YuyoDrift

I cant believe you've bamboozled me like this

Well, it's gonna happen. I'm gonna have to buy a Switch next year. Finally, I'll fucking do it, if only for this.
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/animal-crossing-new-horizons-switch/

Can someone elaborate on Ryuya's departure from a musical/musician's standpoint?
Does he feel his performance has plateaued with the current music style of band, or if his outlook on whether or not he is a good guitarist at all hit him so hard that he's calling it quits? It's always hard to digest Japanese formality, and so nuances on whether or not they are leaving on good terms or not doesn't interest me.
I'm more interested on the music's sound, and how that comes back to the musician and their current state.
 
I really feel for the guy, as any musician who prides themselves in their work would be crushed if they suddenly realized that they might be the reason for the future stagnation of the band, or if they know that this is all they can do and suddenly realize the gap in talent within the other members as time goes on. It really screws me up that guitarists are always the ones that seem to always have this internal conflict within themselves and find leaving the band or retiring completely as the easy way out.
 
As far as the replacements go, tempos and rhythms can be matched in terms of performance, for both guitar and bass. What can't be replaced is the flow and scaling, which for those who had already pointed out, seems to have been tapped out with the current lineup. It definitely explains why the latest single was sporadic, and I had a feeling that they would get worse on the next release.
 
This news is terrible, but the fact the others will continue activities brought up these thoughts and I wonder if they were being limited in progression in the first place?

The situation in Hong Kong is a dreadful one. I wish that there was a peaceful way to resolve the situation, but as long as countries and leaders subscribe to the doctrine of might makes right, we will continue to have these same problems take new form. 

However, I do not want the pressing immediacy of the topic to supercede the rules we've established. In case you need a refresher these are the two rules.

 

The administration will be monitoring this topic very closely and will close it if it reaches a point where we feel uncomfortable.

the god and death stars will release their new single, "チチルル" (chichiruru) at Ikebukuro CHOP on December 1 - their last oneman for the year.
 
their previous single, "OH!CULT!" has been released at aie's birthday live on 9/26 at Aoyama Rizm
 

 
 
also Dr.大嵩潤 (otaka jun) has resumed live activities on 8/6 after having paused back in February
 
 

Hi. I'm an 18 y/o vkei fan, living in Japan. I like Dir en grey, Sukekiyo, lynch., and the Gazette. I just started listening to MUCC too. I got into vkei this past January, after hearing about Hyde from a kpop guy that likes him a lot. I don't really like either of those people anymore. Currently, I split my time between trying to save up to afford my favorite musician's signature guitar models and attending concerts. I only started attending concerts this past May. My first concert was BUCK-TICK's 2day concert Bestia Locus Solus in Makuhari Messe. Since then, I've attended 2 Gazette concerts, 1 GLAY concert, 1 lynch. concert, and a whooole host of others I purchased tickets to but never went. This month, I'm seeing Dir en grey for the first time! Between now and the end of the year, I'm seeing lynch. (2 more times!), MUCC (& others at Trigger In The box), BUCK-TICK, and Luna Sea. There's more that I have tickets for in 2020, but that's a bit much to list, isn't it?
 
Anyways, I have no specific reason to really join this place. Probably just to lurk, honestly. 

Hello! I'm Hoshizora!
 
I speak Japanese and English!
 
I'm Thai and American, except I didn't start looking Thai until I was like 9 lol
 
My birthday is May 4th, like Hiroto from Alice Nine.
 
I don't know why, but Vkei just gives me such a good, unique feeling that nothing else can give me.  It kind of feels like when you have ramen with really good narutomaki in it, or that first bite of sticky rice and mangos... but a lot better.
 
My first J-rock band was Theatre Brook!  I found out about them because I found their song "Uragiri no yuuyake" on youtube one day in September 2018.  After that on December 29th, 2018 I decided I wanted to learn Japanese.  I became fluent in September 2019!
 
And here is how I got into Visual Kei: 
 
On February 23rd, 2019, my friend just decided to show me a picture of Ryuutarou Arimura, literally out of nowhere (I think we were talking about mario or something before then and she changed the topic) It was more like, as soon as I saw Ryuutarou I instantly became obsessed with him before I even heard any of his music (lol)  She said the reason why she showed me the picture of him was because she said something along the lines of "I feel like this is a real life version of L, but this is really the vocalist of a band called Plastic Tree" (btw death note is the only anime ive ever watched)  I was SO surprised to hear that he's 46, I expected him to be about 30, and it's not like I'm never around asians, I have a lot of Thai family, with myself having a lot of Thai blood too..  Regardless of his age I was still obsessed with him and I still showed pictures of him to my mom, all the time, even though he is like, 5 years older than her.   After about...... 3 months of being obsessed with Ryuutarou, I FINALLY decided to listen to one of his songs.  I'm so glad that I wasn't disappointed with them and they're actually some of the best songs I've ever heard.  
 
Now I just tell everyone in my family about Visual Kei all the time.  Everyone except my dad's sister and her kids are used to it.  If I showed my mom or even my grandma a girl in J-rock that actually looks like a girl, she will be like "That's a girl?" lol.. 
 
Well that is how I got into Visual Kei, lol.. and here is how to end this with my favourite J-rock bands:
 
Plastic tree, The GazettE, X Japan, Versailles, L'Arc~en~Ciel.  I of course know way more Jrock bands but those are just my favourites.
 
Thank you for reading this and sorry if it was long!   And also if you want to chat just message me, I would love to have friends here! ^^
 
Also feel free to ask questions

Looking up Desired - Plastic Whatever samples got me into this:
 

Sounds here like retsu wants to tour overseas.
Retsu is really adamant the album is coming, says lives will go on with the 3 of them (reading between the lines guess he's not looking for more members anytime soon). Katsuya says there are reasons to worry but since its dimlim he's not worried. Retsu confirms this.
 
This line from retsu is weird too. They're talking about how things have changed since they met.
Retsu: My bands changed too much.
Katsuya: Jeez your band (lol).
Retsu: It's been crazy, as if we've been switching in talent from overseas. Well it's impossible now (lol).

Can anyone confirm I have this right? I don't know what he's trying to imply with this. Maybe that the 3 remaining members are really committed so they won't break up. Or maybe (something bad)?

Hello, I'm a new person on this forum that I found because of Dir En Grey's comment section on their videos on Youtube.
 
Basic information about me is that I discovered Visual Kei because of comments on songs from Babymetal. They led me to the gazette which lead me to dir en grey which lead me to Jupiter and the rest is history.
 
If anyone wants to chat I'm open for conversations from people
 

Hey, welcome to the forum!
 
I'm a member from the Midwest myself (well, used to be).
Have you attended any other anime conventions in that area like Anime Central or Anime Midwest in Illinois, Anime Milwaukee in Wisconsin, or Youmacon in Michigan?
I've never heard of Anime Weekend before, but we do have members from Atlanta that might have.
 
Take a look around if you've never lurked our forum before, and make yourself at home.
We have a bunch of topics that you can take part in and plenty other users to chat with that enjoy listening to those very same artists/bands.
 
Shoot any of the staff here (including myself) if you have any questions.
Hope to chat with you soon!

Commenting a bit on what was discussed here. Just my two cents, aight. Or, uh, a lot of cents. Sorry I'm terrible at Explaining.

I don't know, I think the otaku/anime/manga fan crowd is actually quite keen on keeping up with Japan's youth, and Japan's youth has been listening a lot to K-pop too. I don't see a necessary overlap in fandom, but yes, there are people who like both. Although I think the cultural ties to these two as well as, say, AKB48 - idols, of course - sees reflexion in anime fandom as the plethora of idol anime/mobage products (started with Love Live and IM@S newer spinoffs, also UtaPri and now its Enstars, HypMic, Bandori, Dreaming!, Idolish7 ...), doesn't mean they enjoy the 3DPD idols of k-pop lol. Also, for international fans, k-pop is way more accessible than Japanese music nowadays. It's in every streaming platform, every twitter handle, every magazine, you don't even have to saerch. It's so easy to stumble into it so while back then people knew about K-pop because of Japanese music, now it's much more the other way around. I think most of the k-pop crowd - as part of it myself - is either like, 20%ish people on their 20s or maybe 30s who were formerly fans of Asian music in general (me!) and/or younger people who had incursions because of East Asian ancestry, and a majority of teens who are into k-pop because of YouTube and/or BTS or any overlap of these two. But yes, I definitely think that with k-pop being way more accessible - and presenting the same sort of "we are anime boys" fantasy that vk did a decade ago - it's not really surprising that some people who want to get a feel of East Asian culture are into it nowadays. Speaking of which, I grew up (in the 2000s) listening to a lot of Japanese music and watching anime and stuff, but even before BoA I've always been pretty immersed in SK culture as well because of MMOs so maybe this isn't even such a new trend. The media and pop cultures do overlap a lot at times. (*cough* do you know Tri-Angle *cough*)
 
I also realized a lot of people who were dragged into K-pop through East Asian music market in general had a few favorite songs/groups - or even one favorite in particular - but since Korean TV shows love to mix the groups they end up discovering other acts and becoming a fan as well - I know that is my case since I used to say I hate k-pop for a good 6 years from 2009 to 2015. Speaking of cultural interchanging I think the most extreme of k-pop fans - at least in my experience since I am always biting my own tail by saying I don't like rap and proceeding to be a fan of every group with 3+ rappers in the market but maybe that's because they actually do rap and not just digdigdoo their way through the annoyingly obligatory rap sequence  - actually end up listening to black music because that's what their idols are listening to, which I found so funny.
 
Lastly, I have to disagree that k-pop sounds like Western music. I think the Apop market specifically has been pretty weak since, uh, probably the decline of Lady Gaga and the crash of Disney stars and you don't see such bubblegummy pop songs so much anymore even among artists who excelled at it before (like, say, Katy Perry or Jessie J) ; people who still do it, like, say, Carly Rae Jepsen are pretty much adored, but it's somehow not the trend anymore I think? So back then I thought that Apop was in many ways superior to kpop, but I don't think so anymore, not to my tastes at least - sometimes I'm listening to the radio and I'm happy when BTS comes up because this is the bubblegummy happy song I want. And you know what I mean when I say all k-pop sounded like uh fantastic baby naega jail jam nagagagagaga. (Also, I was talking to an online friend who happened to go through the same ~stages of Asian music~ as myself and we did notice a trend of, sometimes girl groups doing better and sometimes boy groups doing better. I think it was definitely like, -06 for bgs, 07-10 for ggs, 11-14 for bgs, 15-17 for ggs and now we're having a bg era again, or something to that effect, and she agreed with me.)
 
But yeah, it's no metal nowadays either.
 
Also, to whoever asked about other genres of music in the Korean market, Korean music isn't just k-pop (surprisingly, not really, as the same applies to music in pretty much uh every country) and personally I listen to a lost of other artists, from Alice Vicious to Norazo to Guckkasten to Epik High. They're just, well, not k-pop which is a very specific market with very specific rules. Another important thing to note is that most times these idols are basically trained - not for cheap - by the companies behind them, and they don't always follow their careers so closely and teens are left on their own to produce stuff. Not saying this happens to the biggest of them, but smaller companies? Definitely. And sometimes they end up spewing dumb racist/homophobic bullshit thinking it's cool, but it's not happening so much nowadays.
 
I also think this shift from people from, say, Japanese music to k-pop has something to do with the decline of Being an emo kid is cool culture because, lol, music that actually hits your soul and makes you think about life? Pfft, let's go for the bubblegummy songs that promote sex exploitation, it's much better this way. I think it is just this global culture shift.  
 
So to me saying yes, VK and K-pop are similar because they're both music for fans of music, and it happens to be East Asian music! is the same as saying yeah, if you like Jay Z you'll probably like Billie Eilish because they're both American and seeking fans!, which is kind of... no. In many ways it's not similar. I think the shift is because of cultural changes and accessibility much more than because humans all of a sudden can't distinguish intricate music from pop music anymore.
 
But yes, of course the "we look like anime boys with our perfect makeup and cool blue hair, please love us" aesthetic of k-pop is a thing that drags young people into it into k-pop, but I guess the same could be said for, like, hip youtubers. You can't really avoid the aesthetic of things, I guess. Says the grown up woman who has a picture of candy floss-haired k-pop boy on her profile picture. But take me as you will really. Funnily, I can say I am much more appreciative of vk for the aesthetics it presents - not just "oh, ok, it's hot boys and I can ship them!" but I mean the actual aesthetic in the sense of the culture/semiology it expresses - than I am of k-pop for these reasons. I swear I do not care for 17 year old girls being kawaii ( but man, I love some of the songs they have! Very Very Very is Astounding! Lipstick is Excellent! Likey is Quintessential! Russian Roulette is Classic! Bboom Bboom is Amazing! ) nor am I particularly interested in 20 year old boys flexing their excessively worked out abs - I honestly think of how bad their health must be before I can even try to appreciate the abs - but still I love some of the music they have. (FYI, my favorites don't fall into either, for the most part. I'm always with the kawaii boys crowd or the WAHRGAH ANGRY boys crowd lol.) 
 
I recently had my first few experiences actually being to k-pop concerts and ... suffice to say I had such a blast I'm actually considering to do research on it now. I'm a psychologist and happen to study cultural industries and workers health, and was precisely seeking a topic for my masters and I'm really considering dropping everything I had planned to do in order to delve into this phenomenon which I find to be the prime example of pop Asian music market being a lot more about visuals and the boyfriend experience than music lol. ("Are you trying to find an excuse to go to concerts more often?" Precisely.)

Tl;dr: woman tried to enjoy k-pop but failed miserably in  her teens, now is a graduated and practicing psychologist, sees all the problems with the industry but still can't help but be supportive of her fav k-pop boys, still unsure if it does more good or harm to them.
 
As a footnote ... I did this thing a while back but never posted so here it is. It's just for fun but it really makes you think of what has become of the remnants of the VK scene and how cultures just overlap.
 
 

The above post pretty much nails it.
 
K-pop is quite similar to VK and comparing them is a nice way to find out why k-pop became a world wide craze among females specially while VK did not.
 
K-pop uses the same formula as VK and jpop uses which is getting pretty boys and girls to do singing and in case of k-pop, dancing.
 
Somefuckinghow (i don't know how they do it) females are able to ship the group members to romantic scenarios in their mind and get pleasure? Ya.
 
Shipping members might be easier in k-pop as a typical k-pop group has more members than in any typical VK band and kpop groups are selected on the basis of their looks, they look more girly even without makeup than Japs might ever. Not to mention the k-pop revolves around the themes like love, friendship, teenage, school life etc and VK which is gothy and edgy.
 
-kpop is mostly pop music while VK is mostly Rock. And pop music have always been more popular than Rock hence the name.
 
- VK has (or had?) the goth vibe around due to the extravagant outfits, morbid lyrics and makeup and everybody knows how unpopular the goth stuff is even among Rock fans.
 
All in all, if k-pop is the popular cool chick of the school, VK is the outcast goth girl. Oh and jpop is the ex popular chick of the school who used to rule over the heart of every boy but lost her popularity as soon as the k-pop chick transferred.
 
Well that's my take on this topic. 

I'm off and on when it comes to K-pop but I think this time around I'm gonna stay off.
 
I'm gonna come off a certain way when i say this but i promise its not meant to offend. 
 
When I got back into K-Pop in 2014-2015, I Honestly believed that this was a revolutionary genre. There was a lot of creativity with the music and I will always admire how the songs even in that 3:30-3:50 pocket, can make me feel so satisfied. Even with the plethora of groups, they all had their own style to an extent and they were always reinventing themselves with every release. However with that said, this applied mainly to the Girl groups and there wasn't that pressure or intent to break into the US back then. Come the tail end of 2016-2017...a lot of the groups/singers that i loved chose not to renew their contracts/disbanded, thus ending what I believe was the golden run of K-Pop. Since then, there's been a surge of guy groups that have taken the spotlight. I'm not mad at this because I know that trends happen and its how the business goes. The groups now sound more or less like carbon copies of each other and its clear that the goal is for as many of em to break into the US as possible. The artsy part about it that I need to enjoy music in general is gone. 
 
But im ok with that. I've racked up so much music and videos on my HD with stuff that I enjoy so Its really no love lost. 
 
As for the fans, I try my hardest to stay away from them so they don't bother me as much. But that's not to say they're not some of the most despicable, delusional, and outright nastiest people on the internet. I refuse to give them the pass of mental illness because its disrespectful to those who actually do have issues. Also i believe a lot of these individuals just act like this online and feed off of each other.
 
 
 

https://www.barks.jp/news/?id=1000171695
Report with photos
https://kyotakumrau.tumblr.com/post/187603163017/20190909-deadman-ebisu-liquidroom
Fanreport
 
*edit:
 
Bless you Asanu❤

Some of your opinions remind me of this meme 

Franlky, I do think that it's a good thing for Dimlim that they drop the visuals.
 
After all, to the majority of female audience jrock musicians are a thing - simply a projection of their adrogynous perfect males from the dreams. The audience couldn't care less.
 
So if Retsu is truly fed up with it - good for him.

-

You guys are clogging up this thread.
Take it to PMs if it's really that interesting of a side-topic.

This is brief, biased, vague, and most likely wrong but here goes!
 
-Everyone ditched Aoi (because the music was getting lame) and made a new band, creatively named AYABIE. Aoi stayed on the record label out of a sense of duty?
-Aoi did a poppy solo album and some boring side projects. 
-AYABIE released some pretty good shiz. People hate on Yumehito's singing but he's a'ight. 
-Everyone left AYABIE except Takehito for various reasons. Maybe it was because of that keyboardist they took on? I think Intetsu quit music altogether? 
-I assume Takehito called it a day too. 
-They all came back together (including Aoi) to do some one off gig I think? Sans keyboardist I assume. They later announced they were coming back and recently brought out an incredibly forgettable album. 

Part of this is a combination of nostalgia, selection bias, and increased access to the scene.
 
Sure, I’ve done it too when I’ve gone through discographies of the prominent 90s and 00s bands, and thought “Wow, I don’t think the scene will ever produce classics like this again”. But then I remember that there were probably tons of cookie cutter, derivative bands back in the day that didn’t even reach the West, because no one gave a shit enough to keep and upload their discographies.
 
Now that we have access to the entire scene by means of the internet, and social media in particular, we see all of the shit that the OG hipsters would have left behind 15+ years ago (except perhaps to mock it, see: Glam Japan). Because most of us don’t live in Japan, nor regularly attend Japanese lives, it can be hard to really gauge where these bands fit in the hierarchy of the Japanese fandom.
 
Having access to the entire fandom now also means that we have access to all of the cringe that the fandom has to offer. How much of the observed idolfication of the scene is “new”, and how much of it is just innovating the sentiment that was already there is difficult, because most of us have no real clue of how Japanese fans acted on a daily basis in the 1990s.
 
We can make observations on how the Western fandom has evolved, because most of us have over a decade of experience with that crowd. The only thing I’ve noticed over the years is the increasing openness to pop music, especially J-pop and K-pop. Also, a slight trend towards fixating on one band in the scene, or even one member (specifically, from the fans who also listen to K-pop).

I hear you. There's an argument to be made there was always an assembly line attitude in the medium, there was always an adherence to or at least consciousness of trends and conventions... It's not like "moe" was invented in the 2000s or 2010s (Project A-ko anyone?). But the conventions were just handled so much better back then. Titles like "Is it Wrong to Pick Up Slime Girls in a Forklift Simulator?" or whatever just tell me they're not even trying anymore.

well idk if anyone here has any connections but i guess its worth getting the word out (especially since was only posted on fb and who tf uses that anymore)