saiko

This is my fantasy for sure.

Dir en Grey have always been a point of contention for me. As a visual newbie, I was intimidated by their extreme aesthetics and sound, and it took me a while to come around to liking their early works since it’s basically an amalgamation of everything I already liked. This sort of distrust of their music has caused me to not really delve too much into their middle works. Sure, I’ve heard some of Arche, I sat through whatever their album from last year was called, and I dug Sukekiyo, but for whatever reason anything earlier than Marrow of a Bone hasn’t existed on digital platforms. Yesterday, this changed — three of their early ~ middle career releases were added to Spotify and now I have no excuses for ignoring them. As such, I was challenged to do a blind listening review by some veteran fans—partly for their amusement, partly because my musical opinions are highly sought after (citation needed). Here is my first listen review of the classic album Vulgar.
 
Let’s start with the album art. What am I looking at? Is it a bird? Are these disembodied arms in opera length gloves? Overcooked pork tenderloin? I’m really not sure. Sometimes art is like that — it makes you unsure, and that uncertainty makes you uncomfortable. Sometimes that discomfort makes you think, but then other times it makes you reject something and move on. I don’t want to give the band credit for being provocative. I’ve read a lot of Tumblr and have the arcane knowledge to confidently state that this artwork is actually from Disney’s Maleficent — it’s her horns after they got lopped off.
 
Audience KILLER LOOP: never a fan of when titles suddenly yell at me. It really makes me on edge, kind of like this song does. I’m really going into this blind and any departure from Gauze is going to be a real change for me. I guess this is alright, but maybe this style just needs to grow on me more. Let’s see how I hold up going further in…
 
 
THE IIID EMPIRE: not sure why they decided to make a Star Wars reference here, but to each their own. I suppose this is the hard-hitting style that people have grown to love from this band. The guitar riff slightly after the middle of the song is super cool — in spite of all of the shit I give this band, sometimes they really do have neat ideas.
 
INCREASE BLUE: Again with the yelling of the song titles. Reminds me of the graphic design class I needed to take, with my teacher looming over me. My composition was too warmly colored, so she yelled to me from across the classroom “increase blue.” I took her advice and then she docked me points for it anyway. “Too much blue.” Fuck me.
 
 
Shokubeni: Apparently this means “red food coloring.” I bet the lyrics have something to do with bloody food or chopping up someone’s girlfriend. This band seems big on that and it’s kind of off-putting. I’d give some deep analysis on the meaning, but I can’t speak Japanese well.
 
Sajou no Uta: Kinda boring. This isn’t really my thing.
 
RED…[em]: a bit too rough for my liking. I get that this is when their hurgleblurgle kind of approach to art really started, but doesn’t mean I need to be fully here for it. A part of this almost saved me from disliking it, but it wasn’t enough.
 
 
Sfisdfeijaoifjsoefijse: too long for what it was, skipped
 
MARMALADE CHAINSAW: sticky sweet and incredibly wasteful. Started a trend of bands naming things with “chainsaw” in their names, which makes me wonder if the Japanese really know what a chainsaw is? Surely you don’t need one for spreading jam but I’m not Julia Child.
 
Kasumi: Fun fact—this was the name of “Misty” in the Japanese version of Pokemon. Further fun fact, there is a Pokemon card called “Misty’s Determination,” which I assume is written like “Kasumi no Jiketsu.” “”Jiketsu” means “self-determination” but is also a euphemism for “suicide,” so whenever I see that card I read it as “Misty’s Suicide” in my head. Seems like a tangent, but this is honestly a very Dir en Grey kind of story.
 
R THE CORE: filler intro 
 
DRAIN AWAY: I actually kind of like this. The guitar atmosphere is really enticing and they’ve definitely upped their skill since Macabre (the last album I blind listened to). I know I’m very firmly into the “Gauze and then the band died” camp, but I am glad I am getting something positive out of this album.
 
NEW AGE CULTURE: Wow. Woooooow. Y’all went OFF on Kisaki for “stealing Kyo’s girlfriend” or whatever and then they go and literally steal the title from a famous Matina omnibus series? I cannot believe the low-life attempt at being petty, but here we are. Unfathomable. 
 
OBSCURE: huh…pretty sure Grieva used this. I mean, I knew they seemed like they were fans of Dir En Grey, but I didn’t think they’d flat-out STEAL from them. Well, song is kind of bouncy and hypnotic, so I can see why they’d want to base on of their own songs on it. Still kind of shocked that this is borderline plagiarism.
 
CHILD PREY: One of the best songs on this album. Love the meaning behind it and how the lyrics fit together from the parts I could understand. I don’t mean to gush, but this definitely has that “it” factor that draws people into this band. Amazing. Pray / Prey for your butter
 
Amber: This band likes to have female names as titles. Amber, Kasumi, Audrey, Yurikago….it makes me wonder what their take on feminism is. They’ve already displayed a rather ham-fisted pro-life stance a few albums ago, but maybe their time within the inner machinations of the visual scene caused them to change their stance, especially having interacted with so many female fans and the changes fame brought to them. I wonder if this song’s direct is a reflection of that as well — it’s hard to get into an artist’s head and really understand how they see the world.
 
 
Overall: 5.5 / 10 for me
 
I know this is a classic album, but that’s how I felt on my first attempt at going through this. I still need to listen to Kisou, so I am open to doing a blind listen review for that as well. If you’d like to try out this album for yourself, or provide your own take on the music, feel free to check it out on Spotify. Sometimes I need to listen to things multiple times to form a true opinion. Funny enough, I still need to actually listen to this album for the first time, as I wrote this review solely based on the song titles and album art.

This video along with Fender's clip of J trying a model from their new Ultra series...
 
 
...makes me wonder why the Western music industry's big fishes' visibility of J-rockers (and thus their legitimacy over them as rock musicians) is happening today, with a VK scene deader than ever, both in Japan and abroad, and not in 2007.
 
Is 2020 going to be a revitalizing year for VK despite all our -accurately justified- apocalyptic thoughts?

This video along with Fender's clip of J trying a model from their new Ultra series...
 
 
...makes me wonder why the Western music industry's big fishes' visibility of J-rockers (and thus their legitimacy over them as rock musicians) is happening today, with a VK scene deader than ever, both in Japan and abroad, and not in 2007.
 
Is 2020 going to be a revitalizing year for VK despite all our -accurately justified- apocalyptic thoughts?

Important things to take from this:
1. Die shares that his fav fast riffs are from deg's debut album gauze
2. Toshiya describes their current sound as "psychobilly" lmao

I'm going to shape up this year and go back to my roots. I'll spend a week in isolation in Berlin and it'll be just me, strangers and adventures and total debauchery. I've been using my girlfriends spotify and I've noticed that it has both made me complacent and unwilling to explore the deeper reaches of my interests, and that's why I'm going to go old school; all the music on my computer will head straight to the bin and I'll soulseek the shit out of something unfamiliar that'll scare me back into taking control of my life and art. 
 
Speaking of taking control and complacency, it's some sad shit what happened to youtube and internet in general. Homogenised by corporate interest beyond repair. I remember when I could spend hours diving down the rabbit hole of related videos from vk pvs whereas now you'll only get videos of the same channel, videos you watched in the past and then videos popular that are vaguely "related." This really killed it for me as far as finding new bands, it's now all on the shoulders of that one guy who does these top pvs of every month. 
 
 

I've just ended up a whole listen of a list with all the Moran PVs. Pleasant stuff, many sweet sounds picked my ear at moments, but definitely it is not something that goes beyond good generic stuff:  good compositions, good musicians, but nothing far good from your average formulaic jazzy J-rock.
 
 
Maybe my appreciation above came because, in the will of having a compressed listening/watching of a whole career in a matter of hours, I've ended up digging their A-sides only, let's say, their commercial-oriented stuff. So I'll try the B-sides you recommend here, to challenge the opinion I've made up till this point.
 
In the other hand, this song from Hitomi's recent project caught strongly my attention from the first second, for sure: 
 
 
The synth and chorus work is REALLY beautiful. Reminds my of some 90s J-pop songs, like the one that made the opening of the Serial Experiments Lain series.
 
 
Btw, Does anybody know why is there so little material from Umiyuri uploaded to the web?
 
Edit: I've digging into Moran a bit more, and I've discovered actually beautiful and amazing songs!
 
This is actually really complex for a pop-oriented A-side.
 
 
 
And this is all about the musicianship composition wise I was looking for!
 
Now I'm really looking forward more stuff from this talented guys!

I've just ended up a whole listen of a list with all the Moran PVs. Pleasant stuff, many sweet sounds picked my ear at moments, but definitely it is not something that goes beyond good generic stuff:  good compositions, good musicians, but nothing far good from your average formulaic jazzy J-rock.
 
 
Maybe my appreciation above came because, in the will of having a compressed listening/watching of a whole career in a matter of hours, I've ended up digging their A-sides only, let's say, their commercial-oriented stuff. So I'll try the B-sides you recommend here, to challenge the opinion I've made up till this point.
 
In the other hand, this song from Hitomi's recent project caught strongly my attention from the first second, for sure: 
 
 
The synth and chorus work is REALLY beautiful. Reminds my of some 90s J-pop songs, like the one that made the opening of the Serial Experiments Lain series.
 
 
Btw, Does anybody know why is there so little material from Umiyuri uploaded to the web?
 
Edit: I've digging into Moran a bit more, and I've discovered actually beautiful and amazing songs!
 
This is actually really complex for a pop-oriented A-side.
 
 
 
And this is all about the musicianship composition wise I was looking for!
 
Now I'm really looking forward more stuff from this talented guys!

It's your boy emmny…I’m not dead yet. It’s been almost two years since I dropped my last reflection (Kagerou 2002-2003), and I’m back for moar. It’s not that I’ve run out of ideas (real life is really busy btw, sorry!), but rather I’ve been thinking about particularly notable eras for bands I followed. Some bands are consistently good, and some bands have peaks and valleys which are kind of obvious. Choosing a band and time period to profile is challenging—I don’t want to give you anything obvious, but I want to bring light to eras which are underrated outside of a bands immediate fandom. Kagerou’s 2002-2003 phase was legendary—but the majority of their fame (esp in foreign fandom) came after. It was an era ripe with pickings—an avant-garde sound, striking visuals and some of their best songs—but I’d argue Kagerou are more closely associated with their 2004-2006 eras. The argument of placing their earlier days in the spotlight made the article interesting, and I’m not sure how much other eras are interesting in band histories. Selection is tough too—especially with bands that release intermittently and not giving enough musical ‘meat’ over the course of 2/3 years—which happen to be the most interesting (albeit financially strapped bands---*cough* yazzmad *cough*). Good music alone doesn’t cut it either—a reflection piece (in my own asshole opinion) is warranted by impact—Kagerou’s early years had influence literally a decade after they had moved on from that sound. Whether the following will have the same impact is TBD, but I will make the case that late-era Moran defined the zenith of art-kei, managing to sell out massive venues for a subgenre which was otherwise relegated to the underground and situated in a genre largely declining in popularity. In their dazzling sound, visuals, and approach, Moran kept their contemporaries on their feet and inspired subsequent kohai bands which continue to carry their flag, almost half a decade after they called it quits.
 
Moran have a storied history, but getting into it would take 1) skills I lack as a visual historian and 2) too damn long. 2013-2015 covers most of Moran’s second lineup output, and I’ll briefly get into the timeline. This is where I’ve drawn the rough boundary of time, so to coincide with Moran’s third-era all the way up to their disbandment. I’ll delineate three main eras: 1) 2007-2009, 2) 2010-2012, and lastly, 2013-2015. Era 1 is Moran’s original lineup (and probably their most beloved), which formed ~2 years after Fatima’s disbandment. Era 1 came to an end with the original guitarist Velo departing the band in 2009, and bassist Zill’s tragic death in 2010, following a short-term leave from the band in 2009. The only permanent members of the band’s history (and the OGs from Fatima), vocalist Hitomi (FKA Sanaka/Kanoma) and drummer Soan (FKA Towa) were left to carry the band. Moran took a huge beating, but as one of SPEED-DISK (Free Will subsidiary)’s flagship bands, they pushed on into their second era with support bassists and Sizna (ex-Sugar) taking over as kamite guitarist in summer of 2010 and a full-reboot at the end of the year. There was a substantial lull in activities, with almost two years passing between the two eras without music. They proceeded as a three-piece until the summer of 2012, with Ivy (ex. Dio) joining as a full-time bassist and vivi (ex-DragonWAPPPPPPER) as shimote guitarist. The band formally rebooted in December of 2012, and they released their first piece of music as a five-member group in early 2013 with Jen:ga, and that’s where this story will start.
 
Moran (2007.12.05 - 2015.09.21)

Vocal: Hitomi
Guitar: Sizna
Guitar: vivi
Bass: Ivy
Drums: Soan
 

Jen:ga (2013.02.20)
01 Barairo no jigoku / 薔薇色の地獄
02 benisashi / 紅差し
03 L'oiseau bleu / ロワゾ・ブルー
04 Bulbs
05 Melancholia / メランコリア
06 yakouchuu / 夜光虫
07 Wing or Tail
08 ReCover
09 Maybe Lucy in the Sky
10 Eclipse
11 Aru sakushi to no yuugiroku / ある策士との遊戯録
12 Fuyuubyou / 浮遊病
13 The last piece of the jen:ga
 

Hollow Man (2013.07.10)
01 Hollow Man / ホロウマン
02 Fukamidori / フカミドリ
03 Esther / エスター
 

Mousou Nikki (2013.12.11)
01 Mousou nikki / 妄想日記
02 Lyric of the DEAD
 

dark (2014.03.19)
01 Nozomenai to shiru ketsumatsu ni, riyuu ga boku o nagusameru / 望めないと知る結末に、理由が僕を慰める
02 The Hermit
03 Negai to uta / ネガイトウタ
04 Fairy Tale
05 Ikou, hakushi no chronicle / 以降、白紙のクロニクル
06 Haru no yoru no, hitoshizuku / 春の夜の、ひと雫
 

but Beautiful (2014.07.16)
01 but Beautiful
02 Byouma / 秒魔
03 Break the silence
 

Daraku e to Tsuzuku Hen’ai no Kanshoku (堕落 へと続く偏愛の感触) (2014.10.08)
01 Daraku e to tsudzuku hen'ai no kanshoku /堕落 へと続く偏愛の感触
02 Memorable
03 Grotesque Ride / グロテスク ライド
 

Yoake Wo Mae Ni  (夜明けを前に) (2015.07.01)
01 Koufuku ni tsuite no shakudo / 幸福についての尺度
02 Reverse
03 Yoake o mae ni / 夜明けを前に
04 The scent of dreams
 
Moran have the distinction of being a pretty damn consistent band throughout their 8 years of activity. Their art-kei trademark of jazz/oshare/indie-rock/dream-pop/shoegaze/swing sound was a constant in their discography, with the specific flavour depending on the release. Moran largely presented a polished version of the ideas originally leveraged through Fatima’s output, which was largely experimental and toyed with combinations of genres and sounds. In my opinion, this polishing process continued into Moran’s first eras, with highs (most of Heroine and Replay) and lows (“Sea of Fingers”, “Stage Gazer”, “Party Monster”), but nowhere near as bipolar as some of Fatima’s highly questionable tracks. Early compositions were mostly Zill and Velo pieces with some Soan contributions, which diverged from their later eras which saw Sizna and Soan as key composers, with some vivi tracks here and there. Zill and Velo made some magic, but Sizna and Soan really made the band shine and polished all residual traces of odd melody and some awkward compositions. If you’re unfamiliar with art-kei, Moran laid the template for the sound in their early eras—give “Onaji yami no naka de”, “Element”, “Kimi no ita gosenfu”, “Helpless” and “Arikata” a listen for exemplars.
 
Hitomi’s voice is a gorgeously husky and also quite nasal, a total acquired taste. If you liked Moran, you probably loved what Hitomi did on their tracks. If you disliked Moran…you were probably deaf or just didn’t like Hitomi’s voice. Hitomi’s contributions toward 3rd era Moran were notable, as he actually composed a track on dark (“Fairy Tale”), and veered into some more experimental, spoken word type tracks like “Vega no Hana #2”. True Hitomi fans know he had a poetry column throughout Fatima and was an incredible lyricist, so it was amazing to get more longer-form musings. I will say that Ivy as a bassist was a downgrade from Zill, who basically set Heroine on fire with the most fascinating basslines, counter melodies, and solos to come out of a visual bassist in a while. He played with electrifying gusto and a sharp ear toward rhythm; I can only think of a few bassists in his era who had comparable basslines. His departure and subsequent death was truly a waste of talent, but Ivy did a job well done given the high standards Zill set. That said, I think Ivy definitely had his moments (holy shit “Eclipse”), and will be glad to point them out. Soan has a nicely jazzy twang to his drumming with some great fills and cymbal work. He’s far from a perfect drummer—don’t ask him to do anything technical, but his flavour suited Moran perfectly and Ivy danced around him with ease. Also notable among his repertoire is his piano skills for which he’s credited in Moran’s releases—I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the string/piano/other instrumentation arrangements were through Soan’s background as a classically trained musician. Moran’s more baroque leanings came in around the time Soan took the wheel, so I see it as no coincidence and attribute it to his taste.
 
In case you live under a rock, Sizna is a guitar god, and he basically carried Moran through pretty miserable circumstances and may or may not have been the glue that kept Moran together toward their end, with dueling egos from Hitomi and Soan leading the band to implode. Sizna’s instrumental and compositional prowess led Moran through what would have basically made any other band disband, and he had the tracks to back it up. I think vivi basically followed his guitarlines, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Sizna wrote all the guitar parts himself, but vivi was an excellent rhythm guitarist. While the newer members were arguably weaker musicians, they breathed life into Moran and revitalized their sound—magic happens somehow somewhere—right?
 
I want to talk about individual songs, but Moran released almost 30 tracks between 2013-2015, so that’s kinda impossible too. I will speak more about major themes across the releases, with particular attention to stand-out tracks and larger releases. Moran, while playing with a unique, multicoloured palate, did release music that could be understood as variations of a broader theme. The 2013-2015 era saw Moran release their best party songs (because IMO, the prior ones sucked). These tracks are characterized by upbeat tempos, cheeky and catchy, jangling, dueling guitar lines, heavy yet tasteful synthwork, and soaring vocal melodies. These songs are Moran’s most accessible, but far from tepid, generic pop songs—take the funky bass/drum solo break and ascending vocals in the bridge of “but Beautiful”; the wailing synths, bridge breakdown and verbose sing-along chorus of “Eclipse”; the start-stop-instrumentation and killer guitar solo of “L’oiseau bleu”. The 1 minute 30 exuberance of “Melancholia”, sugary sweetness of “Bulbs”, “Reverse”, “Break the silence” are also exemplars of their charismatic charm. Across these songs, traditional structures are subverted, pacing is played with, and the listener is taken on fuckin’ journeys through textured verses, dazzling choruses, and layered instrumentation. No one is close to touching Moran on these tracks, and they stand out as highlights in their discography.
 
 
While these songs are Moran at their most polished, rough-and-tumble Moran is fun too. “Maybe Lucy in the Sky” is a rioting, gang-vocal mosh track meant to get the crowd jumping around, and “Esther” is a hella odd take on something between metalcore-kei and deadman, all ran through a lo-fi cassette playback---I’m not kidding. “Byouma” is also one of their darker tracks (not saying much, Moran are softies), marked by ominous synths, moody riffs, and a rap-sung chorus. It almost sounds like Moran doing Mejibray…in their own twisted way of course. I think what contributed to Moran’s longevity was their ability to stay true to themselves while still playing amongst basically everyone—oshare, abare, and art kei alike. They were chameleons within the visual circuit, and probably had a setlist for every occasion, reeling in curious fans of other bands with a range of styles and sounds. They weren’t outsiders playing to the same crowd at Ikeburkuro Chop every week, and they were able to spread their sound accordingly…the residual fame/notoriety from Fatima (and ikemen good looks/fanservice) likely helped as well.
 
 
Next is the jazzy/bluesy/swing/calypso (yes) bangers, being fellow A-side singles “Benisashi” and “Daraku…” and “Hollowman”, which to me, always had a more jazzy flavour than the other upbeat bangers, but was too rock-ish to fit in among the jazzy tracks. Another nice crossover honorable mention is the band’s cover of SiD’s “Mousou Nikki”, which they infuse with extra urgency through tremolo picked riffs, complex lead fills and extra dramatic vocals from Hitomi. SiD’s early years were notable for jazzy leanings, and Moran’s cover picks up with even more jazzy touches with an extra quirky rock flavour—which fits the stalker fan concept of the lyrics. Of special note is the calypso flavoured interlude of “Hollowman”, which they took all the way in the romantic mid-tempo “Daraku”. Hitomi’s vocal line is delicate as the acoustic guitars and tempered percussion, with an energy that hearkens back to the more rock-but-pretty-acoustic “Ningen no ningen no ni yoru ningen no tame no koiji”. Moran, throughout their lineup changes and style fluctuations, were always conscious of their roots, and for them to revive that sound is a treat.
 
 
“Benisashi” opens up with tight bluesy, melodic-yet-dissonant lead guitar work from no one but Sizna, leading into Hitomi’s crooning over the jazzy verse and bombastic chorus. I wish I had more words in my vocabulary to describe the nuances of their sound, but I’m not well versed enough in jazz/blues lingo. What I can say is that its fucking awesome, give it a listen. The jazz tracks on Jen:ga are by far the most balls-to-the-walls, with the elegantly restrained smoky cabaret opener of “Barairo no jigoku”, to the maddening swing-your-partner-by-the-arm jig of “Aru sakushi to no yuugiroku”. This is easily some of the jazziest/bluesiest music I’ve heard from a visual band—far from the shitty metalcore-swing transmutations of recent years.
 
 
Moran also had a good repertoire of slower, dreamier tracks. Jen:ga outtake “Yakuchuu”, “Wing or Tail”, “Fuyuubyou” and Hollowman b-side “Fukamidori” compliment each other well in their delicate, romantic style and . Speaking of midtempo (and slowwww), Moran pulled out all their stops for the ‘ballade’ concept mini-album dark. They literally made my art kei dreams come true and dropped A WHOLE FUCKING MINI ALBUM’s worth of ballads. I will preface this by saying that I’m a ballad person—If you’re not *cough* like @saishuu *cough* then you better sit tight because I’ll try to fuckin convert you. There is nothing better than some sad fucking guitar chords layered over some slow, moving rhythms and subtly ornamental basslines and a beautiful comforting vocal line. Moran give me all that and more with dark. “Haru no yoru...” is the spiritual successor to my all-time fav Moran ballad “Snowing”; “Negai to uta” is a quasi post-rock, spoken word-y duet with female vocals complement Hitomi’s crooning; “Nozomenai to…” is  driven by charging drums over weeping strings, bringing to life a heartwrenching narrative of lovers split by the sea shore. The whole album stands out for being a dazzling display of Moran's compositional prowess, with each song having its own taste despite the otherwise monotonous theme of balladry. "Fairy Tale" is a barebones acoustic track, "Ikou, Shirakami..." plays with dynamic shifts and swelling delayed guitars like Mono, while "The Hermit" is a shoegazy piece with a hard-ass breakdown toward the end. Moran's ballads are removed of visual cheese, with attention paid to maintaining a bitter sweet sound, in which they remain melancholic but not absorbed by melodramatic displays of emotion. If you've been shy to approach ballads because of the affective excess ever so present in visual kei, I'd urge you to give Moran a shot.
 
 
You can’t talk about ballads without their goodbye single, “Yoake wo mae ni”,  which places Hitomi as the proverbial prince in the fairy tale that was Moran. While he was going to close the chapter of Moran, he wanted to leave their fans with something to remember and his hand to hold on to. The PV reaches Malice Mizer drama heights, with the band members disappearing one-by-one as the song comes to an end, a-la "Au revoir" or "Le ciel" (an ironic touch, given Hitomi's entry into VK as a MM roadie). My favourite part is the end interlude where most of the instrumentation cuts out and Hitomi delivers an uncharacteristically dynamic vocal solo, which is even more goosebump-inducing in the footage for their last live (linked below!). As Hitomi delivers the vocal line, the audience belts it out with him, and you can clearly hear them holding back tears as they sing “I silently listened to your heartbeat; its very steady; in this way, I can share the loveliness of the night with you”. English translations (thank you translation blogger) don’t do it justice in the least; the verbs used in the Japanese version like “resonance” and the use of “beloved” with “night” sounds like Hitomi kissing his fans goodbye in his ever-romantic, poetic style.
 
 
With that, Moran bid us farewell. Basically, the tensions between Hitomi and Soan probably drove the band crazy and they peaced out. I’m no expert on Moran’s member drama, but a glance at the band news threads on here should offer a healthy dose of visual tea. Hitomi and Soan are apparently good now, with Hitomi’s solo projects Ameyasame and Umiyuri having played with Soan’s solo project (Soan Project with Akuta; Temari) on occasion. Should Moran come back? Vivi’s hands are tied with DEZERT’s current fast-track to visual major fame, Ivy is juggling side projects with Yoru (Temari, ex-amber gris’s solo project) and Tenten’s Lack-Co. Sizna has mostly left visual outside of a Sugar one-night revival, and is now teaching guitar in his own business. The funniest part of it all is that Velo had a guest appearance on Umiyuri's debut EP and is currently playing with Ivy in Yoru. I’d like to think of this as no bad blood between the art-kei dudes. The talent that graced visual kei from 2013-2015 is still present in some form in the indies circuit, although no solo project has reached the heights of Moran’s fame; routinely selling out AREA, playing onemans at O-East and ending their career at a packed Zepp Tokyo.
 
 
Oldheads on here will remember that amber gris died shortly after, and with the deaths of cocklobin and 9GOATS BLACK OUT in the near past, no major art kei band was left to carry the scene, the splintered solo projects and off-shoot bands haven’t been able to drive up interest like before. This may just be that the bands aged out of the super-touring style of SPEED-DISK bands—Hitomi and Soan were around 40 when Moran called it quits, and by then, most of their fans that followed them since Fatima were probably retiring as bangya. Luckily, the youngins behind Develop One’s Faculties have been able to carry the torch of Moran, reaching similar peak venues without members deeply rooted in art-kei like Moran. Yuya’s charismatic vocals, perplexing lyrics and intricate guitarlines certainly give him the starpower to take over Moran’s legacy while being different enough. I’d argue there are lots of parallels between current DoF and later day Moran, especially with DoF’s ability to be visual chameleons while staying true to their sound. The same can be said for Chanty, who have a distinctly indie-rock crossover flair and straddle the boundaries between j-indie and visual kei. Hell, Akuta, the vocalist of Chanty is also the star of the more rock-flavoured part of Soan Project. Belle has a slightly jazzy twang to them too, but they remind me more of classic Oshare than the former three bands. I can’t think of any other notable bands that followed in Moran’s wake, but I think as visual’s popularity continues declining—there will never be another Moran. I’m not entirely okay with that, but DoF and Chanty are doing god’s work. In the meanwhile, we can look back fondly at Moran’s later years, smiling, dancing, bopping and shedding tears with some of the best visual kei of the 2010s.
 
I want to hear your opinions? Are you a holic? What are your fav Moran songs? Are you with me and think their best era was 2013-2015 or are you a diehard first lineup fan? Will art-kei live forever? Do you happen to hate Moran (YOU MONSTER!!) for some odd reason? Let me know! Ps thanks to @peffy for the lyrics and @The Moon for literally being a whole Moran street team in one person.
 
xx
 
emmny

Well, it seems that they've actually acknowledged the hype they've stirred upon their stans with the celebration of the 25th anniversary event. So I seriously hope for the upcoming event that they at least play more Malice Mizer songs instead of N.P.N.G lol

Mako is featured on the front cover of Motto2 High-Grade〜vol.002〜, with Yu~ki from MALICE MIZER!
 
 
(there's also a long interview with him in the magazine)

I think a big reason why some people would like VK to get more traction again is so that the younger bands can start to play overseas. Sure, there are still some bands coming over but not as many as it used to be during the hype-phase. For many people, me included, it has been the only chance to see my favorite bands live and not just through a screen. I'm very grateful for that and I hope other vk-fans that are young now can make the same experiences. 

Ready, set....

this may be off topic but this topic reminds me of what i always wanted to say about mh.
 
idk what we overseas fans can do to make vk more popular than what it is, but one thing i think doable is to make mh become more popular.
vk may be dead one day but mh should live on after that. personally i always see mh as a very underrated japanese music forum that has high potential to grow bigger.
 
if the stats on similarweb aren't lying, it's very impressive that we have around 1.3m page views monthly (from 200k total visits * 6.6 page views per a visit). what i mean is mh already has a huge user base in hands but the engagements of the content on the forum are a lot less compared to it. for example, we have very few concurrent registered users online as you can see from the image below. it's only ~20 members online. (700 guests are mostly crawlers i believe). i know that it's taken at a random time of a day but usually it's still not significantly more than this either considering we have over 9.6k members registered. additionally, we can have more followers on facebook and twitter from our daily visitors if we want to. (it hurts to see that mh which is the source of almost everything japanese rock related has far less likes than random j-rock pages on facebook even demon android's one.)
 

 
moreover, traditional forum software like IPB is kinda 2000-ish, but i'm just saying. i have nothing against it. IPB is not bad though. it regularly gets updates and bug fixes. but nowadays there are a number of better open source alternatives as well; e.g. discourse and nodebb. converting the database from one to another is such a pain though if we ever do it.
 
sysops are one of the most important roles that almost nobody notices the effort they put behind the scenes. we have had only 3-4 sysops since the inception of mh and now there is only one left. it's a vital position that needs to recruit too. what'd we do if they're all gone? it'd even mean the end of mh. (not sure about how recruiting a new sysop is going, but it seems difficult to get one to begin with.)
 
at the end of the day, staff are all volunteers. finding a suitable staff member who is willing to spend their free time is hard already but finding one who is dedicated to the community is even harder. one day the current staff members will be rotated as well. so we're not going anywhere if we don't expand the user base. we can find more talented people from a bigger one.
 
this is my two cents:
 
it's time for mh 4.0. sooner or later mh has  to change too. otherwise, the community will be gone if we don't do something beforehand. if i were the founder, i'd rebrand "monochrome-heaven" to something else shorter, easier to type and pronounce, and easy to remember esp for non-english natives. having a dash (-) in a domain name looks unprofessional for a brand imo. just like when "thefacebook.com" becoming "facebook.com". the former is not a professional brand name compared to the latter. they bought it once they had the money to afford it and became the "facebook" we know nowadays.
 
rebranding mh may be too much for those who're familiar with the name but it'd be a big step to be known better. by rebranding i mean changing the look of the forum too whether it be a new skin or even new forum software that's more modern. we can still stick with vk just like before and be more open to the general japanese rock scene which is more lively and has a wider fanbase like ruling it all online not only on here but also on other social networks.
 
yeah, i know that it's easier said than done. it takes a lot of effort and is very challenging to accomplish, but knowing the potential mh has not being used is wasting as well.

I think the fatal blow to visual kei, at least in Japan, will come when Kiryu disband, after all along with R-Shitei (RIP?) are the most important bands that emerged from 2007 to now

Incredible, thanks!

I made this "tutorial" for all you guys and girls who struggle with the makeup. I work as a makeup artist and this is my tips on how to look visual kei even if you are not asian!
 
This look is the basic visual kei look that most artists use, you can create different looks using this as a base which I will get to later!
 
Let's begin!
 
Step 1:

 
Always start off with a clean face. Moisturize heavily and put on a good primer that minimize pores and smoothens out the skin texture. A primer helps to keep your making looking fresh all day long, also it protects your skin.
 
Step 2:

 
To really get a visual look you should get some colored contacts! The ones portrayed here are called "White Zombie" and you can get them at regular halloween stores, costume shops and also online. Circle lenses are also commonly used in visual kei, those makes your iris/eyes look bigger! Always put on your contacts before you put on your makeup to avoid damaging your eyes.
 
As you can tell, the girl in the photo doesn't have any eyebrows! That's because I recommend you to either pluck your eyebrows, shave them off or just cover them up using a glue stick. Why? Well... because we are going to create a different eyebrow shape that fits the style better! 
 
Step 3:

 
Put on a full coverage foundation that is a little bit lighter than your skintone. It has to be full coverage to cover up any redness and imperfections. You want your skin to look flawless! Also use a concealer to cover up dark circles or other imperfections the foundation didn't cover.
 
Don't use too much foundation because it might look cakey, you want your skin to look as flawless as possible!
 
Step 4:

 
Set the foundation and concealer with a lot of loose powder to get rid of any shine. This will make you look completely matte and also help your makeup to stay in place during the day. Visual kei artists doesn't follow the glowing skin trend so keep it matte. This also makes your skin look even more flawless! Make sure the powder you use is either transperant, or the same color as your skin or a little bit lighter. Never use a powder that is darker than your skin!
 
Step 5:

 
Now it's time for shading/contouring! This is what makes your face look more defined. Visual kei artists doesn't do regular shading/contouring since most of them are men and want to look edgy.
 
What you are going to do is to either use a bronzer, a face powder or a contouring powder. It doesn't really matter what you use, just make sure that the powder is 2-3 shades darker than your skin and is brown in color. Avoid anything shimmery, go for a matte powder. You place this powder using a brush inside the areas I have marked with red and make sure to blend it out.
 
Don't use too much, less is more and you will end up looking dirty if you use too much.
 
If you accidentaly use too much you can just go over it using some more of the powder you used to set your foundation.
 
It should look something like this:

 
Step 6:

 
Now it's time to highlight! This is what is going to make your face look brighter, defined and polished.
 
Use a matte light powder, or eyeshadow for this. It should be about 3 shades lighter than your skintone. Again, very important to make sure the powder is matte! If you are very pale you could get away with using a white eyeshadow or a clown white pressed powder.
 
Apply this inside all the blue areas I marked on the picture and it should look something like this:

 
Step 7:

 
Now it's time for the eyes! Start off by creating a guideline using a black eyeliner pencil. Recreate the same shape as the red line shows in the picture above! The green line shows where the shape should stop on the bottom eyelid.(While looking straight forward, the shape you create should  stop right where your pupil begins.) Hope it makes any sense lol?
 
It should look something like this:

 
Step 8:

 
Fill it in using black gel liner, or the same eyeliner pencil you used to create the line. Make sure to set it using a matte black eyeshadow to make sure that it lasts all day long!
 
Put a white, or a very light beige/off white eyeliner pencil inside of the blue marking shown in the picture above. This is what makes the eye pop and look more defined!
 
Now your eye should look something like this:

 
Now....

Last step of the basic eye makeup is to add shading in the areas marked in red as shown in the picture above, this creates a fake aegyo-sal which is very popular in asia, also it makes the eye look a bit more interesting! Just use a brown eyeshadow that is a bit darker than your skin, or use the same product you used when you shaded your face.
 
Add some mascara and the basic eye makeup is done and should look something like this:

 
If you want you can add things to this such as rhinestones or stickers! If you want to add a color, a lot of visual kei artists puts a colorful eyeshadow around it like this:

 
If you want a more feminine look you could add long fake eyelashes or more mascara, like this:

 
Step 9:

 
Now it's time for the eyebrows! You want them to be kind of thin, further down towards the eye, slanted upwards so that they look angry and pretty close to the nose bridge. If you have grey hair they should be grey, if you have pink hair they should be pink, etc. I recommend using a waterproof liplinerpencils if you want unnatural colors such as pink, red etc. Eyeshadow works fine though if you want softer/"natural" brows. Avoid black eyebrows, they look harsh. Use a dark brown instead!
 
I picked grey eyebrows, this is what they look like:

 
Step 10:

 
Last step! Lips! You can do whatever you want with your lips. Block them out using a concealer, wear black lipstick, red lipstick, purple lipstick.... It's all up to you!
 
Visual Kei artists often times wear gradient lips. That means you block your lips out using a concealer, then put lipliner in the middle of your lips and blend it outwards! That way your lips look soft, no sharp lines around them etc.
 
In the picture above I tried to show you easy visual kei lips. It's so hard to draw makeup, but I think I did alright. To achieve that type of lip, you forst put on a regular lipcolored lipstick that is slightly darker than your lips. Then you dip your finger, or a brush, in black eyeshadow and blend it into your lips.
 
Using eyeshadow on the lips is very common in visual kei. It makes the lip last longer! Instead of lipgloss you could use a very shimmery eyeshadow or powder highligter for example!
 
Now you just need to fix your hair and you are all done!
 
Hope this tutorial helped some of you, feel free to ask if you have any questions! ❤️
 

We always had the jornals scanning stuff and the blogs with daily updates, but at some point there was a "trading rare lives in p2p" thing going on that sucked. Btw, glad I did not sucked any cock for these hot Matina stuff, because a lot of them are on youtube right now.

Please!!!!

This is, for me, one of the key points on the matter.
 
2006-2010 was a period when the offer VK did was still innovative, diverse, and at the same time close to the on-going music trends worldwide (rock was still in their cool years). It couldn't not have a success, at least at a minimum, in a niche way. Even with their flops, because yeah, I agree with many of you here that Mucc, Dir, Giru, D'espa or Gazette's take on Western trends sometimes delivered cringe-worthy material, plus all that no-homo shit over getting rid of their queer aesthetics... but hey, isn't that what art is about, creativity? At least they tried to evolve, offer their worshipers something different and outdo themselves each time.
 
So, speaking of today, I don't care about whether the music of the VK scene will be taken or not by the mainstream media, but I certainly will care about the quality of it if that scenario ever happens at least at a minimum. It would be actually embarrasing to have someone you've previously told you like "vk" finding about Pentagon, Golden Bomber or Under Fall Justice after looking up for it in the web, or keep wowing over the same boring heart-munching blood-sucking perfos since  
Obscure's PV... 
 
That said, over the years it happened to me that the more VK band I discover, the more shitty stuff I find, like, the stuff that really makes the difference in a listen could be actually, let's say, a 30~40% of the whole VK releases, while the rest being cheap BL cosplay ost's that I will always prefer it stays on the niche it belongs.

A better marketing team. That is what VK lacks.
 
Being edgy isn't the issue, Billie Eyelash is the latest example of that. And language barrier? Although valid, but with these K-Pop acta around and actually popular, so much so that they went to evening talk shows or performs at Coachella, one of the major Summer music festival in the world, I don't think it is that much of an issue these days. Especially when your music genre audience market is younger people or people who are young spirited.
 
And what did Billie, BTS, BLACKPINK, Ariana, Kardashians, and others have that VK acts don't? A marketing team that control the hype machine up in large scale.
 
Also, they are not utilizing internet very well when it is a great  tool to expand your reach. And actually this is a main issue with Japanese music industry in general. Like, L'arc~En~Ciel a major label band have only set up their official YouTube channel in December 2019!! And have been copyright strikes every single uploads of their music or music video by regular people so nobody but the actual fans actually know who they are. Imagine that.
 
Which is sad and tragic, since internet was the reason VK went viral outside Japan in the first place in the early 2000s with the P2P file sharing such as Soulseek being popular.

This is, for me, one of the key points on the matter.
 
2006-2010 was a period when the offer VK did was still innovative, diverse, and at the same time close to the on-going music trends worldwide (rock was still in their cool years). It couldn't not have a success, at least at a minimum, in a niche way. Even with their flops, because yeah, I agree with many of you here that Mucc, Dir, Giru, D'espa or Gazette's take on Western trends sometimes delivered cringe-worthy material, plus all that no-homo shit over getting rid of their queer aesthetics... but hey, isn't that what art is about, creativity? At least they tried to evolve, offer their worshipers something different and outdo themselves each time.
 
So, speaking of today, I don't care about whether the music of the VK scene will be taken or not by the mainstream media, but I certainly will care about the quality of it if that scenario ever happens at least at a minimum. It would be actually embarrasing to have someone you've previously told you like "vk" finding about Pentagon, Golden Bomber or Under Fall Justice after looking up for it in the web, or keep wowing over the same boring heart-munching blood-sucking perfos since  
Obscure's PV... 
 
That said, over the years it happened to me that the more VK band I discover, the more shitty stuff I find, like, the stuff that really makes the difference in a listen could be actually, let's say, a 30~40% of the whole VK releases, while the rest being cheap BL cosplay ost's that I will always prefer it stays on the niche it belongs.

Well there's many reasons and we've had topics or discussions about this before on the forum so if you do some digging you'll find some decent posts about it. Here's some points tho:
 
1. The Japanese have stopped investing time and money in the western market. The big tours and promotion campaigns and shit are all long gone after everyone ( most likely ) lost their money ten years ago. This situation has actually now started to change slightly with big relevant bands like DADAROMA making the exception for anime conventions for that big anime cash, and also they've been starting to wake up about the potential of streaming services like spotify despite having been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I don't think this will amount to a boom like it was before, but maybe at least it will normalise the situation where our existence is at least acknowledged in some roundabout way. 
 
2. Visual kei ain't doing so hot in Japan either. Now with the hiatus of R-shitei the amount of big bands is only dwindling down and the fact that successful new bands like Raid that, let's be real, are nothing to write home about musically and that would never ever get any press outside the vk fandom because it's strictly for visual kei die hard gyas only, super niche. Also the biggest media draws are getting dangerously close to retiring for good if not by their own will then by time itself. The international rock circuit is not going to recover once those legends are gone and the time is almost here, and I'm open for suggestions as to who'll replace X, GLAY and L'arc and draw like they did. 
 
3.  General culture shift is hugely in favor of music that can be done at home and then toured for fraction of the price ie. rap music and electronic music. Big spectacle pop performers aside, touring a rapper and a singer without loads of equipment is significantly cheaper and easier.  People can start realising their musical ambitions without finding other people even in the middle of nowhere; and then to this you add the reality that rock music stopped innovating for the culture years ago. Nothing came after the metalcore post-hardcore fad, and rock audiences are aging by the year while hip hop audiences span multiple demographics from all male to all female and from young to older and the underground scenes change faces around every six months. Techno is also insanely profitable where the night lives of cities around the world function around the techno economy that can cater to normies and underground diehards at the same time. People ( normies ) go to rock clubs on the weekends as a curiosity to listen to shit that's at least 20 years old and most often between 30 and 40 years old.

This is, for me, one of the key points on the matter.
 
2006-2010 was a period when the offer VK did was still innovative, diverse, and at the same time close to the on-going music trends worldwide (rock was still in their cool years). It couldn't not have a success, at least at a minimum, in a niche way. Even with their flops, because yeah, I agree with many of you here that Mucc, Dir, Giru, D'espa or Gazette's take on Western trends sometimes delivered cringe-worthy material, plus all that no-homo shit over getting rid of their queer aesthetics... but hey, isn't that what art is about, creativity? At least they tried to evolve, offer their worshipers something different and outdo themselves each time.
 
So, speaking of today, I don't care about whether the music of the VK scene will be taken or not by the mainstream media, but I certainly will care about the quality of it if that scenario ever happens at least at a minimum. It would be actually embarrasing to have someone you've previously told you like "vk" finding about Pentagon, Golden Bomber or Under Fall Justice after looking up for it in the web, or keep wowing over the same boring heart-munching blood-sucking perfos since  
Obscure's PV... 
 
That said, over the years it happened to me that the more VK band I discover, the more shitty stuff I find, like, the stuff that really makes the difference in a listen could be actually, let's say, a 30~40% of the whole VK releases, while the rest being cheap BL cosplay ost's that I will always prefer it stays on the niche it belongs.

WE NEED A MV WITH THIS LOOK OMG!
THE BEST LOOK EVER!
Hopefully David will continue to release stuffs for Long time