Zeus

Both PELICAN FANCLUB and for example you sell the sea are two post-rock bands I've been introduced to only a few days ago. In fact, I didn't even know about them until I was putting the list together and decided to take a listen to both Dali and 負債. Especially for example you sell the sea (they need an acronym...STS?) as they are a new band that debuted this year and their debut album was enough to impress @fitear1590 and @doombox. Both are really immense pieces of work and it's really difficult for me to say which one is better. I will be checking out both bands further

Whoa. First visual-kei band in the list.

I've been listening to them since Shuuen. I don't really listen to Dir en Grey so, I don't really know how they play homage to them, but I really enjoyed their discography so far. 

IX -NINE- is visual too (or at least loosely associated)

this is what happens when you're stuck in a scene focused entirely on making fangirls want that colorful rainbow dick tbh

And this topic is what happens when one of those fangirls gets that colorful rainbow dick.

I was hoping that with Nimo on board this band would get better. Are they destined for mediocrity at this point? The heydays of D'espairsRay are looking dimmer and dimmer...

I have never heard of Chara before (which is a sin because she's been around for over 20 years), but upon seeing how influential she's been I decided to give the PV spin. @beni was not lying when she said the vocals are an acquired taste haha. We'll see if it grows on me any.

Somehow 水曜日のカンパネラ  ended up in my library without me realizing it. I'm echoing similar sentiments as others in the thread atm; the PV was cool but when I dug a little deeper I wasn't as hooked as @CAT5 was. Either Zipang needs to grow on me or even my tastes for weird pop have a limit.

I haven't listened to PELICAN FANCLUB yet but I will soon!

I'm still (foolishly) hopeful!

If there's anything in this band that surprises you for the better, run for the hills and find me ASAP. Otherwise I'm afraid this is going to be another COCKROACH. in my mind.

Forgive me Kyo if I have no faith...

Woo! We're off to an explosive start.

I was listening to a bit of coldrain as I was looking through their music videos a bit earlier. If no one told me they were Japanese I wouldn't have guessed. This is the kind of music that can pop up on your MP3 player at a party without you getting embarrassed, so that's extra points in my eyes. I'll have to check out VENA later.

I’m really disappointed by these news... It's so basic and predictable. In fact, the project dark age is useless (and the golden ticket too) --"

I think it's pretty cool. It ties together the visuals and the music. I didn't care much for DOGMA as a whole but these guys can be pretty cool when they get heavy sometimes. I might check this and UGLY out (I still haven't listened to UGLY ._____.)

I've just started watching Into the Badlands yesterday. Gotta catch up on those first two episodes now! What I saw was really promising and apparently it's based off an animated novel? If that's so I might have to scoop that once the current season is over.

It took me entirely too long to find this out this morning . RIP Shota you will be missed.

I wonder if someone else noticed 回転木馬 sounds similar to senbonzakura...

It's damn near a 1:1 copy at some points...

^ How is an entirely (minus one cover song) Swedish album even related to Visual Kei?

It's not. YOHIO is really good at releasing music to piggyback off of other happenings and maximize exposure. While he sees himself as part of or maybe influenced by the visual kei scene, he's not afraid of releasing something totally left-field if he thinks it will work out (ex. Heartbreak Hotel, this). This is one of those releases. Right now he's using Christmas and his connections from Gackt earlier to stay relevant while releasing music that will sell and maintain his mass market appeal. It keeps his name out there and keeps people interested. This looks like a strategic business move to me.

I don't think he's done with visual kei though. Watch his next release fall back to the same tricks as before.

[...]it's just like YOHIO produced SKY☆LIMIT to get the attention of visual kei fans, to get known before producing this thing :/ Just like he used the visual kei scene to try to get some fame, and maybe to get famous in Japan, and then, he decided to go in a totally opposite direction without caring about what fans was expecting after SKY☆LIMIT. It's like THE KIDDIE was suddenly playing some ""Cannibal Corpse"" death metal songs after their first single NOAH, it's a nonsense. Therefore, i agree to say YOHIO no longer have anything related to Japan or Visual Kei.

You mean like a lot of other visual kei bands have done before? Nocturnal Bloodlust went the other way but they show that bands entering or leaving the scene don't mind changing their sound if they think it will work out. He's very far removed from the scene but he's more connected than any other upstart vk inspired musician (he actually collaborated with Gackt on something that's gotta be worth like 100 VK points) so I really can't hate. At least he's dropped the pretentious "vk metalcore" style for this release and did something more palatable. And these are Christmas songs. I really hope he doesn't try to VK christmas.

For as cringe-worthy as his cover of Gackt looks on paper, I hear nothing wrong with it.

I do hope the list will feature cali≠gari's 12, and/or sukekiyo's VITIUM, and/or THE MORTAL's I AM MORTAL, and/or KEEL's amazing mini albums, otherwise I'll begin to lose faith in all y'alls tastes. ;v

y'all better make dat YOHIO christmas album your top pick, or mh just can't even

 

more realistically i'm pretty confident that novembers latest, as well as the piqnic - zyouk will make their way on here. would also like to see cohol there, but not sure, if the album makes the cut into AOTY-tier. Finally, as meh as it may be and despite all the shit it has gotten from me and others on here, the list wouldn't be quite complete without gazette^^

At least some of these albums are on this year's list!

Wasn't expecting this but I'm disappointed anyway

I hope this new band has better luck than Annabyss Coast.

Probably too little too late, but you can finally change your charts to display 8 artists, and have more than 10 tracks displayed at once.

In more news, they finally got around to restoring features which had no rights to being broken in the first place. And the events page is still completely broken. I went to look up information for D'espairsRay earlier and I needed tour information and found it impossible to navigate or search for anything.

Hmm, maybe leaks/piracy are really rampant in the US? I've heard that people don't really pirate things in Japan. But then again anyone with an Internet connection can access them, so it is probably not that. Would be interesting to find out what accounts for this disparity. 

Piracy is universal and knows no borders. People stlil pirate in Japan they just have to be less obvious about it.

I pointed out Gazette putting music on US iTunes because it wasn't there for the longest time. I thought maybe they finally realized they have a following over here, but they still won't tour, so whatever.

America (the country) is vast and largely empty. Europe (the continent) is small. It's roughly the size of half of America. Touring Europe is easy because you can visit one country and fans can visit from the surrounding country for a day or two because the trip is only a few hours. Touring Mexico and South America is a little more challenging, but the population there isn't spread so thin so it's easier to target fans by hitting major cities. Not so in America. We're technically spread across six time zones. I can drive for a few hours and not leave my state, much less the country. From my current location, it would take 10 to 11 hours of driving to reach Canada. It would take me near 20 hours by car to reach @CAT5 (trains are worse and planes are super expensive)! In the midwest, it can take hours to go from a small suburb to a decently sized city where a band might perform. If the show isn't somewhere within a few hours drive, I can't go.

No matter where they go or what city they perform in, 95% of American fans would have to "break the bank" or organize a trip out of a concert in order to go see them. This is why most (not all tho) Japanese bands that tour North America always hit the same cities. The GazettE may have a lot of fans overall in America but probably not enough to fill up venues consistently and make that money back. In addition they have to go from city to city and that's expensive too. It's not uncommon to hear of a Japanese "world tour" which totally skips North America.

We're lucky the GazettE even goes to Europe. There's a lot more to touring abroad than geography at play like work visas, working with promoters who can secure your venues, money, etc. I've heard of a lot of failed EU tours from visual bands after thousands of fans rallied together to bring UnsraW to Europe but only 100 showed up to the live house because "it was Wednesday and mom won't let me go to concerts on Wednesdays". I also vaguely remember the GazettE saying they hate touring America and won't come here but don't quote me without sources. But if I were to think of one good reason as to why Japanese bands run like hell from America, it's that it's so big it's difficult to tour.

We could be in for a surprise! (Death's Door x 15)

They have a few other good tracks. KAIROS, FIREFLY, DYSPNEA, etc.

I pretty much agree with your views, Rokka wasn't amazing but I did find it interesting at least. I Would definitely watch a second season if it ever comes to fruition just to see where it goes after the whole situation got resolved at the end of the first season. The show definitely feels like it barely got started main plot wise and then the season just ended... Could of been really interesting if it was a 2cour and continued further.

 

P.S. Flamy FTW <3

I would love if the plots happened simultaneously. As in they're fighting demons and saving the world while trying to figure out which one of them is the fake. It would have been more interesting storywise if it took that direction. Altogether I felt like it came to a complete halt for a problem that wasn't really all that important. I figured out who it was by episode 5.

Ito, on 19 Nov 2015 - 09:37 AM, said:

Man, I've watched several anime lately that just were so poor that I couldn't even get past the first episode of them. Ranked from terrible to worst.

Rokka - "Oh hey, I'm a badass!" No you aren't, you are just obnoxious and OP. So much rule of cool with not enough substance to feed a starving orphan.

God Eater - If you look at still frames, it's quite lovely. Too bad the it doesn't really hold up that well in the animation. All of that said, it's the piss poor story and pacing that kills it. Like I don't even understand the pacing, it's all together way too fast and makes -no- sense.

Knights of Sidonia - I understand that this is the pilot episode BUT I have no idea how anyone would have approved this show after watching this utter trash. The writers wouldn't know tone if they were swimming in an ocean of it. The character are bad - from their designs to their interactions. The animation is crap 3D. The music is....wait, did they forget to put the music in this show? Like seriously? Even if the plot was decent, it would be too late to save this show, but never fear, that too is also a pile of steaming crap.

And MAL has their average ratings at 7.7, 7.3, and 7.9 respectively. Unless these all have bigger surprises that Jesus rising from the grave, then then holy shit people must think that having a brain aneurysms is like at least a 6 out of 10.

Let's be ultra real for a second guys: the average anime is pretty fuckin terrible. They literally churn them out in droves per season in varying amounts of quality so it's bound to happen. The average anime viewer watches average anime so anything more than that looks absolutely amazing. In reality, I find myself in opposition to my anime watching friends when I point out flaws in the anime and they just roll their eyes and try to argue back. It can end in one of several ways but my points of contention are more QC than anything. I absolutely detest how the average anime confuses writing a mystery with not telling the viewer the story (aka Concrete Revolution, Gunslinger Stratos, Paranoia Agent, etc), or has pacing so terrible the last four episodes are where all the good action is (and should be where the anime starts aka Charlotte, Freezing, etc), or sometimes just forgets to fill in holes and then things conveniently happen just because (BLACK MOTHERFUCKIN BULLET, the last episode of Kekkai Sensen (although this is probably due to the 3+ month break between episodes)). I pay attention to no ratings on that website at all.

I can't even tell you how many piss poor anime I've dropped in the last three seasons. One of my other friends who just got on the anime wave said that Owari no Seraph was better than Attack on Titan. I know people have been sipping on the AoT koolaid for a while but in comparison to that show, Owari no Seraph is a turd. That's not to say that Attack on Titan is bad - it's decent to good at its worst - or even that Owari no Seraph is bad (it's not but could be way better) but AoT is just the "standard" for anime. And that's kinda sad since I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT'S IN THE FUCKING BASEMENT!

Having said that, Rokka is a passable mystery (as in you know what's happening but not what's going to happen) with some action on the side. God Eater is just plain terrible.

You're asking that to people who've most likely watched the second season as well. It's been a while.

 

I don't remember much of the first episode other than that Nagate was a kid who grew up without other people around (and is kind of socially awkward because of that) but somehow made it to the "surface". It gave the base for his character but everything after is different imo. The fights, the guana, the weird stuff happening.

I agree that you can't judge an anime by its cover/first episode but Knights of Sidonia is one of the few exceptions. It's the kind of show where you will either like it or hate it from the beginning. I got halfway through the second season waiting for the plot to deepen immensely before I realized it wasn't going to happen. The whole set up is hit and miss with some people. I can only watch humanity "barely survive against an enemy we're totally outclassed against" shtick for too long before I get bored. Plus, I don't feel like there's a very good overall objective, or at least one good enough to keep my interest. Where are they going? How will they be safe? How did they not run out of resources yet? Does anyone really care about Tanikaze?

Also, how do you have a rock with a giant fucking gun on it floating through space that's approximately the size of Manhattan and not have every single inch of that rock on watch?

You and I both know that the moment Hizaki decides to leave, this band is DONE. As great as Teru is, this band will not stay afloat without Hizaki. Zin is not that great of a vocalist, and pales in comparison to Kamijo.

Who in the hell will be able to replace Masahi OR Yuki? VERY big shoes to fill.

That was my next question too

Yuki's drumming was a core part of their sound, and together with Masashi they were one hell of a rhythm unit. You could hear it more in Versailles than Jupiter. I always thought that Jupiter was trying to be Versailles-lite and market a more pop power metal combo, and in that context I understand what they feel. If Jupiter is going to stay the course - and it seems like they will - then Masashi and Yuki will continue to play second fiddle to the guitarists. There's no room for them to grow in this band anymore.

I hope they stick together since they're leaving together and maybe even form a new band. Visual kei needs them.