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薔薇の末裔

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Posts posted by 薔薇の末裔

  1. Posted

    On 1/25/2020 at 10:10 PM, Wakarimashita said:

    Is it socially "normal" to see guys in full drag on the streets? Is that perceived as "weird" or "gay"?

    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.

    Wakarimashita and Miku70 reacted to this

  2. Posted

    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.

    Total Saikou, saishuu, redaudrey and 14 others reacted to this

  3. Posted

    4 hours ago, suji said:

    Sui has his own label, Resonance. He opened it as soon as David really started activities (apart from a stint at Chateau Agency for like 5 minutes).

    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. 

    suji reacted to this

  5. Posted

    3 hours ago, saiko said:

     

    This image of older bandoman being delinquent boys, and how that 'spirit' was somehow in the core of the music they created, is lately coming a lot to my mind. I've noticed it after reading some translated tanuki therads on the old Fuckyeahtanuki tumblr, where several self-proclaimed old bangya described the terrible behaviour of some famous musicians with kouhai or even their bangya (like that bizarre story of Dir's Kyo and Kagerou's Daisuke abusing bangya on parties and so on), and how it changed during mid 2000s with bands who took conscious over the subject and decided to put and end to it (I've read that Nightmare brought it up on and old interview). Other way, once popped up here on MH the idea of the severe -and actually harassing- nature of the relationship between producers, bands and members in the origins of the scene being something that, although cruel, created some kind of 'quality filter' that assured a decent output of production, thus explaining that more accesible music media and technology, plus a more 'healthy' lifestyle, didn't contribute to anything but the rising of bland 'idolized' and plagiarizig acts. 

     

    I'll appreciate if someone who believes in this idea could elaborate more over it. While I actually mourn over recent VK being in most cases uninspired, unskilled, etc.,  and wish they could someday bring us a new Malice Mizer or The Gazette, I find kind of problematic to consider that toxic relationships, power abuse, risky life-styles, social marginalization, internalized hate, cruelty, etc. is actually the key to deliver great and memorable art...

     

    Btw, nice thread! This is for the things I'm here in MH: interesting discussion about VK's scene development!

    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.

    YuyoDrift reacted to this

  6. Posted

    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.

    Karma’s Hat, CAT5, gret and 6 others reacted to this

  7. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Masato said:

    It was, also already with Merveilles there were enough instances in which dancing was more important than playing Instruments.  ;-)

     

    I know they can play instruments! Just with Malice there were also enough live performances where that was not the key point of the performance.

    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 😉

  9. Posted

    3 hours ago, BrenGun said:

    For me it feels as Kuze doesn't really fit in Jupiter. His voice is great but somehow it sounds just weird.

    As the music isn't written for his Voice to sing. 

     

     

    And I never had that feeling with Concerto Moon. 

    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.

    BrenGun reacted to this

  12. Posted · Edited by 薔薇の末裔

    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.

  13. Posted

    8 hours ago, merchenticneurosis said:

    Anyone with better japanese skills have idea of how their tour final ticket system works?

    This is what their commercials and ohp say... From what i understood you can buy the A-tickets with 3 priviledges (presents?) from Crucifixion's live or mail order?

    The other tickets seem to go sale as usual from the Konbini or Eplus.jp.

     

    [プレイガイド詳細]
    前売り: ¥4,000 / 当日: ¥4,500 ※D代別
    A.No1~30 狂おしき豪華3大特典付き †9,999円 (2018.3.14〜4.10 Crucifixion通販にて発売受付)
    †1人2枚まで購入可能。ランダム販売となります。4月中旬〜順次発送予定。
    B. No31~ 一般チケット3月14日よりeプラスにて発売
    http://sort.eplus.jp/sys/T1U14P0010843P006001P002254262P0030001
    C. バンド予約
    ※ 入場順: A→B→C→当日券
     

    Thanks for help, if anyone can elaborate!

    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).

    merchenticneurosis reacted to this

  14. Posted

    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.

    Komorebi reacted to this

  15. Posted

    1 hour ago, nekkichi said:

    yes!! honestly I don't understand why firing Chaos sent them on hiatus (lyrics credits/royalties aside), they sound practically identical.

    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.

    nekkichi reacted to this

  17. Posted

    13 hours ago, nekkichi said:

    they are probably not going to play old songs because Chaos is a lyrics co-writer for most, if not all, of them,

     

    and it will take them some time to release enough new ones to have a decent number of songs to go live with?

    I think it sounded more like a "I won't be on stage anymore in my life" kind of thing, but you know Kyouka announced retirement like a billion times already so I would not probably believe it.

  19. Posted

    2 hours ago, Takadanobabaalien said:

     


    I checked the twit and I'm pretty sure they will covering 90's artists at the concert (probably because they don't have enough original songs for a oneman). The CDs will have original songs. Btw I recall seeing Suicide Labyrinth in their setlists for a few years already and they are mentioning they will not release it ever again.

    suji and Jennifer Hage reacted to this
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