nomemorial

Lemme lay down some BIG FACTS here, no compilations:

1. 黒夢 - 亡骸を・・・
2. Aliene Ma'riage - Les Soirée 夜の舞踏会／洗礼の章～生誕篇
3. Luna Sea - MOTHER
4. Malice Mizer - merveilles
5. Dir en grey - MACABRE

I love it! It's the first DEG album I ever purchased and I think it's a really interesting follow-up to GAUZE. GAUZE is a fairly straightforward album that's chock full of classics and they could have repeated that formula, but instead put out something that I feel "pushed the envelope" a bit at the time. Hardly experimental, but very tonally different and I think a more defining album when put in the context of the band they became.
 
Les soiree is sitting right on the edge of my list and the Madeth Gray'll compilation only stayed away because I have a weird thing about "compilations" but damn if they aren't both absolute undeniable classics. I mean really, Les soiree itself is so completely unmatched in style and atmosphere.

Funny that you say Macabre is your fav. It’s literally hated by many DEG fans, but I love Macabre so yeah XD

In no particular order and also in general definitely subject to some changes the more I think about it
 
Aliene Mariage - Les soiree
Madeth Gray’ll - compilation album
Dir en grey - Macabre
Kuroyume - Nagikara wo...
Luna Sea - Image/Luna Sea depending on the day
 
lots of album and bands bubbling under. A comprehensive top 20 is a task I’ve been meaning to get to forever

I feel like my answer to this is quite consistently changing, but my "constants" are probably...
 
deadman - in the direction of sunrise and night light
Dir en grey - MACABRE
Plastic Tree - toroimerai
MALICE MIZER - merveilles
PIERROT - HEAVEN ~the customized landscape~
 
I kind of confined myself to everything I consider to be a "classic" as delving into newer stuff might shake up my list a bit. All of these probably swap places with other albums in their respective discographies, too.
 

I feel like my answer to this is quite consistently changing, but my "constants" are probably...
 
deadman - in the direction of sunrise and night light
Dir en grey - MACABRE
Plastic Tree - toroimerai
MALICE MIZER - merveilles
PIERROT - HEAVEN ~the customized landscape~
 
I kind of confined myself to everything I consider to be a "classic" as delving into newer stuff might shake up my list a bit. All of these probably swap places with other albums in their respective discographies, too.
 

I feel like my answer to this is quite consistently changing, but my "constants" are probably...
 
deadman - in the direction of sunrise and night light
Dir en grey - MACABRE
Plastic Tree - toroimerai
MALICE MIZER - merveilles
PIERROT - HEAVEN ~the customized landscape~
 
I kind of confined myself to everything I consider to be a "classic" as delving into newer stuff might shake up my list a bit. All of these probably swap places with other albums in their respective discographies, too.
 

I also emailed them to ask about when this is going to come up for ordering but was told it wouldn't be available through them. Though I also asked about the RAZOR full length and got told the same thing and have seen that's on there to order now.... So who knows? I ordered both through HMV Japan, they ship overseas and you can view the site in English, so that may be your best bet.

i think they look at when hiroshi and taishi joining the band as a sort of uhhh reboot? for the band. thats my guess at least 
 
 
 
 
also why is this not on cdjapan yet fuggggg 

Sometime circa 2002 someone posted Gackt's "Another World" on an anime forum. I thought it was catchy and realized I had never really looked into Japanese music outside of anime OPs. 
 
Followed that trail to a message board called Jpopmusic, where I found everyone in the Jrock subforum was obsessed with something called "visual kei." I saw the pictures and ironically, my sheltered, preteen, hyper conservative self backed off immediately and started requesting "not visual" music.
 
Was recommended GLAY, jammed "Global Communication," but got some well-deserved side eyes from half the community, basically insisting I just "give it a chance." 
 
Random personal anecdote, I did think the aesthetic was "really neat," but I was raised in super religious environment and had never seen anything like this before, so my brain thought it was some kind of devil nonsense or something, I don't know.
 
Deciding to give it a proper shot, I found Dir en grey's "Cage" and that was pretty much the beginning of the end (the end of the beginning?) Went totally crazy from that point, downloaded everything I could find, started trying to trade for PVs with random people on Soulseek and IRC, the whole nine yards. Good times.

Sometime circa 2002 someone posted Gackt's "Another World" on an anime forum. I thought it was catchy and realized I had never really looked into Japanese music outside of anime OPs. 
 
Followed that trail to a message board called Jpopmusic, where I found everyone in the Jrock subforum was obsessed with something called "visual kei." I saw the pictures and ironically, my sheltered, preteen, hyper conservative self backed off immediately and started requesting "not visual" music.
 
Was recommended GLAY, jammed "Global Communication," but got some well-deserved side eyes from half the community, basically insisting I just "give it a chance." 
 
Random personal anecdote, I did think the aesthetic was "really neat," but I was raised in super religious environment and had never seen anything like this before, so my brain thought it was some kind of devil nonsense or something, I don't know.
 
Deciding to give it a proper shot, I found Dir en grey's "Cage" and that was pretty much the beginning of the end (the end of the beginning?) Went totally crazy from that point, downloaded everything I could find, started trying to trade for PVs with random people on Soulseek and IRC, the whole nine yards. Good times.

2002 or 2003 with GACKT and the GazettE but un this time , I don't like because I was really young. My real first band is An Cafe since 2006 by a  French Rock Magasine of my little sister. I read a interview and a présentation of the band. I saw their MVs, I love it . In this time , I am very shy and I buy theirs albums in 2008.  Then after I discover Kagrraa, A9 (Alice Nine on 2009) and I like the Gazette in 2010, then Golden Bomber in 2011 and many others after 😊.

Sometime in 2010, a 12-year old me was already interested in asian/japanese rock music in general because of anime. Then i came across my first visual rock band called 'Silver Ash' on youtube, and i thought to myself "wow what is this style, i've never seen or heard before". 
And through that, i found out about Dir en grey, which is the first vk band i've gotten into for real. 

Back in 2007 I stumbled upon some PVs on Youtube and Alice Nine was one of the bands I enjoyed most back then. Still like them a lot

It was in 2013, I think. I was twelve, so either late 2012 or early-mid 2013. I wanna say early 2013? Anyways, it was Versailles. I was just looking for Japanese rock music because I thought it might appeal to me for whatever reason, so I just Googled it and they were one of the first bands to come up. I think the first song I heard by them was Serenade, and then I think The Revenant Choir was the second song.

I remember it like it was yesterday.
 
October 2018. I was a bored kid looking for some new Japanese music. I was already a fan of J-Rock but more in the Alternative scene with bands like Ling Tosite Sigure, nano.RIPE, Hello Sleepwalkers and The Oral Cigarettes. I was already a fan of Rammstein so finding heavy music in the Japanese scene was gonna be pretty interesting.

Wasn't after I found an AMV with "Obscure" on it. I thought to myself "Yo this is dope!" and I proceeded to check out the band. That band was Dir En Grey and I was really interested in listening to their stuff. 
 
I downloaded Gauze onto my phone and I remember the day I listened to the album at school. I'll never forget my reaction when I heard "Cage" for the first time. My reaction after listening to it was "Holy shit, what the flying fuck was that!?".
 
Been hooked on Diru ever since and VK is now my number one obsession. Dir En Grey is now one of my all time favorite bands

Somehow, in 2008, I came across Taion by gazette on YouTube. I might have been searching something anime related or listening to Do As Infinity on there. Anyway, I thought it sounded too chaotic for my ears but kept giving it a try until I ended up liking it. The rest is history. 

Korean group  :  H.O.T
I only remember that the sixth grade of Elementary School saw my sister listening to "H.O.T-We Are The Future"
Then don't know why I found the "X Japan" band,I remember listening to "Rusty Nail"
 
 

And did you finally manage to get this specific video ?
I need it, it's for a friend...

First introduction was through Nightmare from Death Note and An Cafe (from a friend). Since I had no idea what it was I perused through the Internet discovering other bands like Dir En Grey and the Gazette, although for some reason it was difficult to find and listen to their music (It was 2006, and I was ignorant in the ways of the Internet, lol) So I ended up veering towards bands like Kagerou and Merry, which began my endless journey into the void of digging through obscure sites to find one song to listen to it. Finally, I think Alice Nine was the clench pin that had me hooked onto VK forever   

I wanna say late 2004 with Rentrer En Soi. Had no idea what VK was at the time, nor had I even seen the band, but I really enjoyed their music. I've always been a super casual VK fan tho, and have found myself largely drawn to other areas of J-rock and Japanese music in general!
 
(also i'm sure a thread like this exists already, but no time to look for it atm)

dir en grey during my hs years (so 2008ish-2012ish). after that it was discovering other cliche vk bands everyone at the time knew about, gazette, girugamesh blah blah blah. first couple of more niche vk bands i got into were like oz, signal, unsraw 

I was introduced to dir en grey back in 06 and its been a downhill ride ever since 

malice mizer’s beast of blood in 2002 from seeing an avatar of mana on an old anime forum