MH FEATURED POLL #12: What year did you start listening to VK?

[TheStoic 176]

I started in 2001 after moving to 沖縄 [Okinawa].

 

My best friend was half Japanese, Half American (We called him the "Cracker Jap" - which yes is terribly offensive, but he came up with it) and introduced me to Japanese music through countless hours of playing Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania at our local Game Center.

 

From that game I got hooked on Train-Train by the Blue Hearts, Hide's Rocket Dive, 天体観測 by Bump of Chicken, and ロマンス by Penicillin.  From there I found out about the bigger named Japanese bands, like X-Japan, Luna Sea, Siam Shade, L'arc~en~ciel, Janne da Arc and Gackt and starting visiting the now defunct blog http://jrock.pitas.com (Shiroi Heya) [if you want a moment frozen in time - visit that page) and learned about the world of J-Rock through their recommendations.  I remember that Ain't Afraid to Die by Dir en grey was their top song of the week - and due to that I bought 鬼葬 and my world was changed by that album.

 

After that I just wandered Tsutaya, searching for dark J-Rock bands and scoured VK magazines like Cure, Shoxxx and Fool's Mate to learn about band names, then would buy their CDs if I liked their look - without hearing a single sample song.  I did this for years.  This was how I found out about The Gazette (I bought 犯行声明文), Mucc (I bought 我在るべき場所), and Nightmare (I bought 茜) I even recall literally driving two hours to Naha to buy Born by D'espairsRay after seeing it during a school field trip, but not having the money to buy it.

 

I miss those days and memories.  J-Rock has evolved so much since then, and I love it all the more.

[ariad 16]

Wow, pretty even distribution.

 

2004/2005 for me. A friend introduced me to Gackt in 2004, and I went through a Gackt phase for about a year before somehow transitioning to Dir en grey, MUCC, etc. Not sure how that happened.

[Ikna 1225]

Circa 2004 thanks to Moi dix Mois' european release of their Nocturnal Opera album. Followed by D'espairsRay and Dir en grey (in 2004 and 2005)

[Visutox 188]

I really started listenin to Vk bands in 2008, when my sis' first introduced me to girugämesh with "Kowarete Iku Sekai". After that I started discovering the "giants" of Vk like D'espairsRay or DEG, and so on.

 

2008, when the soundtrack of a video game I played was done by Gackt. I basically started there.

 

This is what also helped me to get into Vk, it was around 2007 I guess. Damn, I used to listen a lot of stuff from Gackt during these years.

[Duwang 676]

I was introduced to Raphael, Due le quartz, and phobia by a friend back in late 2002/early 2003.
Oh god, that means I've literally been into VK for half my life. What am I doing with myself.

[Ada Suilen 652]

It was on 2008, during the middle-schools. While I was surfing through the net, listening to Tokio Hotel's songs (!!) and for a reason which nowadays I don't remember, the suggestions took me to my first j-rock/visual kei song... Azure by Duel Jewel.

And then nothing was the same

[fitear1590 2414]

2003 - accidentally found a Malice Mizer video when looking for a Gackt (someone had recommended I listen to him on GameFAQs after I mentioned how much I loved Ayumi Hamasaki) vid. Bless the days of Kazaa / WINMX. It was Beast of Blood. My taste in music never had a chance.

Same! Ah, the WinMX days of collecting album tracks (in various terrible bitrates) over a period of months and compiling them together. I don't think I ever truly completed the Merveilles album that way though, because I couldn't find the intro SE track, haha.

[Ito 2438]

I started listening to Japanese music some time in 2000 (maybe even 1999), but I didn't really start listening to Jrock until 2003. I am sure I listened to the odd VK song here and there before, but I really started to get in to VK when I stumbled across a certain website. I so wish I could remember the name of it. The person running it had short profiles of several of his/her favorite bands and then a list of their top favorite songs by each artist. They had a download link for the top song every artist, so my first VK songs were the likes of Dir en Grey's Cage, hide's dice, X Japan's Silent Jealousy, Penicillin's Chaos, Gackt's Vanilla, Glay's Two Bell Silence, Luna Sea's Rosier, and Malice Mizer's Syunikiss. For the sake of not over estimating, I put myself down for 2004.

[Replicant 133]

In time regards my memory is really not great. I don't remember the exact year but it was less than a year after I obtained my first PC so about 2002-2003? It was when Kazaa was a thing, and MSN was still an ISP and had Chatrooms and Groups. And there were fake files abound.

 

Basically when I first got a computer I learned about chatrooms and it spun from there into creating characters and all this stuff that somehow this lead to finding a group called Glam Japan (which is now over at Facebook). I remember seeing Dir en grey and wondering what the hell it was, since I had seen nothing like it before. It spun from there. (This is a really condensed version because I don't remember a whole lot about that time period.)

 

That's where it began. From random image searching for characters, probably.

[Nisimaldar 153]

Born from D'espairs Ray got me hooked in 04.. I think I discovered them through an online Rock/Metal chat...

[violetchain 912]

I started listening to Japanese music some time in 2000 (maybe even 1999), but I didn't really start listening to Jrock until 2003. I am sure I listened to the odd VK song here and there before, but I really started to get in to VK when I stumbled across a certain website. I so wish I could remember the name of it. The person running it had short profiles of several of his/her favorite bands and then a list of their top favorite songs by each artist. They had a download link for the top song every artist, so my first VK songs were the likes of Dir en Grey's Cage, hide's dice, X Japan's Silent Jealousy, Penicillin's Chaos, Gackt's Vanilla, Glay's Two Bell Silence, Luna Sea's Rosier, and Malice Mizer's Syunikiss. For the sake of not over estimating, I put myself down for 2004.

Do you mean Project J? I don't think it's still around anymore, but that was the site that got me into almost all of my favourite bands when I first started listening to Japanese music.

In addition to the bands you listed they had a lot of profiles for non-VK artists like Thee Michelle Gun Elephant, Judy and Mary, the pillows, The Back Horn, etc. Lots of really good stuff. 

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

2006 or atleast that's from when I "count" as being a fan of VK. Was exposed to it a bit earlier though (a year or so).  At that time I mainly listened to Dir en grey, X Japan and LUNA SEA though. 

 

edit: just out of curiosity, you guys who started listening to vk in 1999-2003. how old are you? :0

[Naaaaani 1173]

2010 is here. Started with dir's Uroboros, despa's MONSTERS and gazetto's DIM, lol.

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

2008 for me. Found Versailles on the cover of Purple Sky at the mall and got into it from there. I liked Japanese rock before then, but I didn't know what Visual-kei was or knew any bands from that scene (granted, I listened to TMR, Gackt, and Laruku which are all ex-vkei but I didn't know that until much much later).

[hyura 465]

Wow~ : o

I'm actually a little surprised about this chart. Always felt pretty old but at least 1/4 have been in it even longer.

[allisapp 303]

I found japanese music around 2005, when I was visiting my cousin's place, and I remember her playing ELLEGARDEN's Funny Bunny in Foobar. I guess I liked it right away. Along ELLEGARDEN came MUCC and the rest is history...

[Ito 2438]

Do you mean Project J? I don't think it's still around anymore, but that was the site that got me into almost all of my favourite bands when I first started listening to Japanese music.

In addition to the bands you listed they had a lot of profiles for non-VK artists like Thee Michelle Gun Elephant, Judy and Mary, the pillows, The Back Horn, etc. Lots of really good stuff. 

 

Exactly the site I was talking about! I can honestly thank them for getting me in to a lot of the artists that I enjoy

[Jigsaw9 6783]

^ omg I remember that site~ So nostalgic~~

[kyoselflove 2680]

1999. Listened to a Malice Mizer song, can't remember which one then went to Dir en grey and tada.

[Ai Chan 26]

(laughs) I really don't know, maybe as much as I'm aware of the existance of Animes, Super Sentais, Ultraman, and so fort. I just know what they basically or specifically called when I'm introduced to world of internet. I'm around 4 to 6 years old then. So it was 1996 to 1998 ?

[Asakusa 95]

I started with Malice Mizer in 2003 and I still listen to vk on a regular basis

[EzraEroguro 174]

2001. FFX had chars that looked like Malice Mizer members, and i had a friend at the time that liked to point it out.

2003, when I first heard of Dir en grey.

And X Japan.

[kasupaa 22]

2005, 鼓動 by Dir en grey played to me by a friend

[madygrain 515]

Someone introduced me to X JAPAN on 2004. I was already interested in Japanese music because of games and stuff, looked for bands from there and stayed.

[seikun 317]

Hmm... probably in 1998 or 1999 but without knowing about Visual Kei at all. A friend of mine borrowed another guy a cassette with japanese bands. X Japan in it. Then he lent it to me.

 

But I would say 2003 was the year I was indirectly introduced to this type of bands. There was a radio programme in my country in those days and they played japanese music ranging from anime OST to Visual Kei.