Ikna

I think that it is not dying out.  Because you had one bad stream...that frankly had nothing interesting and repetitive bands, does not mean that everyone has suddenly lost interest.  You are seriously overreacting over one little stream...
 
And frankly, this attitude will only deteriorate your business.

I feel exactly the same. Not being considered cultivated if you don't enjoy alcohol? Give me a break — I'd rather keep my body clean of all of this and not poison myself for the sake of fitting in. If it's seen as being prudish or goody-goody, I honestly do not care. 

I hate beer, wine, vodka… I hate all kinds of alcoholic drinks. Don't like the taste of it at all and the burning or warm feeling in my throat reminds me of heartburn. The only things I can tolerate are those soft drinks with little alcohol, because they taste mostly like normal lemonades. 
 
I don't care of that's lame. My rule is: if I don't like it, then I don't consume it. Also my only drugs are music, drawing and chocolate.

I don't find Mia's face appealing at all. To me he is a good example of plastic surgery gone wrong. His face looks so unnatural and stiff, in some photoshoots it often reaches the maximum of the uncanny valley 

pls save sibilebashir and transfer them to ains lord yoshiki christ

First off, I just want to clarify that I'm not going to try and make any claims about which era of vk is objectively "better." I got into it in the early 2000's, so for me, that time period will always be rosy and nostalgic and I have an attachment for it that I will probably never have for anything else. Due le quartz was my first love and has stayed with me stronger than anyone else, not because I think other bands' music isn't comparable in quality, but because I fell for them before others.
 
So with that disclaimer aside, I definitely don't feel the same way (on average) about modern vk. I'm not saying there aren't good bands - there are some brilliant ones out there - but if I look at the fraction of popular 2000's bands I was a fairly strong fan of, vs the fraction of today's bands that I'm a strong fan of, the latter is definitely smaller. Whether that's because there are more shitty bands, or just fewer bands whose style appeals to me personally, I don't know. The overall spirit and mood has certainly changed somewhat, and if you like it, that's totally great for you! But I'm not obligated to feel the same way. My interest definitely plummeted around the end of the last decade when a lot of the active bands that were closest to my heart disbanded (like D'espairsRay and Rentrer en Soi), and after that happened, I always felt like I had a hard time finding other bands that I felt were anywhere close to their level. There were popular rising stars like Lycaon that everybody else seemed to love, and I just thought they were okay and didn't feel the same hype about them that others did.
 
I also think it's telling that most of my favorite modern bands are revival/cover bands like Gossip and Grieva, bands comprised of older musicians like Lin, or at least bands whose music I find in some way reminiscent of a decade ago. I'm not doing this on purpose; it's not like I say to myself "I'm only going to like old sounding bands!", but those end up being the ones I'm most attracted to. If they weren't here, I'd still be listening to vk in general (there are bands like Mejibray and Codomo Dragon that aren't old-school at all that I also really like), but probably not with the same overall enthusiasm.
 
tl;dr the scene changes, my tastes don't change so much, and I'm grateful there are still bands around that play music that's up my alley.

I am actually still not entirely sure how kote kei is truly defined. Some use it only exclusively for the era of the mid 90s to early 00s. Others use it for the really early VK bands like Sleep My Dear, ROUAGE, etc as well. And some just tag every band with heavy make-up and complex costumes as such, regardless of musical influences and style. True though, that the late 90s, early 00s bands are far more popular and well known overseas. It's simply that most of the  foreign oldschool fans are probably those who have gotten into VK in the early to mid 00s. Back then the style early Dir en grey, Syndrome, Malice Mizer or old Gazette had a style, which was really well-loved and some even emulated it (I remember the fashion accidents of self-proclaimed “Visus”. They looked more like Hot topic shopping mallgoths, ugh)
 
I also got into VK thanks to Dir en grey and D'espairsRay. From there I discovered some earlier late 90s groups like Malice Mizer or Luna Sea. Only then I slowly went back in time to find and love Laputa, ROUAGE, old Kuroyume, etc. I tend to favour super edgy kvlt VK from the late 90s indies period, but most of the early 90s stuff, especially anything with a heavy post-punk influence, is up to my alley. The problem though is, that apart from a few bigger “must know” groups like X or Luna Sea, the majority of really old VK bands have been forgotten outside Japan. Hell, there are even enough foreign VK fans nowadays who have no clue who Malice Mizer are.
 
I am no VK history expert and I always welcome people to enlighten me with more information. But as I know the Visual kei label didn't really become wildly used until the first half of the 90s, but VK and proto-VK bands date back as far as the mid 80s. So a lot of what we nowadays refer to oldschool Visual kei was originally not seen or tagged as such. Are Zi-Kill a Visual kei group? Many would say yes, because of the way they look and their band connections (and the label they were signed to). Other would say no and state that albeit being influential on the VK moevement, they were just a Rock band. True though, that VK was booming mostly in the first half to mid 90s and not late 90s. If I remember correctly, fans declared Visual kei dead already around 1998.

Wow. From comparing apples to pears to comparing apples to mathematical theorems.

Yuuki - Lycaon
Kyouka - Aliene Ma'riage / Insanity Injection ect. 
Hisui - Madeth Gray'll
Chaos - Glamscure 
Chiaki - DEZERT 
Kyouki - Grieva 
Karasuna Mei - Kuroyuri To Kage 
Rei - Loz'a#Veria
Teru / Kengo - Noir Fleurir
Juri - Risk Un Logic
Kanwa - allure idea
Daina - ENVIOUS 
Takayuk /Takashi /Chihiro / Kirala / Tetsuya - The Piass
Kikyou - La'Veil Mizeria / sadies merry
Rei - Lar~Mia
Kisui - Phobia
Motomi - Mebius
Futarishizuka - Crucifixion

Signing a deal would also mean signing a contract agreeing to actually turn in an album by a set deadline. Yoshiki hasn't done that in twenty years.
 
 
It's not about just the UK show. A lot of fans are being hostile towards Yoshiki because, regardless of Pata's condition, they've known for months, well before Pata took ill in January, that the album wasn't coming out. The album doesn't even have a title, which means it doesn't have artwork, Yoshiki was still mixing it a few weeks ago, and above all they don't even have a record deal. It was never coming out in March.    No one is saying Pata didn't take ill. But even the official announcement says that he's on the mend, just isn't ready to fly yet per doctors orders. This begs the question, had Pata been able to play the gig, were they really going to do this X Day event and alleged world tour (that they coincidentally hadn't got around to even booking yet) promoting the album without the album being ready? Come on.
 
If Pata is actually seriously ill, why is the show already rescheduled? If he died or was left impaired from his illness, wouldn't they need to cancel the gig again and disband? They're full of shit, and pushed it back a year because they have no album finished and no tour booked. It's the same old song and dance from Yoshiki going back 20 years.

I decided to become invisible. 
 

Green Day- American Idiot
 
Before that I was collecting sampler and omnibus CDs (mainly with pop "artists" and chart hits). Actually i only bought this because everyone else in my class have been into them and I wanted to belong to them... I felt really punx while buying the CD *lol* :D'

@ Carmelzors
 
Well, isn't it already fact, that the japanese public had a negative view of VK already long before this scandal (which isn't new, considering how often that shit must have happened behind closed doors)? VK guys have always been considered to be dangerous delinquents and there was a time when VK had much more mainstream coverage than now. And with the bangya craze taking new, more crazy forms since the dawn of millenia bandomen also are now mostly seen as pussy chasing creepers too.
 
Others than that I would not jump to conclusions and blame anyone for doing anything until we get more infos and evidence about the case (if it will be made public). Without it we can only speculate what really happened here.

Here;s mine.
Order is not optional (everything is my #1)
 
 

Ⅰ　EX-ANS 「HABIT OF SEX」
Ⅱ　MADAME EDWARDA「ヒステリックな侯爵夫人」
Ⅲ　AINSI SOIT JE...「MY IDEAL」
Ⅳ　D≒SIRE 「– 終末の情景 -La Scène Du Finale-」
Ⅴ　GOATBEDｘSilhouetteNewRomance「STOWAWAY TO PARADIS」　
Ⅵ　cali≠gari「第三実験室」
Ⅶ　Sense of Shape「étoile」
Ⅷ　メリーゴーランド「放送禁止の死んだふりをする潔癖症の実験体と…」
Ⅸ　SAKRUN「－刹那－」SORRY SHUUJ

Lol, the first thing I knew when this thread popped up and saw blackdoll being the OP was that there would be a huge fucking ass discussion about Lycaon.
 
Seriously, both bands are different and trying to cherry pick for similiarities is like comparing apples to windows. For there are practically not many things in common. The only thing I see is OP being salty that most people like RES more and admit their negative bias towards Lycaon.
 
Seriously blackdoll, how about you just get over other people not sharing your delusional fixation on your fav band. People are biased and have different tastes; others showing their strong dislike of one band is no reason to write huge cryptic posts about it.
 
Ah yeah, I also voted for RES. There are a few Lycaon songs from their early era I like, but RES (both eras) does appeal more to me.

Not really in any specific order…
 
1. DEZERT – 「最高の食卓」 (2016)
(I actuall like it more than their debut, haha)
2. AvelCain – AvelCain
3. emmurée – 窓の外は、カァニバル。
4. グリーヴァ – 終焉 (2014)
 
Checks out as I don't really listen to much new stuff in the VK/Jrock realm

I still don't understand why VK bands consider writing a name in upper/ or lowercase is a name change…

Inability to adapt to the 21st century
 
There are way too many bands that have yet to conform to the digital age. While things certainly have improved, there is still a shocking amount of music that isn't available for purchase digitally. Why? I have no idea. It's fucking stupid if you ask me.

Lol, the first thing I knew when this thread popped up and saw blackdoll being the OP was that there would be a huge fucking ass discussion about Lycaon.
 
Seriously, both bands are different and trying to cherry pick for similiarities is like comparing apples to windows. For there are practically not many things in common. The only thing I see is OP being salty that most people like RES more and admit their negative bias towards Lycaon.
 
Seriously blackdoll, how about you just get over other people not sharing your delusional fixation on your fav band. People are biased and have different tastes; others showing their strong dislike of one band is no reason to write huge cryptic posts about it.
 
Ah yeah, I also voted for RES. There are a few Lycaon songs from their early era I like, but RES (both eras) does appeal more to me.

I am actually still not entirely sure how kote kei is truly defined. Some use it only exclusively for the era of the mid 90s to early 00s. Others use it for the really early VK bands like Sleep My Dear, ROUAGE, etc as well. And some just tag every band with heavy make-up and complex costumes as such, regardless of musical influences and style. True though, that the late 90s, early 00s bands are far more popular and well known overseas. It's simply that most of the  foreign oldschool fans are probably those who have gotten into VK in the early to mid 00s. Back then the style early Dir en grey, Syndrome, Malice Mizer or old Gazette had a style, which was really well-loved and some even emulated it (I remember the fashion accidents of self-proclaimed “Visus”. They looked more like Hot topic shopping mallgoths, ugh)
 
I also got into VK thanks to Dir en grey and D'espairsRay. From there I discovered some earlier late 90s groups like Malice Mizer or Luna Sea. Only then I slowly went back in time to find and love Laputa, ROUAGE, old Kuroyume, etc. I tend to favour super edgy kvlt VK from the late 90s indies period, but most of the early 90s stuff, especially anything with a heavy post-punk influence, is up to my alley. The problem though is, that apart from a few bigger “must know” groups like X or Luna Sea, the majority of really old VK bands have been forgotten outside Japan. Hell, there are even enough foreign VK fans nowadays who have no clue who Malice Mizer are.
 
I am no VK history expert and I always welcome people to enlighten me with more information. But as I know the Visual kei label didn't really become wildly used until the first half of the 90s, but VK and proto-VK bands date back as far as the mid 80s. So a lot of what we nowadays refer to oldschool Visual kei was originally not seen or tagged as such. Are Zi-Kill a Visual kei group? Many would say yes, because of the way they look and their band connections (and the label they were signed to). Other would say no and state that albeit being influential on the VK moevement, they were just a Rock band. True though, that VK was booming mostly in the first half to mid 90s and not late 90s. If I remember correctly, fans declared Visual kei dead already around 1998.

Available worldwide at the following stores from February 17th:
 
・iTunes Store http://apple.com/jp/itunes/
・Apple MUSIC http://www.apple.com/jp/music/
・amazon music http://amazon.co.jp/
・music.jp http://music.jp/
・oricon http://music.oricon.co.jp/
・Spotify http://spotify.com
・kkbox http://www.kkbox.com/
・mora http://mora.jp/
・レコチョク http://recochoku.jp/
・LINE MUSIC https://music.line.me/
・e-onkyo music http://e-onkyo.com/music/
・Google play music https://play.google.com/store
・AWA https://awa.fm/
・うたパス http://au.utapass.jp/
・Listen Radio http://listenradio.jp/ 

BY-SEXUAL



 

かまいたち



 

ZI:KILL



 

幻覚アレルギー



 

D'ERLANGER

Second oldschool VK, Setsuna from Metis Gretel and Panic Channel. Those amazing, gravity defying and colorful hairstyles were one of the reasons why I fell in love with VK. I especially miss the big, spiky hair. Only a few selected bandomen still spend time and energy to do their hair like this:
 

 
I also like most of the styles the indies bands had in the 90s and early 00s. Eespecially the ultra weird and spiky ones.
 

 
Always loved Naos cool Look with the white streaks as a contrast to his deep blue hair. Also big bonus points if your VK hairdo not only incorporates lost of backcombing, but also feathers en mass.
 
I can easily say what hairstyles I don't like: basically anything that looks ordinary or is worn by stereotypical ikemen and/or host boys. Sorry, but it looks not good to me.

Second oldschool VK, Setsuna from Metis Gretel and Panic Channel. Those amazing, gravity defying and colorful hairstyles were one of the reasons why I fell in love with VK. I especially miss the big, spiky hair. Only a few selected bandomen still spend time and energy to do their hair like this:
 

 
I also like most of the styles the indies bands had in the 90s and early 00s. Eespecially the ultra weird and spiky ones.
 

 
Always loved Naos cool Look with the white streaks as a contrast to his deep blue hair. Also big bonus points if your VK hairdo not only incorporates lost of backcombing, but also feathers en mass.
 
I can easily say what hairstyles I don't like: basically anything that looks ordinary or is worn by stereotypical ikemen and/or host boys. Sorry, but it looks not good to me.

Can't remember of anything else.