MH FEATURED POLL #3: What is your favourite 'era' of Visual Kei?

[CAT5 9075]

What is your favourite 'era' of Visual Kei?

(Note: These eras are very rough and you may disagree with the chronological splits...)



Thanks to for this poll suggestion! If you have any suggestions for the poll of the week (feel free to pm me, and they'll be considered!).

[kyoselflove 2680]

Late 90's to early 00's.  Miss it so much.  Love the outfits and crazy makeup.  The nice different yet experimental sounds of all the bands. I don't know just love it, plus that's when I first got into jrock, so yay for nostalgia! 

 

It is hard to choose though, because I love Lycaon and Mejibray lol.

[beni 2149]

Pretty difficult to choose a single era. I just picked early 2000s to late 2000s since the majority of my favourites debuted then and other favourites who debuted earlier released my most liked works by them then. And also, as already described, that era revealed other subgenres, making me feel more excited and interested in that particular era.

Awesome poll Aoi Mochi, thanks for another wonderful poll creation Cat. 

I'm getting more excited now, since already I wasn't expecting how the poll looks now. : 3

And now, it's more as I pictured it. xD

Edited October 6, 2014 by benibana

[chewi 54]

I'm torn between Early 2000s-late 2000s and Early 2010s-Present. But I think I'll choose Early 2010s-Present because it's the era I'm most familiar with.

[Bear 1817]

Early 2000s-late 2000s

Most of my favourite visual kei bands released their best stuff in that period of time, and I am pretty sure that 30+ out of 40 favourite visual kei albums was released during these years. Kagra, Merry, early days of Mucc and Gazette and so on. So this was an easy one.

 

 

1980-mid 1990s comes in second for me because of the early isual kei metal bands from this time. X Japan, Rosenfeld, Aion, Gargoyle, Rommel, Mein Kampf and so on.

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Hmm...mid 90s ~ mid 2000s for me. Love the melodic rock that was popular from 1993~1998 or so, then the angst from 1997~2002.

 

I'm not entirely a fan of too much of what the scene put out from 2009~2012 for the most part, but I've noticed a bit of revived spark from 2013 onwards in the sense that I follow more active bands now than I have in a while.

 

Voting for late 90s, but what's written above is the ††REAL†† answer.

[Spectralion 394]

Vote for early 2000s till till 2000s, because my playlist is still heavily contained with songs from that era.

 

Idk, I just clicked with the song from that era.

[nullmoon 784]

I think for me it's the early to late 00s. This is when I first listened to VK so a lot of my favourite albums can be found within this time period. Compared to today, I feel there was still a lot of variety in the music that separated it from Western music and made it more of a novelty. Listening to An Cafe after years of post hardcore, for example, was a breath of fresh air.

[violetchain 912]

Late 1990s-early 2000s for me. L'Arc and GLAY hitting their peak as pop-rock bands, Kuroyume moving into their punk phase, Malice Mizer, Psycho le Cemu, Dir en Grey before The Marrow of a Bone ruined them for me...

 

Almost all of my favourite VK and former VK bands were active and doing well during that time period.

[DogManX 179]

I honestly can't decide between the 2nd and 3rd answer. I chose the 3rd one in the end, because that's the time of an overlapping of pre-existing bands (roughly since late 1990) having their greatest time, and a lot of good newer bands showing up. (not counting in these copy-paste neo vk bands like diaura, mejibray, screw etc...)

 

the time when girugamesh, an cafe, Dir en grey, Phantasmagoria, lynch, Deathgaze, D etc pp had their strongest outlets.

[doombox 4421]

I came in learning bands mostly from the 2000-2010 era. Those are still the bands I hold other bands to, so it's definitely that era for me.

[togz 2004]

While I respect 90's - 2000's I went with 2000 to late 2000 because that was the era i discovered it. To me a lot of the 90's bands make me think of stuff from the 80's in western music. so give or a take a few bands nothing really stood out to me. I think it was during 2000 to late 2000's where it really made a boom over seas. 

2010 - present  has just been pretty repetitive for me, but maybe I'm just getting old.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

This was a tough choice because I love bands from pretty much all those eras, but maybe late '90s to early '00s is a bit closer to my heart than the others. This is probably due to me discovering VK and J-music just at the end of said era, so I devoured everything I could that was released in the near past at that time, and found many records and acts I grew attached to.

[Pretsy 1343]

Late '90s to early '00s, since I still see that as the "zenith of all vk eras" - various, perhaps even the most brilliant acts have appeared/shined during that phase (e.g. Pierrot with "Finale", DEG with their "quadrinity" , Malice Mizer with "Merveilles/Bara no Seidou" etc.). Also the fact that I discovered the said scene during that era says a lot about my choice

[Furik 832]

Late 1990s-Early 2000s. Albums like gazettes madara and dir en greys six ugly. When I first got into jrock with macabre. This era was great and holds a lot of memories for me.

[seikun 317]

I think some people already know my answer: #2

 

By the way, is Oshare-kei completely gone?

Aren't there any Oshare-kei bands out there in Japan?

[PsychoΔelica 648]

I chose early 2000s, but if I could I would choose late 1990s to mid/late 2000s, because that's the time most of my fav now defunct bands were active. Such as Elldorado, Siva, Viored and Aurora. And there's Lolita23q. Although in every era there are bands that I like and respect.

[Lestat 2167]

It's a tie between the 80's and late 90's, really, the poll doesn't really do justice to my preferences however I voted 90's - 00's.

 

There won't really be anyone who can have me stray from my love for the 80's and 90's. I grew up listening to hundreds of glam rock bands, from early NWOBHM diverting to the British instalment of bands such as Wrathchild and Tigertailz, early American groups such as Lizzy Borden but also the origins; The Sweet, Alice Cooper, Marc Bolan, KISS, etc., all the way to the new wave Scandinavian movement of glam-and sleaze rock as we know it now (CRASHDÏET, Hardcore Superstar, Vains of Jenna, and a lot more). Japanese acts who fit that same image such as X JAPAN, Loudness, Cats in Boots and NEW YANKEES, I have been involved with for a decade already so it's hard shaking that feeling of the original craziness that blossomed from Visual Kei. And then in the 90's there come Malice Mizer, Mirage, LAREINE, the early rise of the kotekote movement. In my opinion Visual Kei had a lot more aesthetics, more dramatical performances, glamour and generally the rock and roll lifestyle rather than how it is now; random kids being pushed an instrument in their claws, dumped in a fully functioning recording studio with all the necessities, being plastered on a ton of makeup, but not really knowing what to do or how to enact an original and authentic performance. For me that's just how it is.

[Nisimaldar 153]

I love the two first ears so mid 80s to 90s and late 90s to early 2000s, but I've voted for the first one because no one else would and because of X-Japan and D'erlanger, duh. Hide, one of my favourite artists of all time, is smack in the middle of those two periods.

However, it's not that I don't like the other periods at all but the old Visual Kei bands were what got me into Visual Kei and Japanese music to begin with so I'll probably always have a soft spot for them, no matter what the future holds.

[Biopanda 2675]

I think some people already know my answer: #2

 

By the way, is Oshare-kei completely gone?

Aren't there any Oshare-kei bands out there in Japan?

It probably depends on what you mean by "oshare" since just like visual-kei itself, there's a wide range of sounds within it. If you mean something more akin to say... L'luvia, then I can't think of any active bands(though strangely enough SuG has edged a bit close to this in some songs I sampled?). I assume most poppier neo-VK(I hate this term, but there's no other term for this really) is just an extension of the early-mid-2000s oshare look/sound, albeit with more electronic influences. There are some bands, like this for example, that have a pretty similar sound to some of the early-mid-2000s oshare bands, so I'd say it's still alive and kicking.

[VkBrutaliaN 1890]

100% 2010s-Present!

to keep it short - i just love my heavy "CORE" music! 8D

and i hope this "trend" won't stop anytime soon cuz with new bands like By:ARLANT we know there's a lot of greatness still to come.

btw looks like i'm the big minority with this opinion here^^°...

[evilcoconut 109]

I picked: Early 2000s-late 2000s

 

But quite honestly, there are things I like about each period.  I didn't really formulate an awareness of VK as VK until the 00s and I was probably most into it during this time

[saishuu 3220]

Late 90's - early 00's for me. I started listening to VK in 02/03, right when some of the older bands from the 90's were disbanding (MALICE MIZER, LUNA SEA) or just starting to fully grow into bigger names, like DIR EN GREY. Younger bands who would be big by late 00's were also starting to get more popularity (Gazette, Nightmare, D'espairsRay, Kagrra, etc), so I was able to catch up with most of the best VK music from both decades. Things started to go south for me by late 00's, with only a few amount of bands standing out, so my choice is fairly easy.

[Naaaaani 1173]

Early 90s - ~2005. The only true visual kei imo.

[seikun 317]

It probably depends on what you mean by "oshare" since just like visual-kei itself, there's a wide range of sounds within it. If you mean something more akin to say... L'luvia, then I can't think of any active bands(though strangely enough SuG has edged a bit close to this in some songs I sampled?). I assume most poppier neo-VK(I hate this term, but there's no other term for this really) is just an extension of the early-mid-2000s oshare look/sound, albeit with more electronic influences. There are some bands, like this for example, that have a pretty similar sound to some of the early-mid-2000s oshare bands, so I'd say it's still alive and kicking.

 

Interesting. The sound kind of reminds me of some old Oshare Kei bands. It has a subtle touch.