Ikna

This is such a historic day. I hope we have historians here who chronicle all the dramaz, because this one's the best so far. And then plz make a best of MH dramaz ranking, for an anniversary or some shit.

#MAKETHEDLSECTIONGREATAGAIN

I was initially excited for this, but now I dunno... I don't find Shuuji's voice suited to EX-ANS at all. Not convinced by the new snippets either. :/ 

dude srsly, get a blog

My future:
 

 
CRAZY CAT LADY 5EVAH

nah, he is just busy with his new bandooo:
 


 
 
Jokes aside, I also think this project is done or will go nowhere, especially considering how unpopular his last were

^ I agree to you, but then say that I can totally understand the people who dislike people like Justin Bieber. Yeah, hating on him with an obsessive passion, stating in every discussion, forum and under every youtube video that he sucks is really shitty and stupid behaviour. But I can totally understand everyone who is seeing him and any "artists" in his vein negatively. Why? Because this guy is a rude, attention seeking fuck who doesn't even give a single shit about his fans. He treats his own fans like trash or objects and yet expects every 11 old girl to love him unconditionally. He is marketed to be a nice guy, a dreamboy, which he isn't. You can transfer this basically to all popstars and groups created or supported by the industry.
 
Also I guess it's also the fear of adult people that young girls and boys are manipulated by musicians to become machines whose only purpose is to give the music industry more and more money. I don't know how much truth this actually holds... but if you look at some really rabid fans than I'd still start to worry. I believe this is one of the main reasons the Kpop fandom is so highly disliked, because some of their fans stick out as they are just batshit crazy.
 
But then, in my opinion, Visual kei isn't so different from Kpop. Vk guys too wear make up, are fashionable, well dressed and cute, beautiful boys. They might play different types of music, but a lot of vk music too is your standard pop music.
 
What annoys me the most about fans of any "oh so exotic because asian" music is, that they feel like the most unique, hip and anti-mainstream shit. And no, you are not cooler than the average Lady Gaga listener because you like Kpop. You are not more individual because you think "all western music sux" and you listen to oh so brutal Visual kei Metalcore. You are just really not having a better music taste in general just because you listen to any asian music.
There is really nothing more asshole-y than stupid music hipster pretending to be cool because "hey look, I like Bischual Keeeh. That msuic is so much more better and creative than all western muzic and the artists also look fucking sexey (omg hot azns) and not like ugly hairy europeans!! I am so cool, rite?"

Apparently many 90s VK bands were fans of Final Fantasy IV. I have found three songs whose melodies (or parts thereof) are based on FFIV OST songs.
 



 
First we have Luinspear's Veltair, which took inspiration from the Love Theme. (Jump to 04:28) 


 
La'chryma Christi's Forest sounds like the town theme (07:28). For me it was a bit hard to hear at first, but now I am sure the melodies are similiar (and someone else on youtube had the same impression)
 


 
And my last find is Rephit's squall, which sounds really similiar to the FFIV main theme (08:17), especially the intro.
 


 
 

I guess when many people (including me) speak about “shock value“ they mean the typical gloomy, dark, try hard-edgy aesthetics, that defined at least mid to late 90s Vkei. I'd say the whole dark and horror chic survived even until the mid 00s. See Unsraw, early Screw and all those Nu-Metal influenced groups of that time. Unsraw even had Body Horror-like costumes at the beginning. But what it mostly comes down to are the Horror chic, the dark romanticism (Paraphilias, Murder, Violence, asocial or murderous behaviour that's kinda romanticized), Eroguro stuff (Amputations, bandages, blood, eye licking and/or eye fixation and body horror), etc.
And the most important thing: the fact, that the musicians often look otherworldly with their freaky costumes and cheesy hairtsyles. It creates some kind of "out of the ordinary" experience. That may be the biggest point, since in Neo VK bands rarely do the whole "faux-goth with huuuge Neon colored hair and 2spooky4all make up" anymore. Those older bands (from the indies scene mostly, because we are obviuosly not talking about soft vkei here, which never had much shock value to begin with) bands looked ridiculous most of the time, but their looks set them apart. What many people are bragging about is, that modern VK bands are often not so different from other popular japanese rock groups in term of looks. Anyone can dress in the away VK bands are styling themselves now, since their look is based on street fashion, rather then expensive and cheesy costumes, which the bandmembers only wear on stage (since they are way too uncomfortable to be actually worn outside as daily outfits).

Also let's not forget that there are a lot of cultural differnces between Japan and us mostly US and Europe-listeners. What may not be shocking or provocative for us may be totally not okay and scandalous in Japan. I am sure that Dir en grey's PV managed to enrage or scare the shit out of some Japanese citizens back in the day. And of course, what has already been said, time has changed. We are now familiar with all the clichés old VK bands had to offer and we grew tired of them. They lost their effect to really reach us emotionally. The only thing we may see now is that 80% of those PVs are cheap and bad. So saying shock value defined VK is not wrong, as it did indeed in Japan.

But now from my subjective perspective: I really miss those dumb and old “edgy" clichés. I have seen them so many times, but I still can't say that I am glad that they vanished. Okay, I am fine with Nazi uniforms having gone extinct in Vkei and badly done MUCC-inspired make up seems to have left the scene finally too. But I'd really love to see again bands incorporating the good old horror tropes, eroguro elements and the "I am goin' crazy and slice some people up, fuck yeah" theme.

High Quality Scans of their photoset which came with their recent album
 
 

I can totally relate to seikun with the "unique sound" thing.
But we have actually talked about this already in a few threads, I stated my opinion about it earlier here.
I know a lot of people (such as miyuu) will disagree with my stance on this. It is correct that old bands wanted to get their hands on girls and money too- but there is still a difference in having a vk idol who looks like a crazy fucking deliquent or idiot or having a vk idol who looks like a beautiful host boy.
I am one of those people who sees old visual kei as it's very own thing, while modern visual kei has become something entirely different. Visual kei today has it's origin in the early 2000s pile of mediocre indies band thing and you can still hear a bit the influences of these band's and older visual kei, such as Luna Sea or Kuroyume, but overall the modern Vk phenomenom doesn't share that much with the older bands. Both the music and fashion were very different, let alone the concept. When in old visual kei it was more about being rebellious, punx and radical today's visual kei is more about being fashionable, beautiful or about coolness. And while older visual kei was regarded odd, strange and maybe even dangerous, modern visual kei is part of the japanese mainstream. It's still not really accepted and people dressing up visual kei are still regarded as weirdos, but there is much more acceptance and the fashion is part of japanese capitalistic fashion industry.
I am not saying, that old visual kei bands really ended up being so radical and different and anti-mainstream, because they didn't. And I mostly base my argument on Kaorus and Sigizos opinion on modern visual kei-both have the same feeling about modern visual kei having a totally different "ideology" which surrounds more about fashion and clothes. And he also feels that visual kei will drastically change to a point it can't be called visual kei anymore. It's also interesting that both are indicating that modern visual kei bands don't express themselves anymore as musicians.
Of course their opinion is very subjective, but they have been members of two very well known and big visual kei bands. And maybe the "being different and rebellious" is true- but obviously more for the early and first visual kei bands and not for those copycats, that followed afterwards.

I personally consider old visual kei to be more creative and exciting than new visual kei. And I also consider it to be an actual genre- mainly because bands from the 80s to the mid and late 90s shared a lot of musical elments. Even when a band from the 80s would sound very different than a Matina band from 1998, you can still hear and see the connection.
There have been as much terrible bands in the 90s as today- but at least I do tolerate old horrible bands more than neo Vk horrible bands. Though I think it is hard to compare their levels of terribleness because of how different the indies bands of these two eras sound.

I am honest though with my "kote kei elitism". I've got into groups like Moi dix Mois, D'espairsray and Dir en grey first so I was actually more in the 2003-2005 years of visual kei. It was easy then for me to go back in time and find a liking to older bands- but I couldn't get into any new band after 2006. I was and am still too fond of the wannabe-edgy fake-goffick punk sound and look I learned to know from Mana, Kyo, Hisui and others and the mass of oshare or brightly cute and try-hard to be sexy bands just didn't appeal to me- let alone, that I can't stand Metalcore, new-modern Emo and cheesy Electro-Rock and in conclusion I have a big issue with all this "neo Visual kei" thing. There are only a few vk bands from today I like and I am not denying that I am very prejudiced about new bands.

Like others have said, I miss old school's outfits (as I like their ridiculous hairstyles, the unbearable amount of make up, the cross dressing, the "edgy" clothes) and I miss especially the darker indie bands. As crappy as they have been, their mix of gothic (even though a lot of "hardcore-goffs" try hard to prove that old schhol visual kei has no goth in it), punk, metal and glam created the crazy sound of screeching, hypnotic, flanging guitars, with a prominent bass (an underrated Instrument I love but rarely plays an important role in neo vk or modern pop music in general), fast drumming and of course the out of tune singing, which pendles between  (lovely) crappiness, horribleness or complete insanity. I also miss the "mental insanity" topic too. I just love when the vocalist loses his mind during a song and screams, mourns and moans like an idiot. It's super cheesy, but I like it. (seriously: neo vk is also very very cheesy. Just in different ways than the old vk bands.)
I have no problem with being stuck in the past. I enjoy listening to the old bands and there have been enough artists that I can listen to and never get tired. I can understand why some old school lovers are so frustrated about modern visual kei though. I wish there would be more Kote kei bands and that it would be more known and popular. I'd wish to talk with people who like visual kei about old bands and not get a blank stare when I mention Raphael or Malice Mizer.

I am afraid we will probably never come into terms. As Arithmetica said, it is hard to define old or new visual kei. We can see their differences though, but it is not easy to say that music of this era was more deep and musically better than another. Modern Vk too has surely great artists too- it is then a matter of taste what you will like or what bands you can relate to.

@jduv86 I am not really good when it comes to give recommendations, but I try.
Now it depends what kind of music you lean towards and what genres you would be willing to like or try out. But as you seem to like "heavier" bands I would suggest the more Metal-ish or Punk-rock bands, such as Mist of Rouge, Vasalla, Velladonna, Antique Doll, The Piass, AION (okay, they might be or not vk but I will list them though) and of course Madeth gray'll.
Other bands I will recommend to check out are ROUAGE, Laputa, Luna Sea, D'erlanger, La' Mule, Aliene Ma'riage, Baiser, Deshabillz, Mirage, 90s penicillin and Pierrot.
 

About the blackface thing: seeing how tsuzuku’s and Ryoga’s make up are executed I wouldn’t call it blackface at all. Blackface is a very well defined term (even though some oversensitive “everything offends me!”-yelling people disagree) and comes with certain characteristics. Just slapping some black paint onto your face is not blackface. Blackface is meant to make fun of black people. so it comes with the wearer exhibiting manierism, that are ignorantly associated with being black, such as painting very large, red lips, wearing clothes of a jazz musician or hip-hopper and using a specific body language. None of this applies to these two.
 
I agree though, that this happened a few times with K-Pop musicians who dressed up as rappers.

About the blackface thing: seeing how tsuzuku’s and Ryoga’s make up are executed I wouldn’t call it blackface at all. Blackface is a very well defined term (even though some oversensitive “everything offends me!”-yelling people disagree) and comes with certain characteristics. Just slapping some black paint onto your face is not blackface. Blackface is meant to make fun of black people. so it comes with the wearer exhibiting manierism, that are ignorantly associated with being black, such as painting very large, red lips, wearing clothes of a jazz musician or hip-hopper and using a specific body language. None of this applies to these two.
 
I agree though, that this happened a few times with K-Pop musicians who dressed up as rappers.

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

High Quality Scans of their photoset which came with their recent album
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent
 
 

Deleted most of my “selfies” in this thread, because my face is trash. But well, here is something decent