A Brief History of Visual Kei: Unnecessary Symbols & Punctuation in Band Names

[The Reverend 3566]

23 hours ago, chemicalpictures said:

I always fiercely hated 0801弐209XX6 name, but their sound was catchy as fuck, I firmly believe their bad taste in names heavily impairs any chance of them succeeding somehow...

 

Of course it affects your chances, most famous bands have catchy/shorter names. Imagine these two very realistic scenarios:

 

"Dude, you gotta check this band out I saw last night, they were awesome!"

"Oh yeah what was their name?"

"Exist Trace"

"Cool I'll look 'em up."

 

vs.

 

"Dude, you gotta check this band out I saw last night, they were awesome!"

"Oh yeah what was their name?"

"zero eight zero one something... y'know what nevermind they weren't that great"

 

22 hours ago, Takadanobabaalien said:

My fav. band is ＊ which is pronounced anus (http://www22.big.or.jp/~yunisan/vi/anusu.html)

LOL. Gross. Was this band serious??

 

20 hours ago, r... said:

Does the ◇ in FANATIC◇CRISIS qualify? I sure think so!

What about Ｌυτёη∀, mi'ze:lia, ∀ile≠de〔Σu〕, Loz'a≠Veria, L∞P, Lure＋Selene, Λucifer, 【zɔ́:diæ̀k】 , Mëbíus, DAS:VASSER, 【denno:oblaat】 , MARRY+AN+BLOOD, La'miss†fairy?

 

Whoa ( I had a couple of those in my 'see also' but not the craziest ones).

【zɔ́:diæ̀k】might take the cake, look at that ridiculous band name!

 

9 hours ago, helcchi said:

★STAR☆

THE DEAD P☆P STARS, PANIC☆ch, DIS★Marionette, Crazy★shampoo, ワン★スター, ★NOハウス, Anzel☆Stripper【 AKR】, ネオロックンロールスタ→☆エース, RoNo☆Cro, RABBI★STAR, Death★Rabbits

Are they related or were there seriously two completely separate bands with stars in the name that referenced rabbits?!

 

4 hours ago, Shmilly said:

 

For the record, tildes are an incorrect Westernization of the Japanese 'wave dash' 〜, which is like a lengthened tilde. Laruku's actual name uses that, not the Western tilde. And the use of the wave dash in various song titles is legitimate and not a result of bands like Laruku becoming popular - in Japanese, it denotes subtitles. So for example, Gackt's 絵夢〜for my dear〜 could be romanized as M: For My Dear rather than using tildes.

Huh, didn't know this at all. I thought they all just liked the extra flourish.

 

(Still doesn't make sense for them to be in the middle of L'arc~en~Ciel, but I guess all the subtitle song titles get a pass.)

[helcchi 942]

6 hours ago, The Reverend said:

Are they related or were there seriously two completely separate bands with stars in the name that referenced rabbits?!

 

They're unrelated - deathrabbits disbanded in 2006 and rabbi star was a relatively recent band

[Seelentau 884]

Maybe not as interesting as the other examples in this thread, but DIR EN GREY always makes me chuckle.

They took the Japanese 灰色の銀貨 (Haiiro no Ginka = Grey Silver Coin) and, for whatever reason, decided to translate it into three different languages: German, French and English - Dir En Grey.

The only problem? "Dir" doesn't mean "Silver Coin": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dir#German

What DOES mean "Silver Coin"? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Silbermünze

I wonder when it dawned on them that their name is a mistranslation...

[Biopanda 2675]

7 hours ago, Seelentau said:

Maybe not as interesting as the other examples in this thread, but DIR EN GREY always makes me chuckle.

They took the Japanese 灰色の銀貨 (Haiiro no Ginka = Grey Silver Coin) and, for whatever reason, decided to translate it into three different languages: German, French and English - Dir En Grey.

The only problem? "Dir" doesn't mean "Silver Coin": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dir#German

What DOES mean "Silver Coin"? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Silbermünze

I wonder when it dawned on them that their name is a mistranslation...

Or they just stole their name from the early 90s VK band Dir & Gray :V

Edited March 26, 2018 by Biopanda

[Seelentau 884]

Yeah, about that... I looked them up, found literally nothing. Not on discogs, nowhere...

[WhirlingBlack 1043]

1 hour ago, Seelentau said:

Yeah, about that... I looked them up, found literally nothing. Not on discogs, nowhere...

 

It was a band made up of Zi:Kill roadies if my memory serves me right.

 

Also, Dir en grey got their name from Kamijo according to most sources, he made them believe that Dir en grey meant silver coin. If I remember correctly someone (Shinya?) revealed this a while back conclusively. They played gigs together back in the La:Sadie's days and were good friends at the time. 

 

Also, this is kind of off topic, so please get back on track with regards to unusual and unnecessary symbols in band names. 

[Seelentau 884]

@OP does it have to be band names?

 

Another unnecessary stylisation I just noticed: Toshi is writing his name as "Toshl". With a lowercase L. Not an uppercase i. Just... why? Of course it's still read as "Toshi", too. I mean wtf xD

 

Edit:  Apparently, this has to do with his old label still having the rights to his artist name? Dunno.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Seelentau

[Himeaimichu 1535]

1 hour ago, WhirlingBlack said:

 

It was a band made up of Zi:Kill roadies if my memory serves me right.

 

Yeah, the guitarist was a Zi:Kill Roadie and their vocalist was also a part of Kneuklid Romance.

3 hours ago, Seelentau said:

Yeah, about that... I looked them up, found literally nothing. Not on discogs, nowhere...

They were also known as Quasi D'Orsay and one of their demos is on Niconico Douga. 

[seikun 317]

If I well recall, Aliene Ma'riage means Alliance and Marriage.

[Mamo 1172]

15 hours ago, Seelentau said:

Maybe not as interesting as the other examples in this thread, but DIR EN GREY always makes me chuckle.

They took the Japanese 灰色の銀貨 (Haiiro no Ginka = Grey Silver Coin) and, for whatever reason, decided to translate it into three different languages: German, French and English - Dir En Grey.

The only problem? "Dir" doesn't mean "Silver Coin": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dir#German

What DOES mean "Silver Coin"? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Silbermünze

I wonder when it dawned on them that their name is a mistranslation...

 

8 hours ago, Biopanda said:

Or they just stole their name from the early 90s VK band Dir & Gray :V

 

6 hours ago, WhirlingBlack said:

 

It was a band made up of Zi:Kill roadies if my memory serves me right.

 

Also, Dir en grey got their name from Kamijo according to most sources, he made them believe that Dir en grey meant silver coin. If I remember correctly someone (Shinya?) revealed this a while back conclusively. They played gigs together back in the La:Sadie's days and were good friends at the time. 

 

Also, this is kind of off topic, so please get back on track with regards to unusual and unnecessary symbols in band names. 

Sorry to go off-topic again but I always thought that it was most likely they got their named from a 1995 "Lareine" song of near identical name "Dir en gray":

Spoiler

 

 

[Himeaimichu 1535]

1 minute ago, Mamo said:

 

 

Sorry to go off-topic again but I always thought that it was most likely they got their named from a 1995 "Lareine" song of near identical name "Dir en gray":

  Hide contents

 

 

We could start a seperate topic on it to share our thoughts. 

[seikun 317]

And talking about Lareine and Dir en grey, again, if I well recall, there is a picture where Kyou is sitting on Emiru's lap.

I think it was Emiru...

 

I love Lareine's Dir en Gray by the way.

[inartistic 1151]

Everyone knows one of kyo's early bands was Visnu, but it's actually supposed to be written Viṣṇu (with dots under the s and n--dunno if it'll show up here).

 

A recent fav of mine is CμЯЁ-βLAST. Just a random no1curr band, but I'm a fan of the “more is more” band name.

 

If I had to give an actual guess as to why this is a “thing” in vk, I'd guess that it probably traces back to gothic influence in late 80s/early 90s. And I also bet that it became popular in the early 90s due to computers making symbols/alternate letters more accessible. (Crazy that vk is old enough to be influenced by the “rise of computers” huh?)

Edited March 28, 2018 by inartistic

[suji 8317]

If I see a † in a band's name (which I sadly haven't seen recently), then I'm expecting a badass kotekei band like Larm†Ma'dule, etc. *_*

[Seelentau 884]

34 minutes ago, inartistic said:

Everyone knows one of kyo's early bands was Visnu, but it's actually supposed to be written Viṣṇu (with dots under the s and n--dunno if it'll show up here).

 

A recent fav of mine is CμЯЁ-βLAST. Just a random no1curr band, but I'm a fan of the “more is more” band name.

 

If I had to give an actual guess as to why this is a “thing” in vk, I'd guess that it probably traces back to gothic influence in late 80s/early 90s. And I also bet that it became popular in the early 90s due to computers making symbols/alternate letters more accessible. (Crazy that vk is old enough to be influenced by the “rise of computers” huh?)

It's actually Viṣụn

Edited March 28, 2018 by Seelentau

[YuyoDrift 1540]

On 3/22/2018 at 8:16 AM, The Reverend said:

+DéspairsRay+

 

The band: One of the rare examples of a band who can pull off unabashed zetsubou unironically and follow it up with soaring choruses and catchy melodies without sounding disjointed.

 

The name: Another band that dropped some of the more superfluous parts of their name as soon as they started to gain some popularity. If I had to guess, their name is probably one of the most mistagged in VK. I know for sure if I opened iTunes right now I’d have songs by +DéspairsRay+, DéspairsRay, D’espairs Ray, Despairs Ray and probably more in my artist lineup.

 

The members of the band haven’t commented specifically on how they chose the name, with Zero even saying “It's nothing special.” I interpret this as ‘we know it’s dumb, don’t ask about it please’.

 

See also: VAL+IX+LIA, MARRY+AN+BLOOD, Ti+Dee

I'm so glad that this was finally explained haha.

In my early years I learned to just accept having 3-4 different artist sections for certain bands (really I was just lazy), but these days I cannot tolerate it with new bands.

I think the current one that pisses me off after so many years is Ayabie ( 彩冷える, アヤビエ, ayabie, 彩冷える-ayabie-).

I don't even know where AYABIE fits in the mix (the band with 4 members but Aoi) haha.

[inartistic 1151]

4 hours ago, Seelentau said:

It's actually Viṣụn

No, it's actually Visnu! 

Edited March 28, 2018 by inartistic

[cvltic 1482]

for their stupid name P∽L was a big fav of mine... apparently the symbol is a reverse tilde. haven't seen it anywhere else.


being a 12012 stan was tough, definitely the people i talked to irl called them 'twelve' or 'twelve-oh-twelve' unless you were trying to stunt on people with your japanese by calling them ichini. my parents always just called them "the numbers band".
edit: totally forgot, if you were an elitist or a shipper you'd call them 凶器所持/kyoki shoji (possession of a dangerous weapon, related to the penal code) because 1) it was cool 2) the band members wouldn't find your lewd fanfic. eventually they adopted the name for their side project/session band and ruined it for the shippers lmao

there was also that Kra side project, 36481? (question mark included). this is apparently how you spell "KRA" in pager/beeper text input. the missing number replaced by ? is 6.
and if it's OK to stray from band names, i was mystified by deathgaze's 294036224052 release until i learned it was the input required to spell "gokiburi" (cockroach) using page/beeper texting in reverse.

Edited March 28, 2018 by cvltic

[suji 8317]

am i the only one who calls them  "one twenty twelve"

[inartistic 1151]

5 minutes ago, suji said:

am i the only one who calls them  "one twenty twelve"

This is a cursed post!!!

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

I always say one-two-oh-one-two ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cvltic 1482]

just close the thread i can't take any more of this, someone's gonna come and say they call them twelve thousand and twelve

[Chi 2624]

you telling me it's not twelve zero twelve? i believe you

40 minutes ago, cvltic said:

just close the thread i can't take any more of this, someone's gonna come and say they call them twelve thousand and twelve

i'm calling them that from now on

Edited March 28, 2018 by Chi

[JukaForever 758]

I thought it one-two-O-twelve

[NICKT 147]

http://visualkei.wikia.com/wiki/†яi￠к