Ikki

While I was actually started to get into VK around the same time, Gundam Wing's "Just Communication" was my first love of Japanese music that wasn't sung in English. This caused me to have a period of time I was super crazy about Two-Mix for a couple of years and had downloaded most of their discography. However, what really got me to listen outside of the VK box of Japanese rock was actually the Sorcerous Stabber Orphen opening, "Ai Just On My Love" by Sharam Q. When I first watched the Orphen anime, I was super into Morning Musume and I didn't realize that Tsunku from Sharam Q wrote (at the time) all of their songs. Orphen has remain one of my personal favorites in terms of anime, partly due to the OPs and EDs used in the first series. I did get into one of my favorite visual kei bands, Aura, after I heard their song "Smile & Smile" being used as the last ending song for the City Hunter anime. Since I've began my diet to lose 100 pounds, I've been listening to a lot of anime openings when I do my work outs. I noticed mecha and shonen animes, especially the ones from the '80s, are really good for pumping me up and keeping my energy levels high. These are some of my favorite songs to listen while I'm working out. Super Dimension Century Orguss Blue Comet SPT Layzner Hokuto no Ken Metal Armor Dragonar Aura Battler Dunbine

Since Urban Decay is changing their lipstick formula again, I bought a few tubes of the ones that I was running low on (Anarchy, Matte Bittersweet, and Sheer Shame). I also got my new Wacom Intuos drawing tablet to replace my 8 year old Wacom Bamboo tablet.

Today, I picked up these vinyl records at my local record store. This is like the third time I have seen an Earthshaker release at this store, so I'm wondering if someone else in my small town likes them. Earthshaker - Blondie Girl EP Babymetal - Metal Resistance EZO - EZO This is my more recent online order I've received the other day. Irokui - 曖昧ストライプ Irokui - ミセス・アルビノとMr.カーボン Irokui - 完喰‐クライキリ S - 四次元図鑑

I tried to not include bands that were glam rock/glam metal that could have been seen as VK in my list. It's mostly oldies because I have a fondness for old music. Loudness Grand Slam Sharam Q Lazy Flower Travellin' Band Cobra RC Succession Princess Princess Wands Kome Kome Club

I'm both shocked and not surprised that they are disbanding. I quit following them around the release of NOW, but Girugamesh were a huge part of my high school years (2005 - 2008) of my life. I really hope the best for the guys in the band and hope they all will keep playing music in some form, whether or not if it's the same style as Girugamesh.

I haven't compared the scripts to the Central Anime fansub of Gundam X, but the footage quality is only a little sharper than the CA fansubs. Other than that, the footage mastering looks like it is from the early 2000s. I expected that as it hasn't been released on blu-ray in Japan and I believe it didn't get the HD DVD release that most of the Gundam franchise has received in the late 2000s. If you have downloaded the Central Anime fansub, I would skip the Gundam X DVDs unless you really have to have an official release of it.

Most of Ladies Room's discography would fall under this category, especially when you have lyrics such as "Come on, lick the penis" and half of your songs are talking about blow jobs or one night stands.

I got my Gundam ZZ and Gundam X DVDs today as well as Dai-Guard. Thanks Rightstuf!

Out of what's currently airing, I'm watching Boku no Hero Academia, Concrete Revolutio season 2, Endride, Jojo Part 4, Kiznaiver, and Macross Delta. I'm watching the Gundam Unicorn TV series just to see what's been added/removed from the OVAs. I'm planning on watching Magi: Sinbad no Bouken when it starts airing. I have not seen any of the previous two seasons of new Jojo anime nor have read the manga, but I really am enjoying what I have watched so far. (The only thing Jojo I seen before were those old OVAs from back in the day.) For old series, I'm watching Giant Gorg and Change!! Getter Robo: The Final Days of the World (aka Getter Robo Armageddon). I also want to rewatch Super Dimension Century Orguss, but I have a bunch of back-logged anime I need to complete before I should rewatch it.

Some things I order for my birthday, which I got today on my birthday. XD

Mine is misspelling of a nickname I already have (Eckie) which was from a mispronouncing of my real name (Emily). The story is that I had a friend in high school thought that my nickname was spelt like the Saint Seiya character instead of Eckie. On most forums I'm active on, I usually spell it as Ikkii or Ikkie as Ikki is usually taken due to the weeaboo nature of the name.

My pre-birthday gift that I bought myself. XD

I already posted about me buying the Goatcore CD a while ago, but I got it the other day. The Rockin' F magazine singles I ordered way back in November randomly showed up today after me thinking they got lost in the mail during Christmas madness. Other than random demo tapes, live distribution tapes, and best ofs; my Tokyo Yankees and Decameron discography seems to be mostly complete now. I'm way too lazy and poor to even try to track those demos and live distribution tapes. Goatcore - Goatcore Tokyo Yankees - Joker (Rockin' F vinyl single) Decameron - お前だけに I Love You (Rockin' F vinyl single)

My first "crush" on any musician was on Yamada Masaki of EZO waaaaay back when I was a tiny, little kid. My dad had a glam metal/thrash metal VHS magazine tape called Metal Head Volume 1 and had a clip featuring EZO. I can't remember god knows what the clip was, I think it might have been a live performance, but I was and still am smitten forever for Masaki due to it. Anymore, I have noticed I'm super attracted to the 40+ year old Jrockers. I love me some older guys with some age in their faces, especially guys like Takasaki Akira and Shibata Naoto. For younger Jrockers, mostly VK exclusive, I usually gravitate towards the uglier guys as I don't like how perfect looking most of the guys are in the current scene.

I finally decided to pick up these after illegally downloading them back when they were released. David Bowie - Nothing Has Changed (3 Disk version) David Bowie - Blackstar Babymetal - S/T Even though I won't get it until a couple of weeks, I won a copy of the Goatcore album after debating 8 years if I actually needed it. It was a side project of Adachi You (Dead End) and Marry (Color) that released their only album back in 1991.

Sorry for the crappy pictures, I shattered my phone's screen beyond repair, so I had to use the horrid camera on my tablet. Mask - Tamerai Jisatsu Shingou Mask - Tokyo Trick Theater Panic Channel - Shinjinsen ~Yume Ni Mukatte Hen~ Kiryu - Tomoshibi (Type C) Vinett - Happy!! Blu-BiLLioN - Tresor (Type A) Billy & The Sluts - 20th Anniversary Octopus Cult - Outlet Monster Grand Slam - Grand Slam Tokyo Yankees - Pre-emptive Strike Tokyo Yankees - 777 Jacks 'n' Joker - The Very Best of Jacks 'n' Joker Color - Some Become Stranger (Video Single) Ladies Room - 地獄までドライヴ BY-SEXUAL - Get, Start, Don't Stop, Go Go!! (Video Single) Ladies Room - A Little Piece of Heaven A bass pick used by Color's Marry. Ladies Room Magazine Clippings Tokyo Yankees Magazine Clippings BY-SEXUAL Magazine Clippings Kamaitachi Magazine Clippings

Ah...KuRt, how I used to be crazy about you back when you were active. It took me a few minutes to remember what band Kazoku was, not my favorite song by them. 1. David Bowie - Fashion 2. Girls' Generation - The Boys 3. Gastunk - Shout 4. Adam Ant - Friend of Foe 5. Manic Street Preachers - 1985 6. Toy Dolls - Dougy Giro 7. The Yellow Monkey - Shock Hearts 8. Lazy - 感じてナイト 9. The Timers - デイ・ドリーム・ビリーバー～DAY DREAM BELIEVER～ 10. Backyard Babies - Friends I had to go with The Timers because Imawano Kiyoshiro covering The Monkees is something extremely special. . My pick would have been Lazy, because I love the original version a lot, but I really hate the Ultimate Lazy (aka Kageyama Hironobu & Takasaki Akira featuring JAM Project) version.

Out of the 38 former and current members, only 7 of them speak English fluently. That is if we don't include the Chinese members, Linlin and Junjun. I believe only Linlin could speak English out of the two. Kago Ai (ex-Morning Musume) - lived in the US with a family member a short time after one of her many scandals. Takahashi Ai (ex-Morning Musume) - really enjoys English-language music and was her inspiration to learn the language, was going to try and become a performer on Broadway after her graduation from Morning Musume. Ogawa Makoto (ex-Morning Musume) - graduated Morning Musume to go to collage to study English, has since retired from being a talento to teach English. Mitsui Aika (ex-Morning Musume) - after graduating Morning Musume, she studied in New Zealand for English and now acts as an official translator for Hello! Project and Up-Front Production Sayashi Riho (ex-Morning Musume) - is learning English as she is planning to go to a performance art school in the USA. Iikubo Haruna (Morning Musume) - learned English to connect to Western otakus. Nonaka Miki (Morning Musume) - lived in the USA for 8-9 years prior of joining Morning Musume in 2015. She is pretty much promoted in the Momusu fandom as the English-speaking girl. For other Japanese artists: Yamada Masaki (ex-EZO/ex-Loudness) - Has been living in the USA since the '80s and prefers to speak in English over Japanese. Tatsu (Gastunk/ex-Jacks 'n' Joker) - Really fluent in English. Will speak English 80% of the time if he has the chance. George (Ladies Room) - Can string up basic sentences in English and likes to use English slang from what I have seen. He prefers to speak in Japanese, though. Hitomi Genki (ex-Vow Wow) - Was in Bow Wow when they changed their name to Vow Wow and when they relocated to England. After he left the band, he became a high school teacher in Japan and teaches English. I know Takasaki Akira and Niihara Minoru (both of Loudness) can speak English to some degree, but it's not the greatest English I have ever heard.

BY-SEXUAL - Young Spirits: I really love most of their albums and I can listen to them all of the way through if I'm listening to them on CD. However, this one is the only album that I cannot listen to the songs as stand alone tracks (if I'm listening to it on my computer or iPod). I find the songs to be a lot weaker compare to their other material and the concept they had during this era to be really odd. But Thank You For Smile has to be one of my favorite PVs due to the goofiness of members turning into random objects. Color - Ask the Angels: I really do not like "major label" era of Color for the most part. The single versions of the songs on this album are cringe-worthy. The album versions at least get rid of the annoying, cheesy sound effects that the single versions had. The only songs I enjoyed were Urban Scandal and Big Wave. Sister's No Future Max - Mind Park: SNF, in general, is the biggest mess of a band that I can say I like in some weird way. Sister's No Future Super Deluxe's T.G.I.F. album is one of my guilty pleasure albums because it is so bad that it's good. (Trying to figure out who's the best singer between D.Tommy, Kenzi, Den, and She-ja in "Long Time No See" is a great conversation piece, BTW.) However, the follow-up SNF Max album, Mind Park is very, very horrible. I get second-hand embarrassment just by listening to this album. I try to forget I own this album.

The last things I have received: The last things I actually bought (but won't get them until next week with a bunch of other J-rock goodies):

1. New York Dolls - New York Dolls 2. Sweet - Desolation Boulevard 3. Hanoi Rocks - Back To Mystery City 4. Slade - Slayed? 5. Loudness - Loudness 6. Mötley Crüe - Too Fast For Love 7. Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast 8. X Japan - Vanishing Vision 9. Color - Gekitotsu!! The Loudness album switches between their self-titled album and their Hurricane Eyes album; I like the self-titled album more for the musicianship on it but enjoy the songs off of Hurricane Eyes more.

However, Murbas had Youichi "Heesey" Hirose in the group, who is better known for being in The Yellow Monkey. You know, that one glam rock group that some people consider to be a VK band. Heesey used to run around the same group of people that various members of Extasy band did during the late '80s/early '90s, especially members of Ladies Room whom hide was super close with. I wouldn't take it past any VK musicians to take a friend's/peer's idea and label it their own, especially those early bands. Also, I have never heard keshou kei being used exclusively for early VK. I have seen glam metal bands (like Poison and Cinderella) and glam rock bands (Sweet and New York Dolls) being labeled that before. It's like saying "visual rock" is exclusive for artists like Alice Cooper or KISS, when all VK bands are visual rock bands as well.

Kote kei is usually defined as the stuff that came after the first wave of VK (1985-1994). The first wave of VK was often labeled as Heavy Metal back in the day, the same label used for bands such as Loudness and Anthem. In fact most rock music that was heavier than pop rock was labeled as metal music in Japan during that period. The 1985-1994 era is often called the "East vs West" era due to the playful rivalry between Extasy Records and Free-Will Records during the period. I don't think there's an actual "kei" genre describing this period. I freaking love this era of VK because the majority of the bands did not sound a like and I have spent a good several years researching random bands of this period. Extasy was more metal and were Kanto based while Free-Will was more punk and were Kansai based. (Very basic info.) Most of the big bands were either signed to one of those two labels. There are a handful that weren't; they often weren't as big as the Extasy or Free-Will groups, maybe with Strawberry Fields, D'erlanger, Aion, Justy-Nasty, and Aura being the exceptions. I could go on and on about random crap that no one cares about of this era. Proto-VK bands were often formed before 1985 and have heavy connections to VK or were a huge influence; however, another major thing if a band is a proto-VK band is when was their first album released. Most proto-VK bands have had albums released before 1988, while bands that are labeled as VK have their albums released in 1988. Bands such as The Stalin, 44Magnum, and Gastunk are pretty much considered proto-VK. You could argue Dead End, Flatbacker, Laughin' Nose, and Buck-Tick are proto-VK. Hell, RC Succession and Loudness can be called proto-VK if you think about it. Proto-VK is like proto-punk, it is the bands that influenced the bands that started the original visual kei scene.

Even though I love the early VK look, I prefer the more tamed variations of the look over the extreme versions. I was never really a fan of the Medusa (that's what the hair style was called) that Sceana (Kamaitachi), Tatsuya (Color), hide (X Japan), and various other guys sported back then. Indies-era Ladies Room Pleasure of the Sluts era Justy-Nasty Late 1990/Early 1991 era Kamaitachi (I really hate Kazzy's "blow-out" hair he did while in Kamaitachi.) Late 1996 era Genkaku Allergy