Champ213

Well, when I started studying the huge jrock/vk boom hadn't reached Europe yet. So that wasn't really an issue, I have no clue if the courses are now filled with pink-haired Ancafe fangirls. (As a matter of fact, I only got into jrock because I thought it would be helpful for learning the language if I listened to some japanese music, and since I never was that much into pop, I searched the net for some heavier stuff.) Anime was a fringe topic in some courses, but with its good right, there are a lot of Animes with a deeper meaning (Hotaru no haka, just to name one), and for better or worse, it is an important part of japanese pop culture (unlike visual kei, which is/was really just a fad). But our institute's emphasis was on cultural history, so popculture was only a minor topic. I did once visit a course though where we would translate japanese song lyrics (jpop lyrics that is), and it was actually a nice diversion from just reading news papers, Haruki Murakami or Murasaki Shikibu. D:

I majored in Japanese too. But I started before I even knew visual kei or heard a single jrock band, and the only anime I knew was Sailor Moon. And to be honest, when I was stuyding it at university, people who wanted to write their papers about manga and stuff like that barely existed, or were frowned upon/laughed at. As Arith said, the few people that maybe only took it up because they liked Naruto usually disappeared within the first 3 months. There's a high drop-out rate in the first weeks in general.

IT WAS NOT BIN LADEN WHO WAS KILLED TODAY! IT WAS ACTUALLY ELVIS! BIN LADEN ACTUALLY NEVER EXISTED BUT WAS A HOLOGRAM CREATED BY THE MI6! (Not the CIA, the CIA doesn't exist either, that's a conpiracy too! Just so you know.) ACTUALLY THE WHOLE MIDDLE EAST DOESN'T EXIST BUT IS FILMED IN A BBC FILM STUDIO TO CREATE A CONVENIENT ENEMY FOR US! AND TOMORROW WE'LL ALL GONNA DIE/GET NUKED/PERISH IN WWIII/GET ENSLAVED FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER BY LIBERALS AND ENVIRONMETALIST! (Not exactly sure which of it, so take your pick.) Yeah, sorry for the sarcams/cynism/hyperbole, but conspiracy theories just make me So I guess I'm better outta this topic, or else I fear I might have to smash both my head and my desk into pieces.

As a funny sidenote, the "head piece" I'm wearing on the photo is actually the seam of a torn bedsheet and a leftover from a costume my friend was making. So, if anyone ever wants to have a nice maid head piece, don't bother throwing away thousands of Yen at Moi Meme Moitie, just tear away the seam of your bed sheet and sew the ends together. Done! I even was complimented on the head piece by a gothloli girl that looked like she spent a fortune on her own outfit.

Nothing will happen. Nothing spectacular anyway. There are still enough fucktards that want to blow up people, but they already wanted that yesterday, so nothing has changed. Of course many people will simply deny it happened and will conjure up the usual retarded conspiracy theories, and Bin Laden will be "seen" in Kenia, Siberia and surely on Mars as well. And in the meantime life, such as it is, will go on as any other day, with all its usual good and bad news.

Not shedding any tears.

What a shitstorm, lol. But seriously, it's also pretty unprofessional on his end. First he pisses off each and every decent promoter in central Europe that would actually be able to bring his bands over, so he has to resort to working with a 19-year-old girl, that probably still goes to school, never succesfully organized any concerts, let alone with japanese acts, but just started a "concert agency" weeks earlier, and probably never had the resources to organize such an event in the first place. You'd think somebody who has been in the business as long as he was would check the credibility of his associates before comitting any sort of effort or even money into such an endeavour.

Rumor has it that the promoter is a 19-year old fangirl that "formed" that concert agency with 2 friends a few months ago, and apparently they screwed up now. In which case it probably wouldn't be Kiwamu's fault, except of course that he's so desperate to even work with such people, because obviously nobody else would have him.... They are the same people that are organizing the Vallquar concert in Munich, let's see if that one will take place...

If I remember correctly, DespairsRay were featured in Popcorn once too. And there was a time when jrock bands were very regulary featured in the Bravo magazine, which has pretty much the same level. Not sure if they still do it now, but I remember a few years ago when the whole boom started, bands like Dir en grey, Mucc, DespairsRay, Kagerou, Merry etc. used to pop up more than once between all the teen idols and gossip. Which would then look like this:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRIMZ!

This pic is from 2004. It's 1:17 am. I'm sitting in a public train with a rather curious hairstyle, a headdress and a tiny apron, not to mention a lollypop, and I look totally strung out. And I'm not going to answer any further questions about it.

GRiSt was fairly decent, if I remember correctly. And violinist sounds good to me. But brodiaea was meh and I don't know Laging. So, I guess I'm cautiously curious about them.

He looks like a guy from this band. I don't know the member names, try googling for the band name and see if you find their OHP.

Thanks, but I already won a mudkip for making 2nd place in a viking hula contest last month. I appreciate the sentiment though.

The Romeo has lives scheduled for next month, so I guess they're still active: http://www.the-romeo.com/ And this is Daishi's blog, last updated... today. http://ameblo.jp/d-a-i-s-h-i/

Lol, no. Actually, upon re-checking, it wasn't a musician, it was an actor: Tsugawa Masahiko. And for those interested, here's some info the castle. You can rent the castle for weddings starting from 326,500 Yen (that's roughly 4000 USD). Renting it for a PV shooting will probably be cheaper.

You buy it, tear it down stone by stone, ship the stones to Japan and rebuild it.

I wrote a last.fm journal about this a few years ago. At that time it had already been used in 2 Psycho le Cemu PVS (Michi no sora & Excalibur) and 2 Dio PVs (God Forsaken and Last Dance) - see the journal for screenshots or look them up on youtube. Since then it was also used in Versailles' Aristocrats Symphony PV and a Megaromania PV: f7gzrEHi44c f_loC_zVHx8 That makes it 6. What do I win? (I did some reasearch back then btw, the "castle" is some sort of scottish mansion that was imported to Japan by a rich musician, and it's rented out for weddings and stuff.)

You can't tell by his cock? D: While I had originally started university with a major in Cock Forensics, I decided that the field was way too saturated with outsourced jobs so I switched out. Thanks. I just needed a good laugh.

I think they were mentioned on the folk metal thread. Either way, I liked the album too. As for festivals, the only one I'm considering is Heidenfest 2011 because one of the extended shows is nearby. I'd mainly go for Turisas, Arkona and Wintersun. Alestorm being there kinda annoys me, not because I mind them, but because they just come to damn often! I'd give my firstborn to exchange them for Týr, for example.

I've been to some gigs in Germany, I think the German audience is pretty cool compared to the Swiss and/or French fans. I saw Versailles in Cologne last year and the audience seemed fine. Then again we arrived kinda late and didn't bother to make our way to the front but rather stayed in the middle of the audience, so maybe we missed the most fanatic people. I've seen rougher crowds at non-j-rock concerts though. My only grievance with the gig was that it was incredibly HOT that day and the concert venue was even hotter than it was outside. Everyone was melting.

I'm usually behind when it comes to checking out new stuff. So I haven't listened to that many stuff from 2011 yet. At first I wanted to mention the Black Album by A, but then I realized that it was released in 2010 already, same as the albums by Bellfast and 女王蜂. Which cuts down the amount of japanese stuff.... I guess the re-recorded LUNA SEA album was nice, if that counts. And the livehouse distro from Ronove of course. In terms of non-japanese music the new albums by Amon Amarth, Turisas, ThanatoSchizo and Wormfood come to my mind first. Honorable mentions to Falkenbach, Moonsorrow and Nothgard. I still have a bunch of stuff to check out though.

Pff, even I had to think of Hitler when reading the band name. Because when vk bands use random german words, they're either counting to four, or are using some unfortunate nazi reference (Adolf, Aushvitz, Hakenkreuz, etc.). So, it's not really racist, it's knowing your genre.

Not by his own choice he did'nt. Seriously, I'm back home for 5 minutes and stumble into a shitstorm? Good job, people.

As herpdawg would say: RUDE. That's how I roll, baby.