hiroki

I did. He also told me they're gonna spend the hiatus debating whether to change their name to Alice Eight or Alice Ten.

They didn't give any more details than that. Although he had apparently undergone surgery on his arm and for now he needs some rest. Not sure how long this is gonna take though x.x

Hope he recovers asap.

YAY! Their best album got me worried for a lil

From what I know they're leaving PSC and going on hiatus for a year.

Just felt like posting the lyrics somewhere on the Internet where it'll hopefully hang around long enough for posterity, cuz no one has done it and no one is likely to ever do it as there aren't many copies of this to begin with. I'm willing to transliterate (i.e. provide the romaji) upon request. LUCHe. Neo innovation -Level.1- Lyric: 斗真 Music: 斗真 Arrangement: LUCHe. 当たり前の日々があるが当たり前と思っていた 何も知らずに何も失わずに 馴れ合いのstyle again もう一度響かせる * 空っぽの音 滲む世界がモノクロに level.1 計画的best play level.2 turning point 迎えた理想 level.3 後戻りはない止まらないこのsign このまま枯れていく 笑われ咲くこともないまま？ 自分で選ぶことさえも流されてく Time over alone 何度も乗り越える 答えを見つけ出して 止まらないswing&time. 塗り潰す 間違いのない言葉 無難なstyle 二枚舌極めて 馴れ合いのlife 赤光るlight 『だからお前はダメなんだよ。』 Hey, come on!上げるhip 踊るswing 響くvoice 飛ばすbeat このstage １つになるcount down 3…2…1…!! level.1 計画的best play level.2 turning point 迎えた理想 level.3 後戻りはない止まらないこのsign いつかは羽ばたいて 超えられない壁越えてゆく？ 口じゃ誰だって言える。 そう、誰だって。 Time over alone 今やるしかないんだ 答えを探し出して このまま枯れていく 笑われ咲くこともないまま？ 自分で選ぶことさえも流されてく Time over alone 何度も乗り越える 答えを見つけ出して 止まらないswing&time. 塗り潰す Notes: * "again" was mispelled as "agein" in the booklet and I've taken the liberty of correcting this.

oh yesssss. for the sake of my blood pressure, they really need to stop with that kind of one-man live names XD

I doubt many people who've been interested in vk for >10 years will even google stuff like "jrock" and "visual kei". At least not very regularly at all. We already know what bands we like (and which we don't care much for), and we have our dedicated sources for feeds/updates - be it Twitter, MH, OHPs, blogs, youtube channels, etc. What your stats show is only that today we have fewer curious onlookers, and vk is getting less "outside" attention from these people who don't exactly know what vk is all about and are interested to find out. That doesn't necessarily have any connection with the already established fanbase of vk (what Ikna has called people who are into "normalized" vk). It's true that having less "new vk fans" coming into the scene may be a sign of decline, but demographically speaking these are two separate and distinct groups of people. The reason I don't think vk is "dying" is because the spike vk experienced previously wasn't actually true "growth" in the first place; it was merely the 2-second attention of a bunch of people who would quickly pass from one hit to another. Finally: it's entirely possible that overall vk interest has shrunk (though I'm still doubtful), but this just raises the question of which criterion are we using to appraise interest. Total CD Sales? Live ticket sales? A lot of these indices don't work very well for foreign fans for obvious reasons. Online presence is also something that's difficult to monitor. Or do we rely on something that sounds nice but totally un-helpful like the number of vk fans? Then we'll get into the territory of what constitutes a "fan", which from past experience isn't exactly a territory where I'll want to tread..

Somehow I'm skeptical that foreigners' interest in vk is declining. Of course this isn't something quantifiable, but taking a cursory look at Twitter will suggest that even the indies vk bands show some awareness of their foreign fanbase (whether and to what extent they cater to this fanbase is a separate question). Also, the sheer number of VK bands having overseas tours these days indicates that there's still a healthy demand for vk bands outside of Japan - in addition to those who have toured Europe in the past couple of years, bands like DIV, Plastic Tree, Royz also regularly perform in Asia. The youtube question is tricky, and like what Zess has said I suspect it's more of a consequence of copyright enforcement than a reliable index of foreign popularity. Just look at how many PV or full songs of obscure indies as well as disbanded bands do exist on youtube because there's a lot less surveillance in that case and these videos get taken down a lot less than e.g. Nightmare or ViViD PVs. Which is kinda ironic because obviously the disbanded bands won't be there to benefit from the publicization of their music lol. Also, it'll be great if ppl can stop using "vk is dying!" as a sneaky shorthand for "the kind of vk I like is dying!".....

hopefully this means less live-limited singles

Kanji lyrics of the songs in EVE's goodbye mini-album 「4U」. Requested by chemicalpictures. I manually typed these out from the booklet, so if there's any mistake lemme know, thanks! テロメア 作曲・作詞： 祥-yoshi- 出来ないことを数えながら みんな不自由な今を生きてる たった一人で ここに自分が必要かなんて 誰も教えてくれはしない でも自分はここに在るべきだと 信じたい誰もが 積み木の様 重ねられた時間を 僕はこの価値を 諦めたくはない 今 限られた時間に 取り残された僕らは 「生きる」という意味、価値、理由を探す サヨナラが来ることわかってたとしても 僕はまたこの世界で 僕として「生きる」こと 選びたい 時間や気持ちを引き換えに 色んなものを手にしていく 失くしたものの正しさなんて 多分解らない判らない 消えてく時間 キミは何を選ぶ？ 意味がないような日々を 疑い嘆く僕らは 消えてしまうことすら望んだけれど 差し出される日々に付き従うよりも 僕の手が作る意味を 僕が賭けた世界を 信じたい 全て同じ様に 消え去るとしても その意味を僕ら 考えるんだ ずっと この世界が終わるとき 「生きる」と選んだ僕を 間違いじゃなかったと思えるように 今 限られた時間に 取り残された僕らは 「生きる」という意味、価値、理由を探す サヨナラが来ることわかってたとしても 今日までに至る全て意味がなかったんだとは 思えない ずっと信じてる いつまでも ＝＝＝＝＝＝ BIRTH 作曲・作詞： Ryo There is nothing that will last forever and embrace the sadness of the moment we'll forget we'll forget someday and live on don't let the phantasy keep you holding on Why oh please tell me why tell me why tell me why Why oh please tell me why tell me why tell me why Why does it fade away tell me why tell me why "I remember the good time" If thats the way stay there This for the dead and gone time that wont be back again endless noises eternal silence spectators nonsense don't want it anymore Vanguard be born again lead again lead again breaking the silence break it down break it down ＝＝＝＝＝＝＝ 雨。 作曲・作詞： 武翔 涙雨に打たれて立ち尽くした 僕は君の傘にはなれない ずぶ濡れのまま最後に寄り添った 呟く言葉がそっと雨に溶ける アスファルトが濡れて 懐かしい匂いがしていた 君に出会う時はいつも雨 嫌いじゃなかった 頬伝う雫は雨に紛れた 強がりは得意な方じゃない 俯いたまま君の瞳を見れずに ざわめく水面が揺れる僕を映す うるさいくらいに 雨音が響く こんな日はいつも 君を思い出す 滲んだ面影 浮かんでは消える 忘れられたなら 忘れられるなら 冷たい雨が降る 涙雨に打たれて立ち尽くした 僕は君の傘にはなれない ずぶ濡れのまま最後に寄り添った 呟く言葉がそっと雨に溶け．．． さようなら僕に傘をくれた人 二度と何処かで会うこともない 通り雨、君の日々に重なった 雨傘ではない、そんな僕は雨。 ぼやける空を一人見ていた ＝＝＝＝＝＝＝ HIKARI 作曲： けいた　　作詞： 武翔 10年先未来の君は僕のことを覚えてる？ 忘れてしまったかな？ 僕が残したメロディーは今も覚えてる？ 君に届けそれぞれの色よ 硝子玉映し出す心を 僕が残す問題のＡ ここが分岐点 心切なく胸痛む時も 希望理想失くさないで 時々思い出して 手のひらで掴んだもの 君と僕だけが見える 不確かで弱い光 だけど僕には何より輝いてる 本当のことを言ったら、これから先何年も君と笑っていたい 約束するよ、僕はこの場所を忘れない 出会いと別れを繰り返して大人になり、 それぞれが新しい空へと飛び立って羽ばたく 始めよう最後の歌を サヨナラは言わないでいい 言葉ではなく感じ合うまま 伝わる”輝き”それが光 Don't forget forever. ココロヲツナグ。 Don't forget forever. フタリノキズナ。 僕の光”君”

good question.. i had totally forgot abt that band lol. Edit: apparently they formed and went on hiatus without having released anything.. so i guess they're effectively disbanded.

omg FINALLY.

Sounds exactly like me, LOL. Maybe that's why I'm doing Literature/Philosophy as well Welcome to MH!!

lol @ the furi. i like the song though..

nooooooooo ;_; i'll really miss them.

hopefully Rui can keep this band together for some time... he reminds me of Kiyoto lol XD

^ lol, that's like their worst album to date XD try something earlier, e.g. anima, the world ruler, or even majestical parade

wtf??? never saw that coming ;_;

Too good.... （≧∇≦） need to order this asap.

c'mon release something already... XD

^ The SINCREA song that kills me is RED (their very final song released during their last live). I don't even play it much anymore cuz I can't hold myself together emotionally whenever I hear it lol. Bands I'm playing more than usual these couple of weeks: - AMARANYX, baroque, POPCORE, FALILV

^ yes!

As an aside it's probably interesting to note that the topic of written Japanese has become somewhat of a controversy in Japan in recent years (or decades even), because the poor Japanese kids have to learn THREE different scripts (hiragana, katakana, kanji) in school whereas pretty much all other languages only have a single script. The question is whether it's possible to reduce all writing to just hiragana. Some time ago the government tried this out but it didn't work at all cuz the Japanese people protested that it's impossible to read written Japanese when everything is written in hiragana. Yet it had worked for Korean (everything is written in hangul these days, and hanja - "Chinese characters" which are the Korean analog of Japanese kanji - have become pretty much obsolete), so maybe they'll try it again in future..

They are 茨城悪童茶番劇団チーキィ or simply チーキィ (cheeky) http://ibarakicheeky.web.fc2.com/ This was the ex-band of ROMiO.'s drummer 義鷹.