meat

I think the comparison with the anime industry reveals one of the reasons why Jrock/vkei is not a thing in the west - Cool Japan has a top-down/soft power/blahblah approach that utilizes pop culture to draw people to Japanese culture and thus make Japanese endeavors outside of Japan (not just in the west) more profitable and attract more business and tourism. The Cool Japan fund will invest in any sort of content/media that will make Japanese culture stand out, but only if it sees the potential, ie organic interest in the content/subject matter, like big anime/cosplay conventions -  quantifiable receipts that I don't think Jrock had even in the height of its hype overseas. 
 
Plus, I think music is more than about understanding lyrics. It's culture, it's being able to relate to ideas and sentiments expressed there and catch cultural cues that you'll miss if you don't spend hours digging around the internet for reference. If it takes a lot of work to actually 'get' a song, less people will wanna do it. This is why Kpop companies train their idols to speak and sing in Japanese and Mandarin, and why the AKB franchise 'translated' itself by forming local units across Asia instead of selling the Japanese content as is. I don't think Jrock can be localized the same way, nor that it should be. 
 
At the end of the day, as was already said here, Jrock had its 15 minutes of being an almost international thing thanks to anime, but it didn't hold because you can't translate and sell it as well as you can with anime. 

DURAN 「FACE」
Release Date: 7/1/2018
 
01. WERISEAGAIN
02. TAKEMEHIGHER feat. Katsuma（coldrain）
03. SUPERLADY
04. READY4LOVE
05. ASIANLOVER feat. スガシカオ
06. BACKTOME feat. 清春
07. MYAUTUMNMYLOVE
08. YESWECAN
09. MYMISSINGPIECE

*Ahem* Yes, I remember all the sparkly banners for displaying your allegiance. I also remember  a number of bands had chatrooms on their HP where, if you join at around late evening JST, you often ended up chatting with the bandomen themselves. 

How many times have I heard that Tanuki is dead over the years? Glad that it's back and we can read about shit noodle bandomen forever. Long live Tanuki!

How many times have I heard that Tanuki is dead over the years? Glad that it's back and we can read about shit noodle bandomen forever. Long live Tanuki!

Awesome post! I think generally 2ch VK forums basically just migrated to Tanuki? Like after Tanuki took off there wasn't much of a need of for 2ch any more. I also remember that it wasn't uncommon for some non-VK fan trolls coming into the VK forums on 2ch to insult people/VK and the like, so the desire to get away from non-fans might have also been a partial motivating factor to move off of 2ch completely.
 
The same happened with Mixi. Mixi used to have fan communities where (not only limited to VK) fans would trade goods, buy/sell tickets, etc. but Twitter now serves this purpose and offers more, so Mixi is pretty much dead for that now, at least as far as VK is concerned.
 
Back in the day, I remember a lot of doujin and oekaki/fan art were distributed on personal sites/fan sites, and many had their own BBS to chat and trade. Beyond forums like Tanuki, they were connected by a series of web rings catering to certain interests. (I'm sure anyone over 30 on here who has ever made a webpage on Tripod or Geocities before remembers these types of things.)
 
Also, I feel like most BBS in the Japan never evolved past their ugly layouts because some people still use the old Japanese flip phones (garakei) that don't have "regular" browser support and wouldn't be able to support a forum like MH. Japanese people have always used their phones to connect online over landlines, and long bus and train commutes have no doubt influenced this and the development of better portable gaming devices. When I first moved here in 2005 most people were not hooked up to the internet at home. Even now, schools don't assign a lot of projects requiring internet research and besides university, reports and essays are handwritten and not typed. Heck, even resumes are still painstakingly handwritten except for rare exceptions. Although at least now I'd say most people do have internet at home.
 
I once translated and article about how idol fans communicated and stayed informed pre-official sites, Twitter, and SNS. Because artists could not communicate immediately with their fanbases, and very similar to it, VK fans had to search out and engage in communities to learn information about releases, gigs, etc. So something that has changed is that, while Tanuki is mostly used for gossip and shitposting now, the previous 2ch boards, BBS, and communities were also places to spread information to the larger fanbase. Likewise, I think this is why over time these sites and communities have mostly died out (even in the West), because largely there is no need for them and you can get all the info you need in one or two places.
 
I would love to hear from some other people that remember the old 2ch and communities, tho! I wouldn't be surprised if my memory is fuzzy and I've forgotten some things...

I've been wanting to write some of this stuff out forever because I'm a huge digital packrat and I like to archive these types of things... I don't think any of this has been written out anywhere before, but I'm not sure how much people actually care about the fan culture part of VK here, especially the Japanese fan culture, and especially the online Japanese fan culture. But, just in case any of you are also level 50 Turbo Nerds I thought I should post it here. I hope this is a sensible place to put it??

this piece is WAY too long for how lame the subject is and i'm so sorry
tl;dr: tanuki is old as fuck and there used to be another tanuki and forums are dead, long live tanuki

edit: fixed a number i screwed up
 
 

In light of this potentially tragic news, vk.gy will introduce a new feature, wherein you can call your favorite artists fat and ugly. #staystrong

Apparently yes...
 
Also in their stories can be seen
https://www.instagram.com/stories/mucc_official/ in the fight story they show how the tape is
 
I think is going to be so hard and expensive get one of those 

There must be a duplicate thread, because I know these have been posted before. Anyway, my "fave" worst CD covers:

Dear L'Novel - 罪と罰(Tsumi to Batsu) 

 
ViViD - Message
 

Dear L'Novel's is one of the few albums that I truly enjoy but refuse to buy, because the album art would haunt me. And yet, the ViViD one is somehow worse, because they were actually a major band. Can you imagine who designed these covers and thought "Yup, these are good to go!"

I can't believe nobody posted this.

I don't know why so many of you youngsters are trashing their look. I see nothing wrong with their latest look/ outfits. It must be a generational gap thing.
 
I'm a middle aged MUCC grandma who is similar in age and music taste to the MUCC boys. They are a few years older than me and have been good guides to my own fashion choices in the past. And just like Yukke and Miya, I expect to be dressed in black (as I do now) but with loads of colourful warning tapes over my jacket and have heavy black bags under my eyes in a few years time to show off how rebellious and relevant I still am in my 40s. This is how all middle aged people should dress

I don't know why so many of you youngsters are trashing their look. I see nothing wrong with their latest look/ outfits. It must be a generational gap thing.
 
I'm a middle aged MUCC grandma who is similar in age and music taste to the MUCC boys. They are a few years older than me and have been good guides to my own fashion choices in the past. And just like Yukke and Miya, I expect to be dressed in black (as I do now) but with loads of colourful warning tapes over my jacket and have heavy black bags under my eyes in a few years time to show off how rebellious and relevant I still am in my 40s. This is how all middle aged people should dress

beautiful, youthful, stylish, elegant queens

*sighs* No Europe dates

I don't know why so many of you youngsters are trashing their look. I see nothing wrong with their latest look/ outfits. It must be a generational gap thing.
 
I'm a middle aged MUCC grandma who is similar in age and music taste to the MUCC boys. They are a few years older than me and have been good guides to my own fashion choices in the past. And just like Yukke and Miya, I expect to be dressed in black (as I do now) but with loads of colourful warning tapes over my jacket and have heavy black bags under my eyes in a few years time to show off how rebellious and relevant I still am in my 40s. This is how all middle aged people should dress

I wasn't ready for this, I feel attacked!! 
Bless these precious yankees for their soft souls that make such nice tunes. 
Heard that Satochi's song sounds the saddest of all and it ends in "I'm sorry" 😭 I have a weak spot for this bundle of joy and I don't understand what happened here. 
 
But I'm so ready for more Yukke thighs. 

We should definitely have some sort of MH meet-up pre/post gig. 

IMO, most of the new songs on doorAdore weren't too bad in terms of songwriting (at least, "Search and Destroy" and "Irotsuki", for example, aren't all that close to other things they've written, off the top of my head ). As far as this goes, I'd agree that there's a lack of creativity -- "Inside-Out" is undeniably generic-sounding, but it's also a game piece, and most band songs that get used in games/anime wind up with a pretty typical sort of 'sound' to them that makes it easy to tell that they're anison, more or less.

As for the "last phase" part of things...yeah, that's right. In an interview for doorAdore a couple of months ago, it was mentioned they were heading to their 'final phase'. They haven't dropped any date for disbanding or formally announced anything yet, but in general, it's kind kind of been a little while coming, given that Ryutaro's been hinting at bowing out of at least being a vocalist ever since his solo career, because of the condition of his voice. (and, increasingly, it seems like the reason he even started with a solo project in the first place was to get the songs he didn't find suitable for Pura out in the open before he felt he wouldn't be able to do them, but I digress).

All that said, Ryu seems pretty set on trying to go for as long as he still has things he wants to do and doesn't find them too frustrating to do. But personally, I don't really see them lasting beyond their 25th major-label anniversary at the latest (so maybe 2022 or so, assuming Ryu's voice doesn't give out before then or if he's satisfied before then).

Seeing@Lestat's signature reminded me to finally sit down and watch all 110 episodes of Legends of Galactic Heroes. It took me about a month... but worth it

I'm glad you liked it! One of the best animated series ever made, or scrap that; one of the best series in general ever made. It's incredible.

If only Merry is supporting I’d go to every show...

Will try to attend the entire tour if possible. Looking forward to meeting fellow MH members on the road!

If only Merry is supporting I’d go to every show...

yeah, my non-virgin ass is here to tell y'all that fuck guys/girls who rush you
your choice to stay a virgin for however long you feel fit is totally ok and its your decision in the end, not society or your friends' decision to make. virgin/slut shaming is fucking silly, no one is in charge of your body and mind except you. you'll eventually find someone who will respect you and your opinions of sex/love, fuck the guys that leave after two weeks because sex is the only thing on their mind.