CAT5

Monochrome Heaven's 2019 Banner Contest
 
Hey everyone! This is a shout out to all digital artists on the website interested in content creation. It's about time to add some new bands into the rotating banner at the top of the forum, and for that we can use your skills! What better way to show off some skills than in a friendly competition? Here's the basic idea:
 
Create a banner according to the rules which I will define in a moment. Respond to this topic by submitting your banner in a post. Since you cannot edit your post after you submit it, make sure your post is the way you want it before posting. You can submit as many banners as you have time / energy to create. The second phase of the banner contest will be anonymous voting from the community. The top three voted banners will be added to the top and the members who created those banners will be announced then. Winners of the contest will get their screen name in a special color in addition to having their work featured at the top of the forum! Rules:
 
Banner should have dimensions of 800x120. Banner should have a thin, rounded white outline. Banner should preferably be a PNG, but a GIF is acceptable if you are interested in making an animated banner. Banner should in some way relate to Japanese music. Normally, we feature a band at the top, but there is room for creativity. Banner should have the text "Monochrome Heaven" on it. Banner should contain material that is Safe For Work. NSFW banners will be automatically disqualified. Banner submission should remain anonymous until the end for fairness. All banners will be shown at the end. Banners can contain anything else you think will give you an edge in the competition.  
The submission deadline will be open for four weeks, or until May 18th, 2019.
 
 Have fun! I'm excited to see what our members can come up with.  
 
 
 
 

I love this track, no use grieving about old dezert bc its totally gone now :( Wish their pop song structures were a bit more unconventional, they have great sense of melody but they should do more with it

someone save my poor bby miyako from this mess....
 
i liked TODAY but this is not it.
 

HYDE new album, "ANTI" (3000 yen) will be released on June 19, and it will also be released digitally on May 3! He will also tour the United States from May 5-26.
 
[CD tracklist]
01. WHO’S GONNA SAVE US
02. MAD QUALIA (Japanese Version)
03. SICK (feat. Matt of From Ashes to New)
04. ANOTHER MOMENT
05. FAKE DIVINE
06. AFTER LIGHT
07. OUT
08. ZIPANG (feat. YOSHIKI)(Japanese Version)
09. SET IN STONE
10. LION
11. TWO FACE
12. MIDNIGHT CELEBRATION II anti mix
13. ORDINARY WORLD
 
[Blu-ray] (limited edition type A only; 5800 yen)
HYDE LIVE filmed on
・2018/9/8 ＜BEAUTY AND THE BEAST＞ live in Zepp Tokyo
・2019/3/24 ＜Zepp Tokyo 20th Anniversary HYDE LIVE 2019＞
 
[2 DVDs] (limited edition type B only; 5500 yen)
[Disc 1: Music Video]
WHO’S GONNA SAVE US MV
AFTER LIGHT MV
FAKE DIVINE MV(Halloween Version)
ZIPANG MV(English Version)
MAD QUALIA MV(English Version)
[Disc 2: Lyric Video]
WHO’S GONNA SAVE US
AFTER LIGHT
FAKE DIVINE
ZIPANG
MAD QUALIA
ANOTHER MOMENT
TWO FACE
OUT
LION
SET IN STONE
ORDINARY WORLD
MIDNIGHT CELEBRATION II
 
[Concept Book] (limited edition type C only; 4200 yen)
24 pages
 
[Fully limited edition BOX (CD + Blu-ray + 2 DVD + concept book + goods)] (13000 yen)
(Details tba)
 
[US Tour schedule]
 

 

having a headache due to of lack of sleep and from being around people too long.........i feel so drained

This world is fucked beyond belief. But despite how treacherously people treat one another...and despite how poorly we even treat ourselves...to be courageous enough to even just try to do better in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, and not just fall into the mire of spiritual destitution like the rest... That's such a beautiful thing!

This world is fucked beyond belief. But despite how treacherously people treat one another...and despite how poorly we even treat ourselves...to be courageous enough to even just try to do better in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, and not just fall into the mire of spiritual destitution like the rest... That's such a beautiful thing!

This world is fucked beyond belief. But despite how treacherously people treat one another...and despite how poorly we even treat ourselves...to be courageous enough to even just try to do better in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, and not just fall into the mire of spiritual destitution like the rest... That's such a beautiful thing!

This world is fucked beyond belief. But despite how treacherously people treat one another...and despite how poorly we even treat ourselves...to be courageous enough to even just try to do better in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, and not just fall into the mire of spiritual destitution like the rest... That's such a beautiful thing!

This world is fucked beyond belief. But despite how treacherously people treat one another...and despite how poorly we even treat ourselves...to be courageous enough to even just try to do better in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, and not just fall into the mire of spiritual destitution like the rest... That's such a beautiful thing!

This world is fucked beyond belief. But despite how treacherously people treat one another...and despite how poorly we even treat ourselves...to be courageous enough to even just try to do better in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, and not just fall into the mire of spiritual destitution like the rest... That's such a beautiful thing!

This world is fucked beyond belief. But despite how treacherously people treat one another...and despite how poorly we even treat ourselves...to be courageous enough to even just try to do better in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, and not just fall into the mire of spiritual destitution like the rest... That's such a beautiful thing!

This world is fucked beyond belief. But despite how treacherously people treat one another...and despite how poorly we even treat ourselves...to be courageous enough to even just try to do better in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, and not just fall into the mire of spiritual destitution like the rest... That's such a beautiful thing!

I'm not sure if these guys are classified as VK or pseudo-VK or whatnot, but they're a jazz-rock band that may appeal to you.
 
 
 
"really good guitar" is a bit vague for me, as I'm not super familiar with Sugar...BUT, here's one of my favorite bands called 八十八ヶ所巡礼 (88kasyo Junrei). They're not VK...but the vocalist is male Here are some of their songs that u can skim through:
 
 

Tokyo Shoegazer are officially back baybee! The band has made their new single 「Revive」, originally sold at their revival one-man on 2019/04/01, available for online purchase via Higher Hell Records' official webstore. 
 
CD tracklist:
1. Light
2. Missing
3. DEEP RAINBOW '19
+
''Light'' multi-track data (wave files)
Drums track /  Bass track / Guitars track / Vocal track 
 
Track 3 is a re-recorded version of a track featured on one of their earliest demos.
 
The single costs ¥ 2,300 and is available here (as far as I understood it's apparently available for JP users only but I'm not sure) . The single will only be available for purchase until July. 

Spoiler Warning:
 
 
I enjoyed the episode! I see where both of you are coming from @Zeus and @Bear tho.
 
There's definitely a lot of cheese and predictability atm, but I gave up on the show ever being as good the first two seasons (those were my favorite). I did't mind the lack of action in the first EP, because I was actually looking forward to certain character reunions and interactions, but those were a bit underwhelming as I felt the script overall was pretty wanting. The effort was appreciated, though.
 
I do share @Zeus's concern about reconciling all of the individual character arcs in a meaningful and satisfying way tho. For the amount of people that have died, the cast is still pretty huge. And depending on how this last season plays out, it seriously has the ability to taint the legacy of the series or even improve it imo. After all of the characters' individual journeys and struggles - I think it would be cheap of D&D to simply write all of that off because "OMG ICE ZOMBIES WE ALL GONNA DIE". So my only real hope for the series at this point is that they can play into the grandeur of this final battle without completely belittling or devaluing all of the individual characters that have made the show so compelling up til this point. That's already happened to some extent...and I can understand why some of that was even necessary, but I really do hope they'll be able to find some sort of balance in the end.

That's exactly what irks me. We're in the final season of the show and most of the characters have met each other. There aren't any more explosive meetings that should happen between characters because right now, character development is not that important. Characters are already developed enough and in my opinion, many characters have gotten simplified over the seasons. What's important now - and what George R.R. Martin has been struggling with since 2011 - is resolving all plot lines in a coherent and satisfying manner. There are a lot of characters coming together in the North now, with the rest of them in the South, and short of a mass extinction event wiping out a good 30-40% of the characters in the story, I don't see how all of these plot lines are going to come to an end. I sense a semi satisfying ending coming with bittersweet after taste and certain non-essential characters killed off for the sake of simplicity. 

Then again, I am interpreting the army of the dead and the Night King as a comment on the unstoppable nature of climate change. It would be incredibly fitting if everyone loses and the Night King wins, because the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones was all about expecting the unexpected. The book that Martin wrote is about subverting common fantasy tropes and how the good guys don't always win and the ending isn't always sweet. The last few seasons have felt predictable, but only because story elements have to come together in predictable ways in order to get to the end. But I wouldn't put it above D&D to throw us one last curve ball.

I'm gonna be *real* pissed if they turn this into a 1v1 with Jon versus the Night King in a sword duel, but I see the show trimming the plot down to something simple because of time constraints. Completely artificial time constraints, but constraints that all episodes have to be aware of. Spending a lot of time on character development in the first episode can mean later episodes have no time to say their piece, and this exact thing has already happened in seasons 5 and 6. Like in all honesty, I like naked chicks but the whole scene with Bronn in the Brothel could have been cut down to when the man on the door knocked and delivered the message, and that's 3 or 4 minutes that could have been spent updating us on the situation with the Army of the Dead.

Really? I thought it was a great beginning, and spending the shortest episode of the season to re-introduce the characters, their missions and tell us where they are and what they're planning is pretty much as much as you can expect imo. Excellent episode, and the dialogue already feels fifty times better than what they offered us in season 7. So much more well-developed and well-written.
 
Episode length' for those who care:
 

It's the new season so it's the last time we can bump this topic with hype!

And unfortunately, I'm not very hype about the beginning of this season at all. When you market the ending of the show as "The Final 6 Episodes", I expect substantive things to happen at every turn. This was not that episode, and that means we're 16% of the way finished with the series. How disappointing. I know that all of the pieces have to be moved into place (very quickly, I might add) but that doesn't excuse how slow the first episode felt. In fact, that makes it even worse. There are times I felt that the show lingered on a shot simply to fill up time - the opening to the prison break scene is a good example of how the show spends 3 to 4 seconds more on that ship than they really need to. Those 3 to 4 seconds add up, and I find myself wishing I had ten more minutes so something could actually happen.

It's only been 24 hours and 1000-Yard Bran Stare has become a meme. It got ridiculous to see him pop up in the background like a wizard four times in the same episode, especially when he's in a wheel chair and no one is pushing him around. Bran got those wheels on silenced. He's also rather boring and brooding; where did his character go? I understand that him having no feelings is part of his character, but having an omnipotent god who shows up when it's convenient and knows things without drinking is a cheap way to move a lot of information from one character to another. Game of Thrones was more clever about doing this in earlier seasons. Next week should be a really important conversation featuring him and the show better give it the time it deserves.

What I did like is how many revelations got dropped in this episode. Sam learns about what happened to his family, and that colors his perception of Dany a lot. Jon learns the truth about his parentage, but not enough time was spent on him processing what actually happened. Bronn now has to make a choice and that choice can decide his fate. Jaime is going to have to "answer" for his crimes, even though it's probably the best thing in the world that he ever did because without Wizard Bran we stand no chance. Tyrion had some bad lines and overall feels left behind. I think was actually a *good* thing because it shows that his character has changed and has weaknesses, and that being clever doesn't last forever. He's trying to fit in among a crowd of people that don't trust him at best, outright hate him at worst, and he has nothing to offer anyone in the fight to come. He's essentially dead weight, and I wouldn't be surprised if he dies before the show is out. Dany is smug and arrogant and I want her to die already. 

I also see them conserving budget by failing to show the Night King or the Army of the Dead marching towards Winterfell, but every one is talking about it non stop. The creep scene with the Umber kid is the only exception, but that was just a few seconds and doesn't really count. This is the army of the dead, they don't need to stop for anything. They should honestly already be there.

Whenever I eat a gummy bear or a jelly baby, I instinctively bite its head off first. That's bad, righ?

I don't have anything against K-pop, but K-pop fans on Twitter makes me cringe so hard sometimes.
When I clicked on the hashtag "YouTubeGiveUsOur10MillionBack" expecting to see some outrage about YouTube avoiding taxes or not paying content creators and found out it was just angry K-pop fans complaining that 10 million views disappeared (possibly only temporarily) from a video with 90 million views... Wow.

Managed to snap a little shot with Nils “Dominator” Fjellström today. Fourteen hours at work, but worth it!

Welcome back!