Shizumi

Karma is my visual kei hero gtfo to your business school and church fund raiser event if you don't like him

Yes, and?    What substantial difference would it make to the music if all these things were suddenly gone? The musical heritage and traditions of visual kei would remain intact nonetheless, and most importantly what does it matter if they cater to fangirls? Is the implication here that if visual kei ditched the aesthetic and became "serious music" catering to males in their 20's and 30's the artists then would aspire to some never before seen heights of musical integrity? Oh if finally I could take Gazette to dinner parties and church fund raisers and impress all my buddies! While OP here was being more modest than usual the folk who go about the issue, this is basically what was being said here: "I am ashamed of listening to music with musicians who don't look acceptable and only if they could ditch the aesthetic and move on to make serious real music!". The real irony in this usually is that the people who do move on from visual kei usually go to no greener pastures and instead masturbate over some awful garbage like metal bands fresh from their show at Wacken.   What people seem to often disregard is that no musical movement is void of extra-musical bells and whistles and musicians of all of them tend to fit a certain image often ascribed to the people who play the sort of music that they do. As if everything from indie rock to punk and bloody witch house didn't have a carefully thought out image to fill, and the reason why this is, is that the artists prefer it that way. If it weren't all about the looks then why do all the bands of particular scenes look exactly same? It is the culture which has developed hand in hand with the music itself, and they are inseparable. 
 
I can only deduce that people who would prefer their visual kei in backwards caps and cargo shorts are tasteless ingrates insecure about their own image. 

Nobody cares.

My relationship with this band started out great. Their music was an over the top circus music spectacle with fun chugging and breakdown dubbing, great contemporary visual kei vocal stylings with fantastic generic choruses, and all of it was brought together with a big dumb production job. Even at their most subdued I still found shit pretty catchy and good for an intoxicated listen. 
 
Now the short romance is brought to an end and the band did exactly what I was afraid would happen as per usual with visual kei of this sort. The new songs on this album really sucked out all the fun I had with the singles tracks, and it's all just drab now. This might still be purely coincidental however, and they'd return to the form I prefer with whatever comes out next and that would have all the dumb breakdowns I'd desire, but I don't think I care anymore. I was really holding out hope that this band would do what no VK band has done so far, and that would essentially be the post-modern visual kei Suicide Silence with the fun of both generic metalcore and generic visual kei. Now it's pretty clear that this is not happening and I was just hoping for something that there was never really any indication for, and my enjoyment of this band was at least half optimism for what the future would hold.
 
Now in these new tracks their true nature is revealed; they're drab, dumb and most importantly of all, not fun. It speaks volumes when the visual kei interpretation of metalcore is so dire that the generic dogshit riff DAD AROMA lifted from somewhere got people excited. Gawd.

Lately me and various other regulars ( whom I hope voice their support for immediate action and add to the discussion ) have been thinking that there's a problem, and that is the severe lack of participation in forum activities in part of some of the staff members. It's pretty much widely acknowledged all around that especially a bulk of the blue ( and the late green, whom were subsequently and justly culled ) mods are notoriously inactive when it comes to interacting with much of the community.
 
It's true that I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and what are the contributions of each one there, but I do believe that actual "moderating" is far from being the only job of a staff member. A member of the staff should have a proactive approach to the forums; interacting with the members, making topics and creating discussions as often as possible and not just once or twice a month when the mood is right. The benefits of this approach for example have been seen in the review and general sections. If Zess and CAT5 wouldn't have made all the topics and discussions there that they have I bet nobody would have and the general section would still be pretty much dead. 
 
I think the forum would benefit a lot from updating the staff roster with users who are in the loop of the current goings in the Japanese music scene, and imporantly the said users should be known by the people and the people should know them. I bet many newcomers who registered in the late 2012, early 2013 have no clue who these people are and I can't really blame them, seeing as some of the staff rarely post anything that classifies as a contribution. 
 
And I'm not trying to come off as hostile, but I really think this forum has seen a surge of activity as of late ( some people would very much disagree with me though ) and I think that we should capitalize on that with a new, active and participating staff. There should be as little inactivity as possible and most definately zero people that clearly stick around just because they're friends. A mod status should be for those who are absolutely dedicated and if the time comes when they cannot live up to their duties, they should resign without a second thought. 
 
edit: I urge everyone to say either yay or nay below. There needs to be some discussion about this because this is what people complain about all the time. 
 
Everyone, and I mean everyone has complained about the forum being dead at one point. I honestly think that a staff that is right there in the middle of everything is the best way to engage this problem. While I also realise that you might be hesitant to do a revamp after the failure of the green mods, culling the one or two that are certainly solely dead weight right now and replacing them with new ones wouldn't hurt.  
 
edit2: To address another concern that was voiced: The user and mod apathy. 
 
It may be a convenient excuse for staff members and users alike to free themselves of the burden of contributing just because "What does it matter when nobody else won't do anything either". That's reasonable, why would anyone post when nobody else does? 
 
I feel this concern can be directly addressed with a proactive, enthusiastic and most importantly of all, in the loop staff. What makes or breaks any content creator and site on the web is quality and consistency. The amount of good coming from a staff that brings life to where there isn't should be obvious for anyone. One or two mods can't do that alone, it needs to be the whole team. 
 
These changes need to be done swiftly and throughout with zero compromise or months long discussions between the administration.  I think it's necessary that the amount of new blood is large is enough to reinvigorate the staff and forum.

Show yourself again ( and again )