Ikna

God, I wish soundlcoud rap would have never became a thing to spare us from sights like these.

Maybe I am overreacting, but shit like this makes me a bit angry. You've got a band promoting itself, hyping itself up with some nice demos and promos and then delivering some fairly decent work with lots of potential and then they simply throw that away right before they even really start to do become more interesting and good at their work. This is some kind of anti-climatic shit á la overhyped video games that have a great fun demo or alpha, but when the final product comes to the market it is unripe and the entertainment dies instantly (and then it gets completely abandoned by the devs). That really makes me question why some bands even bother to form and do anything in the first place when it's clear in the beginning they can't work out. In Rands case, either they really expect to live off 15 mins of fame or Karma is really that hard to work with (in which case I'll never see him having a project continue for longer than maybe a year). Ofc the group isn't officially dead, but I don't know how Karma wants to continue this…

This discussion brings back some memories of the time the tokyo damage report about the inner workings of the VK industry was posted on the net and so many overseas fans were in total disbelief and denial. Most of us overseas fans never had been to a live in Japan and most of had no idea how the scene truly was in its home country. So it was really hard for many to stomach to hear that their beloved oh-so-perfect and "better than plastic, mass-produced 'murrican pop music" bands were just as fabricated by labels and couldn't write their own music or play their instruments. Even then many new VK bands were just talentless hacks who wanted to get their 15 mins of fame and easy access to pussy, and that was maybe 8-10 years ago? Around that same time LUNA SEA's Sugizo and Dir en grey Kyo commented on the then contemporary scene, that the newbies are not passionate about making art and music, but only care about attracting chicks. I remember how much hate and flack they both got then, with some fans accusing Sugizo to be jealous of the young bandomen, because they were hotter and got more girls, lol. How naive we gaijins were back then. Ofc we would also believe that there are no kusomen - our fav bandomen are all perfect, because they are hawt! It's good that the scene nowadays is more open about discussing what's going on inside and that we are not foaming at our mouths because someone "insulted" our fav bands by pointing out the obvious… like Kisaki's misdeeds. If that would have become public ten years ago I bet you there would have been at least a small army of people defending this guy. At least now most people see him for what he is. That said, VK always rubbed along with a bit of delinquency and depravity. Since the hosts entered the scene that got even more amplified, but that transition has taken place since a whole decade. I think we reached a point where almost none of the "original" spirit is left behind. Ofc you get the occasional band that's truly concerned about doing art, but for every honest group you get 10 forgettable ,mass-produced trash ones.

Oh, that's a shame to hear… they were really good and had potential. Maybe for the better if they had stayed in their hiatus then.

I didn't know they were still active… thought they went on hiatus some time ago, or am I wrong?

With Sacrifice… that makes three Reusing names is so common in VK, it's really annoying when you want to find info on a specific group…

AvelCains legacy, I see

I love how optimistic they all are. Everyone knows nothing's gonna happen this summer. 2020 is cancelled.

Rip

I spare you a wall of text and get right to the point: I got into VK, because I was an edgelord weeb that liked fem boys, and VK was edgy and japanese and has crossdressing. Nothing deep about it, honestly. Tho I also like goth rock shit, hence I like oldschool crap, but that wasn't the initial or main reason why I liked VK. Plenty of gawfs don't give a shit about VK.

you telling me a band with that name has such great photoshop skillz for their cover? Never

Also there was a time when people shared a lot on blogspot, though most of the times the files were taken from p2p networks anyway and there was some drama with blogs shamelessly copying links from Tainted World / Monochrome Heaven. If you were lucky enough to live in the German speaking realms then you could mail order japanese CDs from stores like Neo Tokyo, the Japan and Manga shop that spwaned the Gan-Shin records label, which distributed many japanese rock, pop and VK releases in the West. Thanks to Gan-Shin I got releases from D'espairsRay and Dir en grey. Also Trisol brought Moi dix Mois albums to Europe and then there was the Astan Magazine related label which distributed and booked tours for the gothy and darkwave-ish side of VK. Sometimes amazon had good deals on imports as well (got Malice Mizer's albums there). That was all around 2005-2007-ish for me. Then CDJapan came along and not long after I discovered shopping services. The latter had been a thing since the early to mid 00s I believe, but it was very expensive. Warehouse based shopping services like FromJapan or Zenmarket didn't exist yet, you only had the option of asking and paying a person who lived in Japan directly to get your stuff and send it to you. For me that was out of reach, since I got into VK when I was a teen and didn't have much of a budget, I usually bought what i could afford through webstores or physical. I only got into forums like tainted world around '06, so I was never part of the very early ones, like the infamous batsu forums (but I heard quite a lot of it). I too used yunisan a lot… RIP. It wasn't updated since a long time though, while vk.gy looks to be a good follow-up and replacement. I second the use of soulseek. You won't find much VK stuff there anymore, sadly, but if you look for other obscure music from genres like punk, indie, metal or post-punk, then you will likely find it there. Considering that most DL blogs and music sharing sites are dead, soulseek and torrents may be the only places for pirating and grabbing hard to get stuff today.

Lockdown here was extended to easter… also government now can control people's phone signals to look if people are respecting the new laws. 😕

If they're very naissu, they could still stream the entire thing instead. But I guess Kisaki won't do it, becuase that won't give him cash…

Will this band ever stop shitposting PVs on youtube and actually do something, like an actual release?

They are making the M10M album Mana has been promising us for a decade.

Their drummer has such a cool 80s batcave look - now if the music would be as cool and interesting as his look, but nah, we just get another generic VK band.

Just noticed a riff in 病院坂の人攫いの家 by the band 地獄絵 (jigokue) sounds similar to a section in Bathory's A Fine Way to Die (especially noticable at the 3.08 mark): Doesn't suprise me though, considering that Black Metal artist Chaos 9 was part of 地獄絵.

That's some mid 00s Myspace scene king hair cut right there… I really want to like this band, since I enjoyed MALISEND, but I don't know… I may be one of the few people who can't stand their vocalists vocals, not even the clean ones. Something about his voice makes me uncomfortable while listening. Also the instrumentals are often quite boring imo, though their last release was good∞ I'd probably would have loved it more with different vocals tho.

I haven't read to all big texts (no time atm), but really, I feel we really overcomplicate things. The sad truth that many are in denial is, that VK in the west was just a fad and trend. The majority of people who aren't into it anymore wouldn't have stuck around even without the web, mumble rap or K-POP. VK was popular because it was the kind of thing to be obsessed with if you were an awkward weeb in the 00s. By the time it hit seemingly big in the west it was already heavily declining in Japan. I mean, the last time VK was actually relevant in a music scene was in the 90s, when it peaked in popularity back at home. 00s VK was only seemingly relevant in western circles thanks to anime and manga, hence the illusion many weebs had about wanting to go to Japan as they imagined it some kind of VK paradise with hawt bandmen waiting for them at every corner and then are disappointed when they got there and had to realize that it was pretty niche and rather embarrassing thing, that most japanese people either don't care about or deny to like. The japan hype that was so closely tied to the advent of manga and anime in the west is long over. Sure, there are still weebs and fans of that stuff, but the hype isn't quite as strong as it used to be. We have to put our rosa tinted glasses down and accept that the time was over when most of us edgy and angsty kids that were outcasted for liking "chinese cartoons" all hopped on the japanese music bandwagon. I used to be quite pissed by VKs decline in quality, aesthetics and appeal too and was cringely obsessed with 90s VK, but eh… I just have to live with it being a niche genre and that most people I knew who liked it have moved on because it was just a phase for them. In that regard it's no different than grunge, Nu Metal or 00s new-modern emo.

New deathrock band fronted by Errol Fritz (of They Feed at Night) - New Skeletal Faces, which has a really interesting bleak and heavy sound: Debut album was released on Halloween. And for fans of groups like She Past Away and Drab Majesty, there's Twin Tribes, who just released their second album.

I feel this is a problem not specific to VK alone; pretty much all rock scenes struggle at the moment. Some more than others, depending on the local scene. But I hear the same stories of venues and spaces closing and labels and fanzines vanishing in other international rock and underground scenes. Fact is, that digital distribution and streaming has become the norm and less people go to record shops or move their asses to concerts. In some areas playing in front of less than 20 or 10 people has become the norm, for example. Also, and that probably has an even bigger impact, rock music isn't really "in". Both in mainstream and underground, Hip-Hop, Rap and other related genres have taken over. Recently I noticed that venues in my region that used to be exclusively focuses on punk and underground rock would now host Hip-Hop and Rap shows. Because that stuff sells. Visual kei suffers the same fate - kids these days are more likely to listen to Ghostemane and K-Pop idol groups than VK r rock music. And young people are kinda the lifeblood of the scene, so if they aren't as invested ofc it will suffer. Though I also agree that VK lacked really outstanding bands and releases in the last years. Even the big, long running oyaji bands didn't really deliver anything remarkable or highly innovating that could have brought VK back into the both national and international spotlight.

VK was remotely popular where I live at the time I was in High school, so there were some "cool kids" that liked it and i know there were some meet ups in the local scene. But being shy and introverted I never went there. And at Anime+Manga Cons I only ever stared at the VK cosplayers, never interacted with them. At my school there was one class above me that had three girls who self identified as "Visus". That was when VK and Anime reached peak hype in the German speaking lands, so I guess between 2006 and 2008/9-ish. Youth magazines really tried hard to sell it as a subcultural movement thing, so you had people walking around saying that they are "Visus" and these three girls were fully into it, dressing in mid 00s grb and with way too much eyeliner every single day, bags donned with hundreds of band buttons and weaboo shit and whatnot. I kinda admired it and envied that they had the guts to look like that. Nowadays I find it kinda silly though… most of those early attempts of foreigners to dress VK looked really shit (and more like Emo or Scene). And same with them. But they tried, I guess. So people at my school knew what it was, but apart from those "Visu" kiddos no one really cared that much and nowadays I doubt there's anyone but very few people left in this country who do. Ok, some of my classmates were mallgoths (and so were I), and they kinda thought Mana looked amazing, but they still preferred to listen to Cradle of Filth and Marylin Manson, lol.

How ironic. Excuse me if I sound harsh, because you seem young and like the kind of people who are used to their cozy social media "safe spaces" and haven't really experienced classic forum culture. But people having opinions you don't agree with is normal and I personally like that MH is one of the last places where people can share their thoughts, as controversial as they may be, without getting flamed, doxxed or "cancelled". It's a shame that you read this as "toxicity". Also like suji said: the world isn't going to end just because someone says something on the web. And MH, while petty at times, is relatively well behaved corner of the net. Anyway, I probably don't add much here, since nowadays I am just a mere silent reader and rarely participate anymore. But I came back and saw that the forum discussions were revived and just wanted to say thanks, because it has been some time since this forum had interesting, engaging topics to offer. It would be silly if you leave the place just because you feel offended, but do what you wanna do.