Ikna

Joined it today (I actually never used soulseek before- when I was discovering file sharing the great era of soulseek was already at end so I never bothered about it.

(nix los? Dann muss ich pushen! ;P) Ich habe auch Englisch gelernt, indem ich viel Englisch lese und mir Serien in Englisch ansehe- hat mir ehrlich gesagt mehr gebracht als fast 9 Jahre Englisch Unterricht in der Schule! Was die Aussprache angeht, da bin ich nicht s gut... aber wir Österreicher (und sicher auch Deutsche) haben bekanntlicherweise so ihre Probleme mit dem Englischen, vor allem dem "th". "Loook, zats ä käääät!" (look, that's a cat)- so klingt das dann meistens XD Aber es ist wirklich gut, wenn man eine Fremdsprache lernen will, Menschen beim Sprechen zuzuhören. So lernt man oft auch noch neue Sprüche, Sprichwörter und Ausdrucksweisen kennen. @rosà: jup, ich glaube diese Seite gehört zu MH und soll sich allgemein mit japanischer Musik beschäftigen- iklint jedenfalls sehr intressant und war denke ich eine Reaktion darauf, dass viele die nicht-visual kei bands aus Japan wenig beachten.

For the people who plan to buy it I hope that Mana will write about things we don't already know... but somehow I doubt that he will reveal any of his very personal secrets, because that could make him less ~mysterious~

I say Versailles, even though I haven't listened to much of their songs. But the few I know where pretty good especially in comparison to Lareine's work. I just can't stand romantic and calm music and most of Lareine's stuff makes me want to sleep. Well, tastes are different...

I am not really into oshare, except for Aicle. because they were pretty unique, but I agree to what the people here have said. Old and classic Oshare isn't popular for the same reason as traditional or darker visual kei is- because they don't sell well anymore. I personally don't think that heavier or darker visual kei bands are 'in' now- if that would be the case there weren't so many techno-dance rock bands who overuse autotune and are all "everything's love and peace! Let's Party!" In that case we could even dare to say oshare is somehow still alive in the neo visual trend- but only the cover in which the neo visual bands are wrapped to be sold better to fangirls and fanboys who wnat their bands to be "KAWAIIII!".

This band must be so awesome life. And it makes me somehow happy that they are playing not only old La'mule songs but also NightingeiL ones. If I just have the money and could go :/ At least the album release comes nearer and nearer.

I agree to 237Q. Visual kei, the original movement, doesn't exist anymore. Modern Visual kei has become something entirely different and I doubt that this is only the result of how it has evolved in the last 20 years. VK has lost its original intention, its power and what was the main reason to create and determine its existence. I agree that visual kei is more or less a so called patchwork genre- a style, culture or genre that takes influences and elements of other cultures and genres. In conclusion it's right that the bands from the late 80s are different from those of the 90s- that's something we can all understand if we just look at the bands from the 80s who have used elements from glam, punk, new romantic and the 90s bands also mixed metal, hardcore and goth to it. Modern VK bands are more fond of pop-rock Nu-Metal, Metalcore and electronic music. A band like Color looks and sounds different from a matina band like Madeth Gray'll, that's a fact. But (here comes a big but) the bands from the 80s and 90s still have enough in common that you can say "they both are visaul kei bands". I don't get the same feeling when looking at newer VK bands. Why is that so? What I miss in modern VK is its power. Old visual kei had it, because it was radical. It was a statement against the well ordered and strictly ruled japanese society, it was rebellious, chaotic and it seemed aggressive, dangerous (back then more than today. What's today rather unintentionally funny has been viewed as suspicious in the past). Visual kei musicians were the visual portray of how not to be as a japanese men: cross-dressing, wearing dirty clothes, looking extreme (leather, netshirts and netstockings, rocker and punk fashion elements), having very creative hairstyles and dyed hair and so on. And despite the bands mostly only dressing up for concerts and perfomances they were still consiedered to be rebels- just dying your hair was very unusual in Japan and seems to be still (especially when you go to school or work, where you have to follow a strict dress-code) Of course there were already a lot of bands dressing like deliquents, rocker or divas and once they've got fairly known they would transform into your average bland boy group band. So in the end VK wasn't never really successfull with the "anti-society" thing and bands in the end would always rely on money (and if that didn't work then disband). Modern Visual kei has adopted a lot of the former "scene" and some things didn't really change, but VK has entirely bacome a part of japanese culture and society- there is nothing aggressive, questionable or extreme about it. It's just another fashion and music trend which adapts to current trends and therefore will survive- but it has no meaning or statement. Back in the old days nobody would have thought VK even to manage to go to the streets- today a lot of people are wearing typical modern visual kei fashion. It's not hard to pull it off anymore as the modern VK look is quite shallow too. You will be in danger of failing a lot more if you want to pull of the VK look from before ca. 2004 or 2005 and most people will think you are totally stupid for running around like a clown with neon colored hair, try hard spooky make-up and leather wear. I am not saying modern VK is all shit and only good old school VK is the only thing- but VK has changed way too much since its beginnings and I personnaly can't find any linkage between bands like Futurism Boyz, Devi+tec and for example ROUAGE. They look different, they sound different, that's understandable, but in my opinion the "let's be cool and cute boys and make some cool bland music" isn't the same as "now let's provokate a bit through founding a band that plays rock music and we put a lot of make-up on". Both intentions may be silly, but I like the outcome of the latter one better. And there is also a lot I miss in VK. The costumes which were visually striking, the way they have played their music (which also was very similiar throughout the 80s and 90s though the different sounds and styles which were popular at their era), the topics and imagery (insanity, pain, loss, death... of course also a lot of cheesy stuff like lost love) and the use of concepts (for example the stage plays Malice Mizer did). Hell, even the crappy low budget PVs of the indie bands had their own charm. All in all: VK will survive, it may become more popular or vanish from the mainstream completely, but it will adapt and transform and with every new transformation it will lose another (already almost dissolved) part of its origin. There will people who will like the way VK bands will play in the future- and some older fans will be sceptical. That's something you can't change, I admit, because sooner or later this kind of mechanism happens to all genres if they have gotten known and popular enough. We are living in a capitalistic society and one can only survive by making money- so VK has and had no other choice than becoming mass-compatible.

VK is already dead since ca. 2004 or 2005. It can only become more "undead" and rotten... It's really sad that they have decided to disband. They were propably one of the few serious and good vk bands around and I never really imagined them to stop so early.

I'm not a fan of the singer's voice or style... but that bass was really good and the music is interesting. I may look out for their stuff in the future.

My Ipod can only store 16 GB... I may be buying one with greater capacity in the future as I'd also like to have a lot more of my music on my MP3 Player. Even though I 'm not listening to all songs (it would be impossible anyways) I like the feeling of having them all gathered at one place. There are a lot of bands I never delete from my Ipod, which are DIR EN GREY, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Christian Death, Moonspell, La'Mule, The Cure, D (and some other).

Mötley Crüe- Danger

Ich bleibe auch zu Hause in Österreich (ich vereise aber generell nie... bin zu arm dafür XD'). Leider ist der Sommer dieses Jahr zumindest hier be mir nicht so toll... ständig regnet es an die 10 Liter pro Tag. Dann ist es einmal schön und heiß und am nächsten Tag wieder kalt D:

-Soul Eater -Black Butler

I think it's time the whole "V-Rock covering [insert anything]" thing stops. In my opinion only a few V.A.s of this sort were good and the rest was rather "bleh"

Short answer: yes. Why should I stop liking a band, a drawing or a book just because the creator is a person who you can agree with? Liking a particupar product doesn't automatically make you agree with the creator's opinions, values or doings. You can still disagree with him. Back to Kisaki: I was really confused about this whole thing at first. It seemed and still seems to be very strange as I can't understand the intentions behind these actions. ( I am not the only one) There is actually nothing to gain from taking other people's images and pretend they were yours- as most of the pics were of simple and rather unimportant things. It would make more sense to take pics of something that makes you appear "great"- for example the image of an expensive car. Maybe I am not understanding something correctly but Kisaki's behaviour is just arbitrary, like he said "I am going to the hospital... so let's take some images of food and paper cranes and pretend they have beend made during my stay just because I can." My personal opinion is: what he has done is bad, especially for him and his image (which is important to the kind of fans who put their trust into him and care about him). It doesn't stop me to like the music has done, although I am not that of a big fan of him. But I am pretty sure that this action will cause another shitstorm about Kisaki being money greedy (even though stealing pics from google ddoesn't bring him any cent... people will still use this argument).

@ Megaromania: Is it just me or does Misery look really old here? O__O And the Lin one is great. Is Kisaki the one with the brown hair in the middle? (It's hard to recognize him after seeing him always with tons of make-up and the same expression on every photo)

Excellent dark and macabre art. I really like it

Interesting stuff. I like the watercolour effects too and your use of colours in general. Also you make nice pencil drawings!

Okay... dafür habe ich keine Worte XD Aber gut, dass ich in Österreich wohne. Hier gibt es soweit ich weiß zwar auch sehr seltsame Wörter, aber Begriffe dieser Art sind mir noch nicht begegnet (und unsere Politiker würden gar nicht erst versuchen, solche Wörter zu benutzen... aus Angst sich zu blamieren.) Aber was es nicht alles gibt. Und kein Wunder, dass Deutsch so sehr als schwere Sprache empfunden wird, bei unseren grammatikalischen Regeln, der Rechtschreibung (die sich auch alle paar Jahre ändert) und eben so seltsamen Wörtern.

Troll? Sarcasm? Well... I agree with most people here. Some bands have really the weirdest fans who think their loved bands are the crown of great music and the represantation of the average japanese men (who they often imagine to be godlike entities) and their general obsession with japan and how they see it as some kind of garden eden full of hot visual kei boys which is really irrational and stupid. Luckily I am not really a concert visiter so I have not to deal with the rabid fangirls face to face. Meeting them and their mental shit on the internet is bad enough, especially when they start a conversation with how good japanese music (which they automatically translate to Vk, because all japanese music is visual...) is and how much any other country's music sucks, despite they can never know all bands and music scenes from all non-asian or japanese countries. I can only roll my eyes when an obsessive fan starts again with the "japanese visual kei is so deep, emotional and full of passion and so different from all other boring music styles! It's the BEST!"- 'argument'.

Ja, das mit dem Zusammenfügen von Wörtern im Deutschen ist ganz Praktisch! Außer man übertreibt es so wie in diesem "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz"... wird das wirklich gebraucht? Ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass irgendjemand so einen Zungenbrecher makellos aussprechen kann XD Aber gerade im juristischen Bereich gibt es Begriffe, wo man sich echt fragen muss, wer sich solchen Blödsinn ausdenkt...

Is it bad that I love staring at their old photoshoots, saying to myself "That hair and make-up was so badass!"? I like their early releases more than their latest albums, but that's because I'm a sucker for crappy 90s visual kei and was never a ig fan of the metal genre.

They finally release an album. That's good. I was already afraid they will disband before releasing anything bigger than a single, considering how slow they were (and how you often haven't heard anything new from them). I will buy the album. I liked their single very much and I hope they will release more music of this kind of "Kote-kei" type in the future. And yeah, they are one of the most interesting UCP bands at the moment.

I will never understand how japanese people can like vocaloid so much that they even spend money on things like this or visit concerts and dance to a virtual manga figure displayed on a screen...

Ich bin kein so wirklicher Konzertgänger- daher ist es wohl unwahrscheinlich XD Wobei die Welt ja klein ist... Ich denke ich bin wohl einfach nicht genug trainiert dafür. Mein Wortschatz ist auch nicht so riesig und in der Schule bin ich immer ein bisschen hinterher gehinkt (habe aber trotzdem gute Noten gehabt)- aber es stimmt, dass sich gewisse Sachen im Englischen leichter erklären lassen. Deswegen denke ich manchmal sogar im Englischen (ganz unbewusst). Ich bin auch seit ca. 2 Jahren nicht mehr in der Schule udn ja, man verlernt Einiges (vor allem im Bereich des Rechtschreibens). Gutes Deutsch ist wohl sehr selten geworden, weil darauf nicht mehr so Acht genommen wird. Und wenn man dank Fernsehen und Umfeld nur "Gossensprache" kennenlernt, dann wundert es keinem, dass einige Deutsche und Österreicher ihre Muttersprache nicht mehr beherrschen.