definitely the highlight of the evening for most of the people (so it seemed). 

Deadly


When PIASS was done, about 40% of the crowd left. And for a while I thought I was going to be left alone to watch the band I actually came for. Fortunately, new people came in (Yuuga wrote at twitter when approx time they were about to start, so people dropped in at that time). Most of the people that entered (I found out later) was fans of Yuuga. When the light turned off,  a instrumental version of MASTRUBATION started playing. Out came their drummer, guitarist and bassist. Followed by Yuuga (and this point all his fangirls were yelling “YUUUUUUGA SAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! YUUGA YUUGA YUUGAAAAAAAA” lol). After Yuuga, came of course Yayoi. 

He was dressed in a white doctor-ish coat with blood on it. He was also wearing a black wig and had black eye-liner and red lipstick. When Yayoi came out on stage I heard the girl next to me say to her friend “futotteita yo ne” (which basically means “he got fat, right?”) lmao. It was true though, but, not being a visual kei artist means he can eat whatever he wants again I guess lol. I was very surprised with Yuuga, after all the rumours that has been going on at international communities (Yuuga being a agressive guy) only to find out he seemed kinda calm. Also his looks was very different from what I expected since I haven’t been following him since he started “THE.” (early GOKIBURI). And at that time he was fat as well lol. 

He looked very much in shape, and I am definitely going to check out GOKIBURI as soon as I get the chance (if they can update their damn schedule some time soon…………). After the instrumental S.E., they started by playing HOMESICK CHILD, followed by Mastrubation. After that they had a S.E. were Yayoi basically just said thanks for coming, and presented their schedule for the coming month since they are a time limited band. They then played, what I think was a new song. Then it was time for MC… I can’t recall exactly what he said but Yuuga also spoke a little bit. At some point he was trying to get us to yell “SEX” ), like he does in one of their songs (I think it’s in “Suck my dick!!”?). Then they did a band introduction (Yayoi saying everyones name, along with respective member having a small solo, about 10 sec or so). Of course all the girls got batshit insane when it was Yuuga’s turn. After the MC they played they played their last song which was either a new song or a song from their split “EMPEROR” with ANTI FEMINISM. I haven’t listened that much to that release so I am not 100% sure. 

When Deadly was finished, a lot of the band members went to their merch booth (no members of Deadly did that though). Kenzi was at the ANTI FEMINISM booth, Takayuki at PIASS booth and well… I think it was SHUN (a guy who works at Yayoi’s bar) who was at Deadly’s booth. I have never bought checkis before, but I decided to try and do it because I really wanted a picture of Yuuga and Yayoi. When I was going to buy the checkis, I went up to the booth and Takayuki thought I wanted to buy PIASS merch, but when I didn’t he looked kind of disapointed lol. When you are buying checkis you can’t see what photo you choose. So you can get any member (basically roulette I guess). 1 checki was 500 yen, so I bought two. Unfortunately both checkis was of 一斗 (no idea how to pronounce his name) but it’s the other guitarist (who is also a part of Yuuga’s GOKIBURI) he still looks cool though so I am still happy. Since most members was outside, I figured it was going to take some time until the “big session” started, and it was already getting very late and I was tired. So I decided to skip it. When I went out I remembered the distributed CD’s and thought that if they are still there I’ll grab one. Unfortunately they were all gone. :x 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weeaboo stereotypes were always really bad and everybody knew. Actually, I'd say the weeaboo pogroms were far, far worse ten years ago.
 
Lol I suddenly recalled this story of MUCC and Girugamesh performing at a metal festival in here back in 2009. They were promptly heckled and treated to chants of Pokemon by the irate heavy metal public. It's not that they hadn't seen shitty novelty acts before since this festival was always full of them, but it was that weeaboos were really considered to be the worst of the absolute worst of people. Everyone thought the bands were trash, that we were trash and we then got treated as such. Even as an act of scene betrayal I remember this weeaboo from middle school who we used to call names and yell at while passing her by in the hallways. I think all the rabid fangirl stereotypes were known and openly mocked, and the clique behavior within the scene was problem even back then and definitely a part of the stereotype.
 
 
Oh fuck yeah this. It used to be that the anime conventions catered to the visual kei fans as well, and some activity of that sort was set up. The Tsukicon convention had brief run in Helsinki where they'd also book visual kei bands for the afterparty. This was lineup was very well curated featuring such bands as Screw, Vistlip, Aicle, Dio, Sincrea and Alsdead. 
 
During the peak years the weebdom had grown separate from the anime community. Cons no longer catered to us and it wasn't a given that a visual kei fan liked anime. I don't watch anime at all and I don't remember when I picked this up, but "narutards" is what I referred to the anime fans as who infringed upon the sacred visual kei space.
Now ten years later: Anime conventions are still going strong, selling out throughout the _entire_ country even months ahead of time. The convention near my parents place in the literal arse crack of the the European continent is always sold out! We can't sell out The Gazette.
 
 
This was organised in Finland by sheer organic grassroots activity. People moaned about it enough on twitter and spammed the hashtag enough to gain the attention of the band and the promoter. I had a laff about the desperation of the dying weebdom, and then they went out and got it done.  A good amount of people showed up too and I reckon some who weren't big fans came just to show solidarity and experience the feeling these events used to have back then. It also helped that this was for once a good popular band that's on the upward swing, instead of a travelling conman after merch money and Ukrainian women. You book irrelevant bands and you make visual kei irrelevant, and that's a fact.

@Zeus Didn't D'espa come to NYC? I remember at the time you couldn't get into the venue unless you were 21+ and I turned 21 about 6 days after the show so I complained on their promoter's Facebook group lolol
 
 
Kind of just thinking aloud, but does it seem plausible that the decline in interest in vkei and Japanese things in general have to do with the general populace's expectation of someone who likes these things is?
 
I've noticed something similar in other communities, such as Tumblr as an example. There were rabid superwholock protohumans running amuck from 2012~2014 or so, then almost immediately stopped mid-2014. Like, cold turkey. People who liked that were associated with being annoying, overzealous, and probably change their pronouns as the seasons come and go, etc, which really deterred casuals from even trying any of that collective's interests for fear of being "like them."
 
When I saw Kamijo in 2015, most of the audience was what I would generally surmise an anime fan to be like--kinda greasy, lacks social grace, probably collects dragon statues, and will end up working at Gamestop till they're 40.
 
The way people are now more connected with each other means that more people have at least heard of anime or maybe doesn't quite know what that is, but knows of people who like "weird Japanese things" (quote from my sister). Social media today is absolutely nothing like it was in 2006 and it exposes people to a number of things they would not otherwise know about, but only enough to get a general idea of who might be interested in a subject and subsequently form an image of the kind of people who would enjoy it.
 
tl;dr people probably don't care as much in the west because they think it's for gross weebs
 
 
#IStuckWithIt
#MyExpensivePieceOfPaperSaysSo
#HontoniNihonJin
#waaKireinaUmi

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. 

The parallels between the decline of VK and the undoing of the global J-indie scene are almost scary. By 2009, the fandom had already gone into recession and has since only snowballed into oblivion. Granted, the J-indie world has never had the viral reaches of VK, but what little we did have is all but a snapshot in the web archives now. There have been a few sparks here and there, but it's never been enough to ignite that oh-so necessary communal flame. Thankfully, the VK community has had MH here as a pillar of sorts, while the feeble structures of the J-indie scene mostly lie in ruins with too few enthusiasts around to help excavate.
 
I could point towards a few things that I think lent a hand to the global J-indie scene's decline from within, but given the almost parallel time-line between it and the global VK scene, it does make me wonder what external factors might have affected both international scenes (in addition to the points some of you have already mentioned!)

Even D'espairsRay took a huge financial loss on their MONSTERS tour in the USA. Like I said in my last post there were plenty of online fans begging D'espairsRay to come but not everyone could make it. I remember by the end they were begging people to buy a ticket. I would have...if they didn't play shows exclusively on the West Coast
 

So then what really matters is the red line and the blue line is extra? That falls in line with what everyone is saying; visual kei was a fad that died out overseas but more or less remained a constant force in Japan (however weak that may be). What's very interesting is how the interests seem to be converging between Japanese fans and overseas.
 
 
 
 
I also forgot to mention one pivotal event around the start of 2010 2012 that was a real kick in the ass for visual kei. The death of MegaUpload took out so many archived files it wasn't funny. There's still some stuff you can't find today! Byouto went offline. The lossless website Gakuon had to move to P2P exclusively. Private servers got even more private. The files being seized were one thing; the paranoia that came after hasn't really gone away. @CAT5 has plenty of stories from the indie side.

I'm surprised that 2009 was the peak. It was already around that time I was complainin' how there's no good shows to attend lol. With that said, those shows that we did have sold very well and a few bands could even venture to have gigs in the second largest city of the country as well. 
I reckon the pop culture peak of visual kei in Finland was in 2007-2008 when the odd few bands made the telly and got gifted some magazine space. Shows were packed, the fashion was wild, no koreans gnawing in on the real estate, events that were associated with visual kei could actually be held at relatively low risk.
 
 
What's up for debate though, is how the new fanbase of the peak years wasn't able to recover from the crucial wave of hiatus', disbandments and stylistic changes that the most popular bands went through around the turn of the 2010's. Everyone should recall how often one heard people lamenting on the state of the scene with ambiguous claims of a lack of X, Y and Z, setting the scene for the gradual petering out either to the clutches of the koreans or just general normalcy. This is the way of the flesh for a fad certainly, and nobody is able to sustain creative output nor popularity for an extended period of time, but that's not all that there is to it. I suppose among great many other things, it's not unjust to consider public merely as fickle if their visual kei habit was dependent on the existence of Dio and Unsraw. Visual kei on the internet had good enough infrastructure to allow these people to discover new and old bands with relative ease, but one should still never underestimate the stupidity and the incapability of the rank and file to utilize such tools perfectly well in their disposal. There are still people who'll waltz into a conversation, feigning willful ignorance, saying "OH THESE BANDS OF TODAY AREN'T LIKE THE GIRUGAMESH OF YORE. SO WHAT HAPPENED WITH THAT VISUAL KEI?". This means that relative interest is there; they haven't forgotten about it, so what gives? 
 
A certain contributing factor that I don't think gets brought up enough is the bush league organising and the sheer ineptitude of the promoters. The fad really blew its wad during the two years it was at its peak, and it wasn't sustainable. Absurdly dumb, dead certainly set for failure, shows got booked even as late as 2015: and anyone with a lick of sense ought to know that in the long term a no-show is always better than a small-shit show. When you're flopping the proper course of action is never to keep on flopping until you can flop no more, but to change the approach. Rest assured a lot of money and contacts have been squandered by idiots already one foot out the door. Unsraw's European tour is a classic example, and Merry's a more recent one. If you're not able to project that there's no demand, and that by booking this there'll be no demand in the future, then you're simply not helping.  
 
The networking on the local level wasn't great and at its worst there were even open divisions between the fanbase of privileged rich blogger cunts and those who took the train to shows from their shit provincial towns who could barely afford the mcdonald's and second hand converse ( I confess my dislike of the former, but I'm not merely projecting it. I heard many other people voice it also, completely unprovoked by yours truly. ) When enough shows and events are abjectly booked to fail with a lack of camaraderie to match, the rot is aggravated to spread into the brain, and eventually even the life support in form of a Gazette european tour won't do you no good. Their 2016 show in Helsinki did not sell out. That's equal to the sky falling out in visual kei terms.
 
A curious example of grassroots level organising seemingly done correct: take a look at the pictures of SANA's recent solo tour from from the backarse of eastern europe. Going through all those pictures you'll notice that while the central and western European crowds are only a handful at best, the Russian and Ukrainian shows pull a kind of a crowd that man of SANA's stature has no right of pulling. I'm terribly interested to find out how they've managed to do this. The only reason I can manage to come up with by speculation alone is that the fans of "Japanese stuff" are so organised, if not rabid, that when something is organised, enough effort is done that it'll pull enough solidarity to maintain the scene's health. I swear to God one of those Sana crowds has equal heads to what EAT YOU ALIVE or heidi had here in the past three years. It can't be that there's more fans of this shit there than in here just by sheer chance, luck and coincidence. 

Well, I got into VK in like 99. I'd say the 09 boom was definitely a high point because you could find almost anything on a multitude of sites though granted the quality wasn't as good as it is today. (128bitrate all over). It was a fun ride, and the ride keeps going. WE are here and we like visual kei. As long as the core group remains it shall never die in America.  It's our job to bring it to those who are interested, and that doesn't just go for visual kei but Japanese music in general. Even otonomai/yorukaze/younmai is gone now, besides shitty blogs holding the last remnants of years gone by, this is the core site.
 
#RideOrDieTogether

So uh.... anyone in Japan want to spend 2000 yen for me? :v
 
Super need this, if only for the live-limited DANGER GANG song on there.

@DaveKei I don't think there's any in that update, but all of our products have samples so feel free to browse around and I'm sure you'll find some stuff like what you're looking for
 
 
I hope everyone had a good holiday! Val and I stuff ourselves with all sorts of yummy food, but now it's time to get back to work :'( Anyways, here's the items that we added for today's update... enjoy!
 
CDs
Royz - CORE(Limited Edition)  $12  Comes with a PV DVD and trading cards of KUINA & TOMOYA
L'yse:nore - four-leaf clover...  $5
LUNA SEA - STYLE(Regular Edition)  $6
ELY-SIA - GAIA -The Several Ulterior Landscape-  $10
LUNA SEA - SINGLES  $6  *two-disc set*
少女-ロリヰタ-23区(Lolita 23q) - MEMORIAL2005-2006 少女-ロリヰタ-23区  $9  Comes with a PV DVD
DOWNER - 絶華(Type B ) $8
gechena - Re:birth  $4
清春(Kiyoharu) - FOREVER LOVE(Limited Edition)  $13  Comes with a PV DVD
清春(Kiyoharu) - LAST SONG～最後の詞～(Regular Edition)  $5
 
Also, we found out that there was an issue with the newsletter. We got it fixed so now you can subscribe/unsubscribe to the newsletter from the main page of the store, so if you're not already subscribed then that's the best way to find out about new updates the moment they go up on the site!

ラミエル(ramiel) new single "with you" (4 songs, 1500 yen, limited 300) will be released on 2017/02/22.
 
 

Afters 15 years, DASEIN will release a new album called  "唯、此処に在る事が愛しくて"(tada, koko ni aru koto ga itoshikute)  on 2017.03.08.
 
 

look, dad. mom. i'm not a disappointment.
 
i'm going places.

So since I already released the MH Discord server into the wild last night in this thread on a whim, I figured I might as well make an official thread for the thing.
 

 
What is Discord?
 
So basically it's a skype/teamspeak alternative, it includes both text and voice chat. Don't let the gaming eccentric vibe throw you off, since the tool has been proven to be great for communities like ours as well. You can join our server and create a discord account by clicking the banner above, from there you have several options on  how to access the room. You can use discord straight form your browser, download the desktop app (recommended), or you can download the official app on android and IOS.
 
If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please use this thread to discuss. I'm currently the owner of the server and am running it atm so any help is greatly appreciated.