薔薇の末裔

Make up boys are a recent trend in Japan, a lot of popular instagram/youtube guys are wearing (mostly minimal) make up and even doing tutorial for other boys but they 90% appeal to girls. In the US/Europe everyone would probably think you are gay but there is no such connotation in Japan. After all people who shave/trim their eyebrow/dye or perm their hair were considered gay in the western culture until few years ago but have been absolutely normal things for a straight guy in Japan for at leas 20 years. Weird hair color is a different issue, most people will look at you as weird or someone who hasn't a serious job, etc.

It might sound weird from a western perspective, but visual kei is like the straightest and most homophobic music scene in Japan. We tend to look at visual kei with western eyes and mix its cultural aspects with things that belong to the western culture. Fanservice and provocations used for shock value put aside, the androgynous aesthetics of visual kei band rarely expressed anything related to gender identity and especially sexual orientation. After all, it started with people like X Japan who admittedly were inspired by glam rock bands and way of life, which I would find hard to connect to sexual orientation. Visual kei early bandomen were mostly chinpiras, bosozokus (bikers) and the likes. They really incarnated the somewhat glamrock aesthetic of riding bikes getting drunk, banging girls, etc. Of course X had their own decadent/romantic taste that made them different, and a lot of influences changed the scene over time. However, visual kei is still remains 99% driven by social outcasts looking for pussy and very rarely by something else. In Japan we also have onnagatas, who are kabuki actors specialized in female roles that are again 99% straight. Bandoman with feminine looks call themselves onnagata, not josou (crossdresser), implying that the cultural source behind their looks is not connected with crossdressing but just playing a female role in a band, but again this something that might be hard to completely understand it taken outside of Japanese culture. For example Izam, the king of all onnagatas, married more than once and has more tha one child, and outside of his role in Shazna he rarely did anything ambiguous, just like the kabuki onnagatas out of stage. Both media and fans are everything but respectful of privacy, but I've rarely seen Japanese articles or message board questioning bandomen sexual orientation. That's because the number 1 reason people do visual kei is because the girls like it (well, liked it, I am not sure this is the trend with young girls anymore). Soft Ballet/Ken Morioka are closer to Soft Cell/Marc Almond so I would not even count them as visual kei even though they had some influence on it. And of course, there are exceptions as you mentioned. The chinpira bandomen of the 90's almost extincted and younger generations bandomans are usually anime/game otakus. They grew up with different influences and values, and it would make sense if the current incarnation of visual kei instinctively appealed to more people with sexual orientation/gender identity concerns, especially after Japan started talking about these issues in a less obsolete viewpoint.

More than opening his own label he just chose a fancy name to put on his flyers and on the back of the CDs (like of 99% of indie bands). If that counts as a label then literally anyone can have one. I doubt he really started a company or will finance/produce anything other than his own releases either, just checked his website and webstore but nothing like that is mentioned. Starwave, Chateau, and the likes are actual companies with stocks, capital, etc. Other labels are small self-employment based businesses but that doesn't seem to be the case I would say David is pretty much unsigned/independent.

ryutsu fuka = not available for general distribution, pretty much it's either live only edition or live+mailorder edition.

Well people abusing their kouhai's and women in general is something that is peculiar the Japanese society of that time overall, not really limited to visual kei. I'm not trying to say that being delinquent boys is the key to making inspired music, but probably their "spirit" somehow helped them to make something new and sincere. Someone "educated" and with enough music knowledge are keen to think inside the box and play along the rules, pretty much put a stop on their creativity. They would be great writers and performers but not the innovators. For example I hardly imagine skilled musicians being able to write and perform the complete mess that bands like La'Mule or Kuroyume were doing in the 90's. Those bands could write those songs and end up being original because they probably had no idea of what they were doing in the first place. As soon as they got able to play a bunch of chords on guitar they were ready to write songs right out of a 30 minute jam session. Sure a lot of bands were just atrocious and eventually got forgotten, but I guess the ones with fresh ideas, charming persona and decent taste could emerge as popular acts in the end. Some other bands like BUCK-TICK eventually became skilled musicians and polished writers, but kind of kept their original spirit intact as well (looks like BUCK-TICK members still get themselves drunk till morning after all of their gigs, probably younger bands would die at 25 if they had the same lifestyle). Some other eventually learnt about the grammar through experience, and that's when they started being good musicians but suddenly unable to write memorable songs like at the beginning of their career. Probably this applies to other genres as well, when lots of people seem to like a band's indies works even though the musicians got so much more mature in their latest albums.

I think there are two main reasons: 1. Techniques for smaller studios/home recordings are much more advanced now, so even no budget bands can finally afford making more polished releases. 10+ years ago a decent recording/mixing session would cost a lot of money while pretty much now anyone can fix songs with melodyne, preamp guitars and the like. Especially with indies band you can really feel the quality gap between recorded songs and live performances. A lot of dudes are not even playing their instruments/singing live anymore as they are aware of that. 2. Socially speaking the musicians are completely different people nowadays. Otaku-ish dudes who liked music and grew up listening to bands are more common in the scene now, while in the past it was really just a bunch of ex-chimpiras, yakuzas, bikers, hosts, etc. who did not fit into society and were in bands just because there was little else they could do to get chicks (of course there are exceptions). They had the ideas and the fierceness, but mostly no music knowledge whatsoever and especially no will to practice or overthink about their music. Now most guys went to school, have money to learn playing their instruments and afford decent equipment, and especially they all mostly compose on their laptops so there is again a bit gap in what their minds can compose and what their hands can play on an instrument. So the result is mostly polished and well performed songs but kind of lacks the raw energy and "heart" older bands had instead. There is no right and wrong about it, it really depends on what you are looking for in music.

If you really knew them then I can't really see why you should be confused by that Bel Air video. I don't recall seeing them dancing over it or doing anything else than playing their instruments.... If Mana were playing guitar during Madrigal, well then your comment would have made sense. Anyway don't worry the DVD has a bunch of dancing around songs too 😉

looks like mako and kamijo had a baby

Actually he fits in even a bit too much. I agree with the people saying that Hizaki was looking for this kind of vocalist from the beginning. Wouldn't be surprised he kicked out Zin after getting the chance to invite Kuze. These Japanese metal bands could be interesting as long as they're throwing in some peculiar elements like visual kei-ish melodies and vocals. HGP and early Versailles had a good vk-metal balance and kinda sounded fresh at that time, but now Jupiter just sounds like an imitation of any average european band. I didn't like their previous vocalist either as he was (badly) trying to sound like western metal, but I guess that could sound at least more interesting than this new dude. Would rather go for Kamijo's shitty singing which can at least make it sound more personal or at least different.

as mentioned in the post above they are just doing a malice mizer session twice in september for the band's anniversary. sakura is on drums as it seems he was kami's mentor, while former malice mizer roadies kamijo, hitomi and shuji (caligari) will be on vocals. I think it's been announced about half a year ago?

The 33 expensive tickets are sold out. Regular tickets are available.

I'm not a fan and really don't care but it doesn't sound that unfair to me honestly. If it's only 4,000 seats they won't be able to pay off the usual fee the band members get for a show, so regular ticket prices wouldn't make it profitable enough for their standards I suppose. Also they are branding it as a premium show and Richard Fortus and Wes Borland will be guests too so that sounds kind of fair if you are a big fan of the band and want to see them at a smaller venue for once. Not so hardcore fans would not pay for that so that's why they are having it at a 4,000~ venue to begin with isn't it. Fans who don't care about premium gigs and just want to see them live can just go to their regular gigs and pay the regular tix price.

A tickets cost 9,999 and include three unspecified privileges. They are limited to 30 and sold on Crucifixion's mail-order. B tickets are sold here: http://sort.eplus.jp/sys/T1U14P0010843P006001P002254262P0030001 . C tickets are direct reservations by email to each band (I think they have like a mail address or form on their websites).

Older visual kei was always trying to put some shock value in their looks so that might have been on purpose, but with probably zero political meaning. They were just trying to shock and play with taboos. But I'm pretty sure that current bands are being inspired by that and use uniforms and nazi alike imageries just because it looks cool. Most people in Japan nowadays do not even know what nazism is anyway.

Makoto did recording and editing for all Insanity's works so that might be why all three vocalists sound so close. Chaos had no impact vocal wise but I was under the impression he and Makoto were mostly in charge of the band activities, that might be the reason for the hiatus? They're such a small band I don't even think they actually have royalties and Kyoka has always been pretty bad at managing band activities himself, I can imagine him leave the work to his kohais. Anyways previews sound promising I'm surely buying this.