saiko

I thought that was Kisou.

So, you have to overcome abusing behaviour towards yourself to get to be considered a "good" artist and reach the audience? Anyway, Screw was a really shitty band, with Byou being almost totally unable to sing since the start to the very end of the band. Kagerou and baroque weren't THAT great, aside for having made a well-known contribution to the scene's style...

That's news for me. Tell me mooooooooooooooooore! Did he said that explicitly? I've readen that they stopped wearing make up because they hated the visual-kei term and the scene and blablabla (the same answer they gave to West people that interviewed them when they started touring became noticed). But come on! Can you really hate the songs that made you popular, and still surivive in the ears of everyone as anthems?

Any thoughts on why Diru never plays their pre-Withering repertory? Unlike almost all the bands in the scene, they could have not played them never ever again if it weren't for the MODE OF... tours. (Still waiting for the MACABRE one, also! Why did they ignored it?) Dude, I'm glad they decided to put out a DVD of these lives! The VK-eras are still my favorites, despite I generally praise every album from them... I wish someday we'll have decent quality videos from their performances MISSA, Gauze and Macabre eras (2 Budokan gigs, and almost no records of them! Only seconds-length clisp... That's a fucking shame!).

It always seemed to me that their last DVD releases did not have the same quality of performance, audience quantity and response, glamour, that did have their performance at Shibuya Kokkaidou, recorded for their Chantons L'amour DVD... Even when, as you mention, you can actually see the band putting the best out of them... it really seemed kind of "sad" at some point. Now I can understand why... It's been a while since I figured out that us, non-Japanese-residents vk fans, have sealed quite all the ways for getting more in touch with the bands we follow. Mostly if it is about this kind of information, that gives us points of view about the personal and emotional dynamics between the band and the scene, their mangement, their fans, and even between themselves as mates. Unofficial information that doesn't (and shouldn't) come out in the available platforms designed for their promotion, because, for good or bad, it definitely will take off all the "glorification" put on their image, leaving naked the simple, but at the same time complex, "humanity" that is behind every part of every project, and makes it possible, ultimately. In this way, your testimony has become very precious to me. I'm not gonna hide that it actually did bring up a feel of sadness... Maybe because the empathy that spots in myself after reading on somebody's angst and pain related to the struggling on trying to convey your feelings direct to the hearts of the cold public... While reading, sometimes I could feel intensely some things you wrote... Now, I find myself revaluing much more Kamijo, Mayu, Machi, Emiru, Kazami, Lareine... I can't doubt they did not a good, but and AWESOME work. Thank you, very, very much. It would be very interesting if someday you decide to write with more detail your memories about the band, that I notice have a lot of love put into them.

Hola!!!

Wow... such a tragic situation for a great band like them... I wish I could travel to Japan and got to see them live before the worst happens...

Any thoughts on their disbandment? I've always felt that 95% of the stuff after Fierte was pretty generic, thus boring. I deeply believe it reflects an atmosphere of low creative energy, clearly derivated of the loose bonds between the members, with their easy comes and goes. This is something I've never came to understand fully, since there is much evidence that, although they never reached the mainstream attention bands like Shazna had, neither the levels of popularity bands like Dir en grey or Pierrot enjoyed in those years, Lareine was indeed a solid band with a strong concept, decent musicians and organic compositions, that had marked with fire the scene for ever. In fact, it is obvious to me that they started the prince and princesses trope back in the day. I will always praise their contribution of a very genuine and refreshing approach to the visual kei clichés that will never be forgotten. A tragic-concept band project met an actual tragic end...😢 P.D.: the tears I shed while watching Kamijo sing Fiançailles during his anniversary tour date in my country were the worthiest ever. 💗🌹

+11111111 FUCKING SAME. Inhale is in fact one the tunes with the highest replay number in my list. Superb composition and execution. Great blending of contemporary metal with the classic visual kei harmonies. Nothing more to say; 11/10. On the other hand, the genericness of their other releases keep me getting more and more decepted. Still can't believe they are the same band... I just don't get it. Thanks God we have Jiluka to satisfy our starving for prog-tech-metal kei.

I guess this is very coherent with the whole ijime stuff we got to know trough a lot of anime and Manga scripts... Geez, Japanese do have a lot of issues with superiority, submission, idolatry, etc...

Thank you so much for this! So, so interesting and important for us to know! I'm still a huge Diru fan, and obviously I don't consider the possibility of automatically start to dislike them because of acknowledging this... But I can't help feeling a little weird about this stuff, of course. Btw, what's "harcon"? "Harassment complex" maybe? And what are your thoughts on the roadie system, and its disappearance into the current idolification process?

Thank you so much for this! Epic shoot! 😍😍😍 Did the fact that these antics happened got spread into the Japanese fans? How could it be received by them? Perhaps, we have to consider that the mere concept of "fan-service" (which is a wasei-eigo term, ファンサービス, a Japanese-language expressions based on English words or parts of word combinations, that do not exist in standard English or whose meanings differ from the words from which they were derived ) makes the homoerotic antics and aesthetic get a different statute in the concept that a scene has over the music and performance. For instance, this stuff is well-known in the Japanese culture in general. But in the case of Bowie, or the one of the scene in which he took part, I've never found this fact being highlighted by anyone in the stories I've read from him and his career. It makes me think about the intersections between the official story of Bowie's carreer and the unofficial one, I mean, how our (homophobic) culture treats some facts signifcantly different than it does with others... Btw, I figured out it would be cool to have at least a little stock of West "fan-service" culture in music artists, independently of whether visual-kei gay antics were directly influenced by West totally, parcially or whatever...

Right!

Please! Could you do that favor to us, non-Japanese speakers?🙇‍♂️

Hi! I've always wondered about how did the homoeroticism imaginary got into the scene. At least for me, the whole "fan-service" thing went straight to the point of being one of the most distinctive tropes of the scene today, being solidary to the whole gender-bending atmosphere. I suppose many of you guys here acknowledge the fact that bands like Buck-tick, D'ERLANGER, Kuroyume and Penicillin have been bringing this kind of aesthetic during the early days. What do you think it was the meaning or the intention behind it? Was it pure fujoshi-gya-aimed stuff since the beggining? Was it instead part of their concept? Can we consider this a little more than just another showman skill? Was it inspired by yaoi anime/manga and the whole bishounen trope? Or was it somehow connected with the british post-punk scene? (perhaps, they actually could have acknowledged Bowie's or Morrisey's statements on their gender/sexuality on their lyrics? But explicit erotic antics between bandmates is something that only the japanese do, as far as I'm concerned). Let's talk!💜

Hi! I've came across this information on the Satsuki drama thread: While reading this passage, I instantly remembered a Tanuki post that got translated by FuckYeahTanuki! for her blog. There was in it such information about senpai bands bullying their fellows, as well as the wildness of these parties Kyo allegedly hosted in the past (or still does?). 🙄 I'm leaving here the links of FuckYeahTanuki's posts in case you never heard about this facts (?) and got interested in further reading: http://fuckyeahtanuki.tumblr.com/post/107060991606/tanuki-thread-about-the-era-in-which-visual-kei and http://fuckyeahtanuki.tumblr.com/post/167884561901/about-the-era-in-which-visual-kei-was-like-a-gang Does anyone know something more related to it? Dude, this is perhaps the creepiest bandoman stuff I've ever read on the net. 😰

OZ was one of the most original bands in the scene nowadays. Was the lack of popularity that made them end ?

Hi. I'm interested in any old Dir en grey video/record you have. What does the VHS "Tour 1998 Mechanism For Leave - the scene of the tragedy" contains? Is it a whole live performance? Thank you!