hiroki

dunno abt the rest but why blu-billion though? they seem to be doing really well in terms of popularity, cd sales, live ticket sales, and there's good rapport among the members. they are even getting a good bit of attention from mainstream fanbase outside of the scene. obviously bands can disband any time (even if they're at the peak of their popularity), but if these are the criteria we're going by i'd expect blu-billion to be one of the last bands to appear on the list.

i love Taku's songwriting! the lyrics are kinda funny though XD

praying for Reiji to return as well (*_*)

All of them have the same tracks; only the cover is different. So if you just want the music there's effectively only 1 type to get.

aww I feel you. it's funny how I'm kinda at the other extreme of the spectrum: i'm good at critical analysis but have zero creative potential whatsoever XD i'm currently writing my dissertation on j m w turner and for someone working on a topic like this, i've always felt a slight disadvantage without any aptitude in design and creative production. no idea what i want to be in future, but i definitely know what i don't want to be. sitting in a company office doing technical/admin work is the first thing on that list.

terrible news T_T

I listen to quite alot of mainstream mandopop. Some songs I like: Jay Chou(obviously), though I prefer his earlier stuff. Most ppl i know either love or hate how he mumbles his way through a song haha. Xiao Yu. An amazing singer-songwriter who's quite underrated imo. I like Fish Leong's songs as well. There are alot of Chinese songs titled 彩虹 (Rainbow), but hers is my favorite. Btw this was written for her by Mayday's vocalist. Ah-Fu - a really talented singer-songwriter with a unique voice. This may sound heavily edited but she actually sounds quite close to this live (minus the reverb effects). For pop-rock I like IO乐团: Not gonna spam more links, but I also enjoy Faye Wong, JJ Lin, and a handful of more obscure singers from mainland China and oldies singers. I also like Aaron Yan but he's kinda atrocious live (I literally just saw him last week at the Countdown live).

Very nice list!! i enjoyed reading the blurbs for all the entries, even if i may not be familiar with most of them outside the visual category - so thanks for taking the time to do the mini writeups i liked DIV and Codomo Dragon albums most from your vk list i remember enjoying one of the JILUKA releases as well but i don't remember if it's this particular one. from your other 2 lists, there are some names i seem to remember seeing A LOT (a crowd of rebellion and Crystal Lake in particular). i should probably check out some of their stuff when i have time ^^ oh yeah i also know SEKAI NO OWARI, but only because one of my fave vk vocalists loves to sing Aoi Taiyou when he goes to karaoke haha.

Great list!! I especially like LOG, A≠ris, The♡Valentine, Azlina, Blaive, Didius from your list I was going to include A≠ris in my own list as well but totally forgot haha XD The♡Valentine is also great and would have been in my list if I was doing a top 15 instead of top 10 XD Too bad both of them are disbanding..

nice song as usual, but wtf is with that album art...? >_>

@@doombox Yup Diz has disbanded.. it's a real shame Dearly was pretty much their best album with all their songs except for 1-2 songs from previous singles I think. @@CAT5 Yay for vistlip! <3 It's so nice to know they have the endorsement of the great CAT5 XDD Oh yeah it took me forever to do the short samples with the fade in/out effects lol. I always find it difficult when it comes to excerpting a 'prime' section for every song since that means I'm forced to take out quite a bit of instrumentals that may be important for preserving the 'feel' of the song. Well.. can't have it both ways i guess ._. @@Raburr7 Oh for the VA album i also really liked the jilled ray track. It's almost as wonderful as FoLLoW's ピノキオ even though the latter just edges it for me Ditto for the Anfiel album - ALL the tracks are so good it's impossible to choose between them haha. @@Minami wow, reading that really made my day T_T it's always a pleasure to chat with you through PM so let's continue doing that happy new year too~

With NotN coming to an end, I must say I'm surprised to (still) see so much criticism in the NotN announcement thread. Seems to me everyone's just jumping on the bandwagon and saying "there's too much coli grinding involved for this event" but falls short of offering any sort of realistic alternative. Well we can instead distribute eggs and scrolls to everyone on the site--that will be trivially easy for the staff to do, but I'm sure people will then move on to bitch about how the value of rare items are being forcibly depressed, etc. We could also raise gathering rates dramatically, yet that's no different from the scenario of equitable distribution with some minor random deviations. Obviously there are improvements that can be considered for future installations of the event, but as things stand there's a reasonable chance of getting eggs over the course of the event if you grind for e.g. 30 minutes a day. I don't happen to believe the few people on the thread claiming that they couldn't get a single chest to drop in over 10 hours of grinding. They've got to be either grinding in an extremely ineffective/unoptimized manner, which is no fault of the staff, or it's a blatant lie. Of course there's the other gripe about the event being increasingly outmoded. That I'm more sympathetic to. Btw if anyone needs any of the NotN apparels or familiars, let me know! I have pages of spares lol.

Some thoughts on a few releases from your list: LEZARD - かくれんぼ I'm still waiting for my copy but i really liked the preview. I was a huge fan of LEZARD's sound when they first started out (and when they were releasing annoying 150-copies live-limited CDs), but I admittedly couldn't really get into some of their more recent stuff. So it's refreshing to hear something that's reminiscent of their older sound which is what i enjoyed more from their repertoire Neverland - HumaNOISE Nice to see them in your list! Ryota's vocals are too sweet. Kinda similar to Blu-BiLLioN but still distinctly unique. And i love the heart-rending flavor of many of their songs! Purple Stone -アオイヤミ You dunno how happy i am to see them among your favorites! Looks like my shameless promotion of Purple Stone hasn't gone to waste hahah. Hopefully they can release an album soon~ From your list i also love LOG (R.I.P. ;_; ), Blu-BiLLioN (duh), DIV, ALSDEAD, and of course vistlip ユナイト's album left me with mixed feelings but i'll probably return to give them another listen in future. Haven't tried SuG (i've been procrastinating for only the last 7 years?) but i intend to.

@@Tetora i haven't listened to the BPR single - i definitely need to! what i liked about the Resistar singles was how they shuffled the members around and produced music that's kinda different from their usual stuff (e.g. you don't really get the folk/kayokyoku sound in Blu-BiLLioN as you do in Mike with HMK2). i agree it'll be great if they can release their future CDs through shops instead of making it live limited (*_*) ahh the signatures came with all copies of the CDs! i guess they're just too lazy to make album arts hahaha. and yeah i understand what you mean about the unusual vocals lol. i accept it's not everyone's thing, but it's something unique to the scene that's personally very close to me so i'm thrilled to hear that you like it! @@doombox *high fives* i didn't know you like Anli Pollicino, Diz and FoLLoW as well! that's such a pleasant surprise :'DD do check out Shellmy! honestly before i listened to them i didn't think i'll like them (from their appearance at least, they seem a little too melancholic/brooding compared to what i typically listen to) - but damnnn, it's gotta take something quite remarkable to displace vistlip's album from the top spot haha. Lig is a new band and they only have 2 singles so far. i prefer their more recent one (which is in this list) - the band's style reminds me a lot of カラット and 恋HANABI sounds like a song Yuuji could easily have sung

Very nice list indeed! From your list i really enjoyed ALSDEAD, Moran, LOUD GRAPE, and vistlip of course

Update: All the embedded mp3s should work now Thanks @CAT5 for helping out! Aww thanks for dropping by nonetheless And yes please give vistlip a try!!

Since everyone else is also doing it, i'd like to share my favorite releases of 2015~ I'm aware that my taste is rather specific, so you're likely to either love most of the songs or despise all of them. Whatever the case, if you happen to find something that piques your interest or a song from my list you happen to enjoy, you can be sure that i'll be delighted to know what you think--so please feel free to comment etc. I'm not even gonna try to list everything I like from 2015; so here's my top 10 minis/albums, top 10 singles, and top 5 live-limited singles. Each entry will feature a snippet of my favorite track from the release. Enjoyyy~ TOP 10 Mini-Albums & Full Albums (in reverse order) 10. Anima - irony of fate Favorite track: バンギャイズム 09. Anli Pollicino - STARGAZER vol.1 Favorite track: Lonely Glory Story 08. Blu-BiLLioN - GENESIS Favorite track: キミコレクション 07. メガマソ (Megamasso) - ニシュタリ (Nishutari) Favorite track: ｽﾉｳｨﾌﾞﾙｰ 06. BLESSCODE - Mind Core Favorite track: Lucid 05. Diz - Dearly Favorite track: 魅惑のMEW 04. V.A. - 妖幻鏡 -WEST- Vol. 2 ～大阪・名古屋連合～ Favorite track: ピノキオ (by FoLLoW) 03. vistlip - LAYOUT Favorite track: Idea 02. Shellmy - 伍月病 (Gogetsubyo) Favorite track: 甘い目眩、煢然に僕は依然、 01. アンフィル (Anfiel) - LUNAR PHASE Favorite track: charming love ========================================================================================= TOP 10 Singles (in reverse order) 10. ペンタゴン (Pentagon) - ひじきとカラアゲ (Hijiki to Karaage) Favorite track: MAKEINU 09. Lig - 恋HANABI (Koi HANABI) Favorite track: 恋HANABI 08. Blitz - 卒業 (Sotsugyo) Favorite track: 卒業 07. Purple Stone - アオイヤミ (Aoi yami) Favorite track: Break the World 06. Neverland - HumaNOISE Favorite track: HumaNOISE 05. CLØWD - #夏の微熱 (#Natsu no Binetsu) Favorite track: #夏の微熱 04. FoLLoW - プラネタリウム (Planetarium) Favorite track: プラネタリウム 03. Crimson Shiva - Feather Pray Favorite track: Mermaid Misery 02. アンフィル (Anfiel) - destin Favorite track: timeless 01. DiCE - Hope Favorite track: Secret Night ========================================================================================= TOP 5 Live-limited Singles (in reverse order) 05. アプレスエコール (Apres Ecole) - ハジマリノセカイ (Hajimari no Sekai) Favorite track: ハジマリノセカイ 04. 日本男児 (Nihon Danji) - (Untitled) *Session band of Shibuya (Vo. 東京指定) Favorite track: (Untitled) [Note: I confirmed with Shibuya that none of the songs in this cd are titled ._.] 03. V.A. - VISUAL GRAFFITI vol. 2 *feat. CRIMZON bands Favorite track: sakura.-Demo ver.47- (Band: Purple Stone) 02. ミケ with HMK2 - ポップコーンLOVE DAYS / カサブランカ (Popcorn LOVE DAYS / Casablanca) *Resistar Records Shuffle band feat. Mike (Vo. Blu-BiLLioN) Favorite track: カサブランカ 01. THE SINK. - Starry Starry Night *Session band of Kate (Vo. My Fairytale) Favorite track: Starry Starry Night ========================================================================================= THAT'S ALL!! Whew, took ~3h to write this post >_> Thanks for reading!

loveee it <3

oddly enough i actually liked this more than noctscure (even though i own all of noctscure's cds). noctscure's composition was a tad too obscure for me on more than a few occasions, and i'm still not quite sure which side of the interesting/weird boundary they fall on; this on the other hand is way more accessible and i guess just right for me.

nooooo ;_;

i love it, can't wait

umm i thought he said he was retiring lol. not complaining though

over the last few days i've been trying to digitize my photoset collection before everything fades and crumbles into dust lol.. finished around 30% so far

that sounds like what i was hoping from FED