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hyura

CELL at AX 2013

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"Back in the 90's, Visual Kei wasn't really filled with (excuse me for

the word) weebo fangirls screaming at the sexy thighs of whoever a guy

and that entire drama."

 

How would you know this? lol

 

Also, I do not understand how one can consider Penicillin and BUCK-TICK to not be visual kei (even more so their early stuff, which is what we were talking about?).

 

Sorry for offtopic lol

 

 

Those are some strong words.

I'd rather say... when visual bands toured overseas in the 90s there wasn't that type of fan because there were no western fans alltogether. (Well. One or two for sure, but no 'scene'). They propably played for casual rock or gothic fans and yes, those people propably didn't care about Hakueis thighs as much.

But that doesn't mean Penicillin, Buck Tick and SADS aren't full of fanservice (And visual kei bands. Just because they were good and succesful doesn't mean they weren't VK), because they are. I mean... Most old Penicillin videos pretty much consist of them sucking each others faces while wearing shiny leather outfits. And the fans they had at that time did care very much for sure.

Because those bands had much, much more mainstream popularity than most VK acts touring overseas nowadays one could say the music was more important in the sense that if they stopped being naked and handsome people would still buy their cd as casual listeners but still.

 

And CELL make great music, I'm sure they have lots of fans because of that. Also they aren't even goodlooking.

 

What I meant to say about not specifically classifying those bands as VK alone, is how they (in that time of 80's and 90's) weren't labeled as your typical Japanese nutbags just trying to be over the top about everything. It was normal at that time, look at KISS, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister... These guys fitted right in and their music reached out further than Japan itself and didn't only reach the distinguished fan of Japanese music at that time. X JAPAN, Loudness, they were being pushed right in to the glam rock label of that time and as this trademark died with the grunge era, the entire experience around it changed as well.

 

And well, the fanservice thing: it's been evident ever since Hakuei's thighs haha, but it wasn't a necessity to most people in those days. The job of being a fan changed a lot over the years, I am sure. As did the audience. I bet had you stood in a Penicillin crowd twenty years ago, the majority of the audience was male, because metal/rock used to attract a nearly strictly male audience rather than it did a female audience because of its toughness. When you look at it now, step in to a Japanese crowd of people at a VK concert, most are female. And it's not to create a negative image but I think it's safe to say that a lot of 'fans' these days do indeed only care about the 'Visual' simply because they are used to judging on looks.

 

Just because I didn't live through these years as an avid music fan as I am now, doesn't mean I haven't studied music of all sorts of genres for myself for the past ten years. My preferences range from the 50's up until these days and in a few years time I have seen and come to know a lot about music and the way it works. I've been to over 200 concerts, lived a few years fully high on moshpits and thrashing my way through every sub-label of metal you can think of. So yes, I think I have somewhat of an idea of how different the music scene was thirty years back from now and that 'specifications' didn't really matter to the eye.

 

-Also, sorry for offtopic, I tend to write a lot.

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Sorry but I don't agree with you.

The reason to why bands such as X and Loudness might have had more male fans is because none of them were visual kei bands.

The "original" visual kei sound was based in bands such as LUNA SEA, Penicillin, BUCK-TICK, D'ERLANGER, ZI:KILL etc. There's a big difference musical wise from these bands compared to X and Loudness which were real metalbands.

 

I think that while there might have been more male fans earlier, I don't think they dominated the audience. Just look here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2j0tLBNIoU

 

Also, as someone else said there was alot of fanservice during this time as well, after all these bands made it possible for the scene to become what it has. D'ERLANGERs "LA VIE EN ROSE" pv  from 1990 (?) is a great example of fanservice during this era.

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The thread was mostly tl;dr so I may be off the point.

 

That "they care more about the looks!" thing is just bullshit. As if some 14 year old naruto cosplaying weeaboo would ever sit through a 40 minute harsh noise recording just because the people that made it were cute and dressed nice. People with poor taste like shit bands, and if they also happen to be mostly kids then there might be more emphasis on the non-musical aspects ( kids drooled over The Beatles and Jim Morrison just the same ). These days dumb fandoms just have more visible outlets for their antics like livejournals, tumblr's and etc. What were you going to do in the early 90's anyway? Write an article to your local paper? In the end they still like music for the way it sounds and how it makes them feel like everyone else.  

 

And the fangirls have always been there with everything that is even remotely related to glam rock. The shit that was released in the states under that label was sometimes just as shameless as Kiryu, Royz and what have you. Not to mention they were pretty bad too, especially KISS and their "i wanna rocknrolz all nait and drink beer yarhh" party anthems. I'd go as far as to say that the best VK from the early-mid 2000's ( when the anime watching public had discovered Vkei and bands started looking more like the ones we have now ) was way better than anything those glam rawk bands in the states ever made. 

 

Early Kuroyume live's that I've seen also had screaming fangirls in the front row and at best a few males scattered where-ever, and to add to that the male/female ratio is about the same as in the recent Gazette DVD's. 

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Rocketeer, do us a favour and take off those rose-tinted glasses of yours.

 

Visual kei has always been looked down apon to a degree. They're all highschool dropouts / criminals / drug dealers / perverts, that's how mainstream japanese culture has always seen it.

Don't know where western fans get this idea that anything past the few major bands was actually relevant at the time, because past luna sea, janne de arc etc etc it was all still very niche and underground. And anyway, all you have to do is look at an old vk live vid and you'll see the venue is still packed with squeeling preteens.

Same shallow teenage dropouts wearing makeup to get chicks, only the music they play has changed.

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 ^^^^^^^^

WHAT?

...Did they announce that somewhere? ;O;

Yeah I think the other bands that played with Cell and Anime Expo said it would stream live at the last second ~_~ that's probably why they had all this camera stuff before the concert started. It seems some online channels had been live streaming stuff happening in the convention including Cell playing acoustic of "Prism" song :( at exhibit hall that I missed cause that place was soo crowded!

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Well... I didn't find the recorded live but there were a few AX videos on youtube:

 

prism acoustic version:

 

cell Q&A 1

http://youtu.be/81LVxVMui4c

 

cell Q&A 2

http://youtu.be/hVxy5m8b_Gc

 

cell Q&A 3

http://youtu.be/SaueMpkv1HU

 

cell Q&A 4

http://youtu.be/1ehZY3SQgAI

 

 

-----

As for the other discussion going on here: I think it's very important to keep in mind that whether a person is attractive (naturally or through elaborate styling or simply by flaunting their sexuality, doesn't matter.) doesn't change anything about the quality of whatever they do.

And, accordingly, being drawn to someones looks doesn't make you somehow incapable of judging whether their work is really good or not.

Their seems to be a myth that those things ontradict each other but that's not true. Take Sugizo in the 90s. He's really, really talented and his guitar solos make everybody happy.  At the same time he somehow wears weird brokinis and rubs all over his guitar and that, too, makes everybody happy. Then look at his fans. They will propably show a spectrum from total fixation on his music to total fixation on his looks but most will be somewhere inbetween and kinda like both.

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The sounds and camera is horrible. :/

 

Well, I didn't record it.

Nor did I post it to spoil your day, someone was asking about recordings and I posted what I found.

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^^ thanks hyura! I had wanted to see their panel but I didn't go that day.

Still hoping someone will have the Cell concert recording.

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It's possible that the recording of the concert is to be used as promotional clips for the convention for future events. The Moi Dix Mois and Exist Trace shows were filmed at Sakuracon but the person explained that the footage was only to be used for future promotional videos for Sakuracon and isn't going to be released.

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Did someone ask an important question like "When are you going to be rerecording 'Lepra' and 'Violet'?"

 

If they do this I'll have to put on my superhero costume and punish them in the name of Isuke.

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I like those songs very much!

Just... When it comes to CELL and La'Mule songs I'm generally torn. On one side I'm happy that it's possible to hear La'Mules brilliant songs played life again as I wished for them to come back for years and never thought it would actually happen.

On the other side: it's not La'Mule without Isuke who is (to me) their heart. And now they redo and rename especially songs they made before Nao and Sin even joined, so that impression is even stronger because Kon is the only one left from the 'original' line up and well. Lepra is their first song and also the one that made them famous.

When they played it at their last live I saw that Isuke was sobbing through the whole performance and they were all like 'this is the last time we'll ever play it.'

They already broke that promise when they played it as CELL but itwould be a little more painful for me if they renamed and rerecorded it, too.

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I was there best day of my life! But i only bought tix for one day and found out that they were signing autographs the next day i couldnt back over there i was upset but! Got a tweet from SIN telling me ti take ofvthe bracelet i bought at AX it was his braclet before i cried like a baby i was so happy! I hope they come back soon ;)

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^-^ Hello hey you were there too and your from CA!

You bought Sin bracelet?

oh sorry that you didn't get autograph v.v Yeah it was really confusing their schedule since it wasn't posted anywhere, hope you can meet them someday!

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yes! i love this bracelet so much! and i know i was upset but they'll come back im sure they are too amazing hopefully California rockers will listen to more jrock haha i know theres a lot but not enough apparently and omg i know i was so confused by the schdule at AX i couldnt find the CURE booth took me an hour haha and are you from california

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