Google trends showing the decline of visual kei

[seikun 317]

As far as my knowledge on the topic goes, gender non-conformism in the aesthetics of Visual Kei is not necessarily from a social cause perspective though... I mean, they are not dressing like that for awareness and empathy with gender non-conforming people; the looks of Visual Kei started as disruptive and  provoking elements to shock a very conformist and rigid society and, as time went by it became just a form of artistic expression which can be exerted from many angles.

 

Being gender non-conforming isn't a ticket to liking Visual Kei. The interest in it is a matter of personal taste regardless of gender expression.

Edited January 3, 2017 by seikun

[platy 3018]

On 03/01/2017 at 6:03 AM, seikun said:

As far as my knowledge on the topic goes, gender non-conformism in the aesthetics of Visual Kei is not necessarily from a social cause perspective though... I mean, they are not dressing like that for awareness and empathy with gender non-conforming people; the looks of Visual Kei started as disruptive and  provoking elements to shock a very conformist and rigid society and, as time went by it became just a form of artistic expression which can be exerted from many angles.

 

Being gender non-conforming isn't a ticket to liking Visual Kei. The interest in it is a matter of personal taste regardless of gender expression.

 

I definitely agree. It was just a thought that somehow it would generate interest.  vk's roots could even be traced back to kabuki performance (read that somewhere). 

At the end of the day it isn't a matter of looks or merch, the genre just needs a musical and creative revival if we have any chance of bringing new people to the darker side. Although I don't think it's a necessarily a bad thing if it stays small, some genres are just meant to stay that way.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Platy

[wesjrocker 21]

How did the vk boom of '09 affect you in your country?

 

A lot of people don't know about this but in 2009, Kagrra came to my country [Brazil] and did a complete gig in the city of São Paulo, this was my first time watching a Vrock band playing live, it was a cold night and the concert was outdoors. There are some unofficial footage if you search for "kagrra anime friends" on youtube.

Here is the setlist: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/kagrra/2009/mart-center-sao-paulo-brazil-13d745c1.html

 

I have no words to explain how good it was; What an amazing atmosphere, I don't know If I'll ever experience this again in my life because I still really care about this band even though they're gone forever.

 

About the scene:

 

It looks like the Neo Visual-Kei scene is still going strong in Japan but many bands sounds just like each other, not all of them, but most.

I'm sure everyone knows these websites, but I'm putting them here because I think that they are examples of how Vrock isn't dead in Japan.

http://www.club-zy.com/

http://www.visunavi.com/ 

 

Anyway, here in Brazil we have a band once in a while; Jupiter is coming to play here this year.

Edited January 7, 2017 by wesjrocker

[薔薇の末裔 157]

I understand that the situation might look a bit deformed from overseas and by looking at the internet medias, but visual kei has been dead for years in Japan already.

Now that many fans from overseas could visit Japan I thought it is common knowledge, but it is a fact that filling livehouses is becoming more and more painful especially for indie bands. Of course there are established bands with some following and  some exceptions, but most indie events have like what? 40 or 50 people in the crowd when they are lucky (and we are talking about events with like 6 to 10 bands performing). It's ridiculous that now bands who have a regular attendance of 15/20 people on events are considered fairly popular. Still it is cool how most bands can hide that by paying from their pockets and tave expensive photoshoots/music videos and release tons of material, but the truth is a bit different. 

 

People who have been in bigger bands before now do small live houses, and bands who are spending a lot of money on advertisement and media promotion are probably not even getting their money back. I was disappointed when Kamijo held his birthday live last summer, as he rented two venues, had a jazz orchestra and a choir play, invited a bunch of fairly popular musicians and band (including TV comedians), and even revived both Lareine and Versailles for one night, but the tickets were really far from selling out. An event of this scale would probably be full house 10 years ago. The Black Swan got featured on major TV shows because their drummer is raising a stray cat, and they are still getting little following.

 

Of course there will always be some sort of fanbase, but we are really far from that time when WHATEVER band, regardless of how bad or cheap looking they were they, could get a decent following with 0 promotion. Common sense norma (number of tickets a band has to sell at a multi-band event) in 2017 is 10 tickets or less, while it used to be 20-30 few years ago, and most gigs I have been seeing recently hardly had 5 people in the front row for each band. 

 

It feels like probably the visual kei core fanbase pretty much got a family/grew up/moved to something else and consequently the independent scene is slowly dying every year. Of course bands with bigger promotion and a decent management desk will still manage to keep going somehow.

And there is like huge following of male fans who buy the CDs but do not go the gigs. But their contribution to the scene is probably too small as most money comes from concerts and merchandise.

Japanese people already know visual kei, it has 0 shock value and conceptually connected to stuff that is like 30 years old like X Japan and so on. That makes it hard to get a younger generation of fans (and let's not forget about the negative exposure the scene got with people getting caught for sleeping with underage girls and so on). 

[aetarna 69]

On 1/2/2017 at 4:34 PM, nekkichi said:

I'm actually pretty curious regarding what the trans-othersex people who use "it" and "zir" as their pronouns listen to on the reg. (like I really would like someone in the know to chime in on this)

 

Fine, I'll bite. Trans people are people, and as such, they have varied opinions on every subject.  I have two friends who have like... totally opposite opinion on the subject. And oh neither uses "zir" or "it" pronoun, just "he" .

 

One is indifferent to the music, but loves the clothing and variety it gives. He's a fashion maniac hah, and an ancient goth so guys in make-up and corsets isn't anything new to him... The visual kei amps up the production quality a lot. The other hates visual kei with passion, along with Japanese games and pop-culture in general, that is full of androgynous men. It makes him uncomfortable.
 

[nekkichi 6043]

1 hour ago, aetarna said:

 

Fine, I'll bite. Trans people are people, and as such, they have varied opinions on every subject.  I have two friends who have like... totally opposite opinion on the subject. And oh neither uses "zir" or "it" pronoun, just "he" .

 

my dear, I'm not referring to actual trans/agender people, the more or less socially integrated type;

I specifically outline the obnoxious vocal tumblr stereotype that had a brief moment of raise to the internet fame, which is still not really over.

 

thank you for your input tho!

[emmny 4139]

1.) this thread is amazing and restored the braincells i lost listening to deviloof

2.) how did i not read this earlier

3.) @Disposableis a jrawk god and the day he leaves us is the day god will DIE

4.) if anything was to happen to MH i'd point blank quit vk until i magically end up in japan and maybe then entertain it

5.) this was insanely informative, i didn't get into the scene until 2014 and i literally could not believe that an cafe video. its cool to hear about these relics and weird memories that exist only in the minds of u old farts so thanks for sharing

6.) @hirokihow you aren't some world renowned vk academic authority is beyond me...please make my dreams come true

7.) imma cite this for a pending weeaboo course you are ALL my people

[vanivani 558]

13 hours ago, emmny said:

 

4.) if anything was to happen to MH i'd point blank quit vk until i magically end up in japan and maybe then entertain it

 

 

Yeah, I've relied a lot on MH, so it would suck if it no longer existed, but I think I would still follow the visual kei scene via Visunavi and Vkdb, etc. (if I'm still liking the music as well, of course lol)

[nekkichi 6043]

how do u shitpost visunavi tho

 

***asking the important questions***

[Nagisa 131]

This thread is really interesting. I got into visual kei around 2012 (right before DIVISION came out) and I've only known one other person who listens to it. When the GazettE came to the US last year it seemed like a lot of people attended their concerts but they are a band with a following so I don't know how attendance at lives is for newer bands. Honestly the fact that visual kei isn't very popular was one of the reasons I was attracted to it.  I mean, as long as the band you like is still making music it's fine right?

[Tokage 5930]

36 minutes ago, nekkichi said:

how do u shitpost visunavi tho

 

***asking the important questions***

couldn't you hypothetically shitpost places like vkdb or visunavi by adding hundreds of fake bands and musicians like they're discarded sonic the hedgehog OCs or something?

 

or make up fake turborarez releases for oldies bands or smth

[Biopanda 2675]

1 hour ago, Tokage said:

couldn't you hypothetically shitpost places like vkdb or visunavi by adding hundreds of fake bands and musicians like they're discarded sonic the hedgehog OCs or something?

 

or make up fake turborarez releases for oldies bands or smth

If only  VKDB closed registration for editors many years ago to keep out dirty shitposting gaijin.

[shiroihana 182]

Oh man, vkdb was my thing before the editors stopped editing it regularly. It's strange how few of today's newer bands are featured on that site relative to the mid 2000s.

 

I don't know how to contribute to this thread since most of my thoughts have already been said.. I learned about visual kei through a friend on Youtube and got really invested into the music mostly through watching Youtube related videos, and later through last.fm (RIP Last.fm) around 2008 but got really involved in 2009. It seemed like some of the most recognizable visual kei bands were really going strong back then, bands like diru (not technically vk but arbiters of the scene), d'espa, gazette, rentrer en soi, sadie, nega, deluhi, matenrou opera, -Oz-, D, UnsraW, versailles, girugamesh, LMC, merry, an cafe, alice nine, and many other bands that really seemed to stick out more to people... Hell I remember when visual kei bands were getting millions of hits back then within such short periods of time on Youtube and I don't even know what happened. Now I look at visual kei and I can see people getting into these relatively newer bands like MEJIBRAY, but these bands just don't have the same mystique that the old bands had. It also seems to me that VK is losing its distinct marketability and becoming more akin to things like Kpop (Pretty boys performing dynamic popular music) . I dunno I could be bloviating here but those are just a few thoughts.

Edited January 8, 2017 by shiroihana

[BrenGun 2261]

I already have added 140 new releases for 2017

https://vkeishuuryu.wordpress.com/

So how the fack can visual kei be death? if it was death there would be never 140 releases at January 8th already. and we just freaking did start this year....

And I 'still NEED to add lot's of NEW releases of 2017.

 

of course there are bands in japan who only got a handful fans. But there are still many who have enough fans. Also some bands still give oneman gigs. even if only 200people come, whatever, it's not death its not ever.

 

I really don't get why people keep up saying, it's death it's death...

Well nobody cares about some artiest anymore like KAMIJO, those who cared about the guy are grown up's now. And younger people why the fuck should you as 18 years old girl support a guy over 40?... 

 

Ya know, old bands should just disband and make space for the new bands with the young guys. You cannot be a visual kei artist forever. once it's over.

And  this year... new cool bands have or will form:

https://vkeikonkon.wordpress.com/category/新しい/

kinda 26 bands already (if I count 2 who formed at the last day of 2016)  and also at the end of 2016 some great new bands have formed.

And that's only the beginning of 2017

 

 

And because of this stupid stupid saying of visual kei is death I actually created those 2 websites.  Let's see if we really can say at the end of 2017 that VKEI is DEATH.

I don't think so.

 

As already said for  myself,  I don't really check up vkei anymore. I follow a few bands, but they aren't really visual kei, well a few. but a bunch are just more dark and alternative.

 

 

So yeah, let's talk again at the end of 2017

 

VKEI won't be death and never will be death!

[vanivani 558]

^ I agree. Honestly my opinion is when people say "visual kei is dead" they're really saying that their fave bands have disbanded and they don't like anything in the current scene. There's nothing wrong with that. Interests come and go. 

Edited January 8, 2017 by vanivani

[shiroihana 182]

5 minutes ago, DarkWater said:

I already have added 140 new releases for 2017

https://vkeishuuryu.wordpress.com/

So how the fack can visual kei be death? if it was death there would be never 140 releases at January 8th already. and we just freaking did start this year....

And I 'still NEED to add lot's of NEW releases of 2017.

 

of course there are bands in japan who only got a handful fans. But there are still many who have enough fans. Also some bands still give oneman gigs. even if only 200people come, whatever, it's not death its not ever.

 

I really don't get why people keep up saying, it's death it's death...

Well nobody cares about some artiest anymore like KAMIJO, those who cared about the guy are grown up's now. And younger people why the fuck should you as 18 years old girl support a guy over 40?... 

 

Ya know, old bands should just disband and make space for the new bands with the young guys. You cannot be a visual kei artist forever. once it's over.

And  this year... new cool bands have or will form:

https://vkeikonkon.wordpress.com/category/新しい/

kinda 26 bands already (if I count 2 who formed at the last day of 2016)  and also at the end of 2016 some great new bands have formed.

And that's only the beginning of 2017

 

 

And because of this stupid stupid saying of visual kei is death I actually created those 2 websites.  Let's see if we really can say at the end of 2017 that VKEI is DEATH.

I don't think so.

 

As already said for  myself,  I don't really check up vkei anymore. I follow a few bands, but they aren't really visual kei, well a few. but a bunch are just more dark and alternative.

 

 

So yeah, let's talk again at the end of 2017

 

VKEI won't be death and never will be death!

It's not about visual kei dying so much as people (particularly foreigners in this instance) losing interest in visual kei, or being less frequently exposed to visual kei due to less interest from others, less resources, whatever. Cool blog tho.

Edited January 8, 2017 by shiroihana

[vanivani 558]

3 minutes ago, shiroihana said:

It's not about visual kei dying so much as people (particularly foreigners in this instance) losing interest in visual kei, or being less frequently exposed to visual kei due to less interest from others, less resources, whatever. Cool blog tho.

 

Yep, I pretty much said the same thing. lol

[BrenGun 2261]

1 minute ago, shiroihana said:

It's not about visual kei dying so much as people (particularly foreigners in this instance) losing interest in visual kei, or being less frequently exposed to visual kei due to less interest, less resources, whatever. Cool blog tho.

 

I still think people worry to much.  There are still lots of great blogs with Vkei news, the best are still around.  forums did die, but I think after all everyone went to MH which is simply  THE platform forum to get your news etc, so why to start a new one?

5 minutes ago, vanivani said:

^ I agree. Honestly my opinion is when people say "visual kei is dead" they're really saying that their fave bands have disbanded and they don't like anything new.

Well there are enough bands to get into if a "favo" band disband.  If a band disband I like, I live on and try out other bands. Also to love a band too deeply only will hurt your feelings anyway.

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

lmao visual kei is far from dead in japan. if someone manages to believe so then you are definitely looking for shit bands on purpose in a haystack of bands. or like, don't attend gigs at places like shinjuku urga on purpose just to find bands with 10 fans. truth is, the scene has never been big except for a few bands. ikebukuro cyber is a small shit hole that shouldn't cap more than 50 ppl, yet madeth gray'll and bands who we in the west consider ~*legendary*~ giged there a lot.

[BrenGun 2261]

Just now, Takadanobabaalien said:

lmao visual kei is far from dead in japan. if someone manages to believe so then you are definitely looking for shit bands on purpose in a haystack of bands. or like, don't attend gigs at places like shinjuku urga on purpose just to find bands with 10 fans. truth is, the scene has never been big except for a few bands. ikebukuro cyber is a small shit hole that shouldn't cap more than 50 ppl, yet madeth gray'll and bands who we in the west consider ~*legendary*~ giged there a lot.

 

also some bigger visual kei bands, well we don't talk about them much over here. check out Acid Black Cherry, visual kei, visual kei, sells out halls of 50,000 people easy...

Visual Kei isn't dead in Japan, and it will never be. I think it's still kinda the same as 10 years ago. And yes you also see a few shitty bands of back then now being popular.

Codomodragon is a good band to point out now, just got an article from a famous Japanese visual kei writer. And article who is shared around the web.
That band is doing a big ONEMAN tour.

 

So yup, visualkei never has been big, but it's not really smaller.
And there are still a bunch of bands who do lots of onemans in shit hols such as ikebukuro cyber /edge etc. 

 

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

18 minutes ago, DarkWater said:

 

also some bigger visual kei bands

 

 

 

>>>>truth is, the scene has never been big except for a few bands<<<<<<<

[BrenGun 2261]

16 minutes ago, Takadanobabaalien said:

 

 

>>>>truth is, the scene has never been big except for a few bands<<<<<<<

 

But we can't call it dead.

 

scene didn't grow, but didn't decrease too.

each year a few new bands turn in big.

 

vkei is living in his own small scene.

[shiroihana 182]

2 hours ago, Takadanobabaalien said:

 

 

>>>>truth is, the scene has never been big except for a few bands<<<<<<<

Yeah I mean that's definitely the bigger picture here. The super indie bands I like that many people would consider total shit were never popular to begin with lol

 

2 hours ago, DarkWater said:

 

But we can't call it dead.

 

scene didn't grow, but didn't decrease too.

each year a few new bands turn in big.

 

vkei is living in his own small scene.

 

The only thing about vk that's dying is the old style, but that's only to be anticipated as scenes evolve thru time.

[Komorebi 2193]

4 hours ago, vanivani said:

Honestly my opinion is when people say "visual kei is dead" they're really saying that their fave bands have disbanded and they don't like anything in the current scene. There's nothing wrong with that. Interests come and go. 

Couldn't have said it better.

 

1 hour ago, shiroihana said:

The only thing about vk that's dying is the old style, but that's only to be anticipated as scenes evolve thru time.

True. And honestly, it would be quite boring if it stayed the exact same thing through the decades.

I'll come back tomorrow once I'm fully awake to talk a bit about the VK scene in my own country and how it has changed and evolved here.

[plastic_rainbow 2162]

I've been following this thread for quite a while and many things came up in my head while reading through it. Many people already mentioned things I wanted to say or made valid points, but I'd still like to share a few things from my own point of view and experiences. (and sorry if i repeat some things already stated because i read kinda fast and have a short memory...)

To me, LJ played a huge role in the VK international fanbase and was what really made it feel alive (especially for people who lived too far to attend lives and such and could only rely on the net for the experience). It was very interactive and people shared the shit out of things. Jrock scans was one of the best LJ communities ever and I must've spent hours browsing through their directory just trying to save scans of all my favorite bands. I still have them in my hard drive today and my only regret is that I didn't spend more time on it because all the links from there are dead now (lol). I was one of those people who made a shit ton of graphics and icons so scans were pretty important for me yeah...For a movement that's all about the visuals though the idea of making pretty graphics felt interconnected and made the fandom more fun as a whole. Now that it's practically not a thing anymore the whole appeal of the visuals feels more boring? Another thing I liked about LJ was that you could read your friends' journal entries and learn about their favorite bands, other than the ones you already share. People wrote about their favorite bands all their time, posted PVs and pics, and shared live reports, which I found very fun to read because they were very casual. Around the time LJ died out was around the time everybody's favorite bands started disbanding and a lot of people just left. With the transition to tumblr, like most people mentioned already, it's only reblogs and it feels a lot less interactive, making it hard to find/talk to new friends. (thankfully there's still MH though :>)

Seeing that all my vk friends were leaving even I was feeling the pull of leaving vk forever. I even left my fav band Plastic Tree for a while (probably sometime after their ammonite album released). How dare I, I know. But in between those times I was out of vk I still found myself checking back in the scene once in a while out of curiosity, and found interest in a few newer bands. I just wasn't as crazy active as I was during LJ times. It wasn't until I went to Japan when I attended my very first vk live, which was AvelCain, that I regained all that vk-ness back in me. After seeing such an amazing and fun performance I realized how much I still loved vk, and that was pretty much how I woke up (and here I am now). It's probably different for everyone, but I feel like those who say that it was a fad might just a need a little something to make it all come back again, as it did for me.

Also, I feel like the attitudes of fans might also play a role in the decline. You see a lot of people complaining about the low quality of music these days and that vk is not the same anymore, which I KNOW is very true in many cases and I do this too, but at the same time it puts too much negativity into the fandom and makes everything seem less attractive, and so people leave. The sharing aspect also feels increasingly dead--music sharing wise the reasons are pretty obvious, but even just the talk and spread of vk feels increasingly dead. Again, this can probably lead back to how tumblr is all about the reblogs, not much interaction or discussion. That's why I'm very glad that MH still does what it does today (the monthly recommended tracks, reviews, and great threads like these and the awesome recent oshare and nu-metal kei threads, etc. where we can really discuss and share about vk), because maaaan the vk fandom feels so dead everywhere else.

With the changes in mainstream culture, and Kpop still a thing, I don't see how the newer generation will grow into vk. The only way they'll ever get into it is probably by the influence of a friend. So with that said, keep spreading the vk love people, as cheesy as it sounds lol.

Edited January 9, 2017 by plastic_rainbow