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I haven't come across a specific thread like this, but it feels like something people will enjoy. Feel free to share any pictures of yourself with Japanese artists. I'll start off with the few pictures I have (and leaving some out because they are too unflattering). With Masashi (Jupiter). I have one with the full band too but there's no telling what my face is doing on that exact photo so I'll leave that to your imaginations. Myself and Megaromania. None of them had time to do their hair because they were late, so they're all looking droopy, myself included. BLACK LINE. I still don't remember what came over me when I went here. It was enjoyable, to say the least. (I don't recall why I was wearing Kisaki's shirt to this show). Together with my ultimate heroes. Look how joyful they are. Kaya was lovely. He smelled nice too. Just two hours before this I was still dressed up in the muck from my Silent Hill nurse cosplay, and I dislocated my knee early on that day.

I hope not, that'd be really boring. I'm putting my bets on GACKT and Maria Cross.

Even Luna Sea ripped off my favorite japanse band Dir en grey, just compare Luna Sea's ''G.'' to my favorite japanese band Dir en grey's ''Unknown・・・Despair・・・a Lost'' and you'll see.... My favorite japanese band Dir en gr did it first

Many people don't know this but even famous western people are ripping off my favorite japanese band Dir en grey, such as Morgan Freeman

Nice band pic! Also, highly unlikely, but it would make me so happy if they were named after the (delicious) $3 wine from ALDI

this is relevant again

sux for ray, it was (allegedly) his last band he's one of my fav vk bassists, i hope he pulls a kisaki and comes back with a better band where he can show off his talents.

Limited edition A : 1944 yens CD : 01. RUDENESS RESORT 02. Marburg DVD : 01. RUDENESS RESORT MUSIC VIDEO 02. RUDENESS RESORT MUSIC VIDEO BTS Limited edition B : 1944 yens CD : 01. RUDENESS RESORT 02. プラスチック・ハート(Plastic Heart) DVD : 01.2016.1.7「名も無き明日はない」at TSUTAYA O-WEST LIVE映像 Regular edition : 1296 yens CD : 01. RUDENESS RESORT 02. GIFT 03. RUDENESS RESORT(KØULESS ver.)

as previously mentioned, it appears to be Sadie 真緒(mao) & 美月(mizuki), who have previously formed special unit "The MUMMY", especially today 2016/03/18 is Sadie 11th anniversary (Sadie first live was at Osaka BIG CAT at 2005/03/18)

my life aesthetic tbh

the unit of my dreams

So there seems to be only two members... who wants to start making guesses?

I am going to defend him here yet again, but you are aware that he is committed to everything he does, no? They broke up because of a lack of interest in their formation — the scene considers him to be 'too old' (this goes for Sui and Misery as well), and because they focus on a traditional melodic sound instead of chugging guitars and grunting, people grew tired of them because it's not what the current fanbase wants to hear. Their sales were terrible, event attendence less than scarce, and people generally bark every possible insult they can think of at Kisaki, so I can imagine why he doesn't want to pursue something people intensely dislike. Give the man a damn break. If you follow him as closely as I do you'd see the depression oozing from his comments on the band's disbandment, it's not something he or any of the other members wanted.

Hello! Where do I start... I’m from Poland. Actually, I wanted to join the forum years ago. Unfortunately, I’m slowly losing my interest in J-rock/visual kei and I’m more into J-pop now. But I still want to follow the scene. Nice to meet you!

^ Oi. *wink wink*

Nice band pic [2] I think I found their mascot, a winking owl

Stranger things have happened lol.

Happy birthday Mana-sama

Right now it's Yoshiki Chips. Thinking about the new X Japan album and then this, leaves a real taste in my mouth.

FINALLY!!!!! SOME REAL TALENT !!!

https://vine.co/v/iwKm6wppIIH amazing

^ wtf at CindyKate hate. You make me so sad =( I'm not entirely sure if this is supposed to be a VK-related thread or not. (only glanced at the first and last pages) but.. I seriously cannot stand Korean boy bands & girl bands. I hate the weird focus on the girls' legs. The way the guys wear makeup bothers me, too. The dark eyeshadow with short boyish haircuts is just not appealing to me. And I find it very odd that this type of Kpop has become so popular in Western countries. I know so many people who don't give a shit about non-English music BUT they somehow know all about BIG BANG etc and post that shit all over facebook/twitter. I cannot stand stuff like AKB48 and any group made of pre-pubescent children.

Can't wait for payday to come, so I can use all my money on CD's then complain about how I have no money.

yay finally some samples!! Nice to see they've polish the video presentation. Sounds good, can't wait to have my copy. Am I the only one who actually love THE BEGINNING??

To break it down: Rock vs. Pop Rock made the most profit when culturally it became a part of Pop culture. This started to die off in the 80's but hair metal became a sensation. Hair metal was then killed off for the next wave of acts that were assimilated into the record industries more reliable formulaic machine for hits. Record labels like Mercury began purposefully killing off hair metal bands. Eventually pop punk, grunge, nu metal and other genres were manipulated in the main stream to become represented by the producer controlled music making machine. Why have a band completely in control of their music and writing what they want when they want? Would you not make a lot more money having an inner circle of producers who have mastered making hits, and creating the mainstream landscape of what a hit is? Instead of investing in bands who may go any which direction, it is more lucrative to hire performers who will treat it as more of a job, and sing the songs written for them, dance to the choreography created for them, endorse the products your sponsors give to them, etc.. And if some kind of rock is popular, we'll study the trend with a focus group, then get the producer to hold their hand through a simple track, we'll get a director to come up with a topical video to get attention, the lyricist's will come up with a catchy provocative line that will be repeated until it gets into people's heads, then the people will repeat the lines and memes to advertise for us, for free. Wardrobe will get them something trendy, then we'll get PR to get some interviews, and create some kind of juicy scandal for the group. Then we'll pay stations a lot of money to play us often, iTunes to feature us heavily, Youtube to recommend our video, etc... Then we'll make a bunch of money, give a good chunk to execs, producers, lyricists, then pay off all the marketing, and other costs, and we'll throw a few bucks at the band. Oh wait, we 'advanced' the band all sorts of money when we paid for that new guitar, the gas in the tourbus, their catering, etc etc... Better cut down how much we gave them. Then compare that to moderately successful VK bands filming a PV in the parking garage a thousand other bands played in, in some flame retardant outfit that 99 percent of people would not be caught dead wearing, and a bass player who looks better than most girls, playing a song in a low drop C tuning, over vocals still high pitched as hell, in a style of music that is no longer popular or never has been popular in the mainstream. Then they take that PV, and include it as a bonus for the limited edition, cd only release not on iTunes, and not uploaded to Youtube unless somebody decides to do it against their wishes. And the majority of viewers are international viewers since Japanese have their own sites and ways of digesting media to choose from as well. And they compete in the second biggest music market in the world, with a huge amount of other independent visual kei artists, many of them producing their own music, and not having doors opened to them, no big funding, and a lot of bands still survive somehow, and bands like Royz, Kiryu, etc.... enter the top ten of the charts repeatedly beating tons of major produced and marketed acts, despite being the antithesis of worldwide pop culture and trends. Then you have bands like SID, and lots of older bands like X Japan, Luna Sea, Dir en grey, who have made more money than most pop artists, have been around longer than KPop was a 'thing', and will be referenced as long as there is VK. But in terms of Youtube and worldwide presence, Korean Pop has a very large presence, has several connections to worldwide pop culture where it isn't such a huge step, they are just rapping and twerking in a different language. The Korean government has also heavily funded Korean media on the global stage, from the Korean Wave of film that had a regrettably short life, to KPop now. Japanese individuals and companies have actually complained about not representing Japanese workson the worldwide stage, I even remember Gackt talking about how they are failing to promote Japanese work outside of Japan. But at the same time, Japan has a much more insulated subcultural make-up, and is not AS rapidly molded and influenced by Global and especially American trends. So I definitely think certain cultural exports from Japan are hard to find an audience for, while some others, like anime, games, manga, JDM, etc... have been some of the most influential things in pop culture and subculture history. Not sure if I answered the question or even tried to, but ah well.

The easy listening J-rockers will be releasing their 2nd album entitled "SALE OF BROKEN DREAMS" on May 11th. Tracklist to be announced. News here Buy here

おたけ座(otakeza) will perform at 劇団おたけ座(gekidan otakeza) live tour final "そしておたけは仏になる" at Shinjuku ReNY at 2016/06/21 "おたけ座" members: Vo.ごえもん(goemon) (GOEMON RECORDS) (ex-シンディケイト(CindyKate) Vo.ユーイ(yuui)) Gt.おたけ(otake) (ex-シンディケイト(CindyKate), now in アヴァンチック(avanchick)) Ba.祥平(shouhei) (ex-シンディケイト(CindyKate), now in アルルカン(arlequin)) Dr.大志(masashi) (Lig) [live participating artists] おたけ座(otakeza) アヴァンチック(avanchick) アルルカン(arlequin) Mix Speaker's,Inc. The Benjamin AvelCain ギガマウス(GIGAMOUS) 黒百合と影(kuroyuri to kage)

REAL VISUAL KEI WEED HOURS pound dat mf like if u love to TOKE & STAY WOKE

LIX. stands for ''Lotus (by our favorite japanese band Dir en grey) is Xawesome'', concrete proof yet again that my favorite japanese band Dir en grey are true visionaries and originals and all other visual kei ''musicians'' are just wannabes As for The Gallo and Lycaon: The Gallo's vocalist is a fan of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and at some point some of the members from my favorite japanese band Dir en grey have also read that manga.... need i say more? OO.... OWNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL sorry! I mostly posted it because I knew it was relevant to your interests. X"D

J-Pop are way behind K-Pop imho. K-Pop know how to promote themselves, they toured places and use YT as channel to connect fans all over the world. And they toured South East Asia aside from fellow East Asia countries where the demands and profits are big. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philipinnes, and so on, all countries that not many J-Pop artists pay visit to, though once they did, it mostly Anime convention than big production solo tour, save for a very major ones such as Ayumi Hamasaki, LUNA SEA, or L'arc-En-Ciel. No K-Pop artist ever perform in Korean convention, and that helps alot with their image. Which is why DEG had refused to perform in Anime convention in the past. Missed opportunity in their part. Not sure why they seem to avoid South East Asia when even major American acts never dare to. Also, Korean people seems to have better pronounciation with their English, so few of them succeeded touring The States, even Big Bang had toured Australia last year. K-Pop are way more adventurous this waybyo expand their influence, at this rate I won't be surprised if we found K-Pop starts touring South Africa soon. When will J-Pop?

Its's unfortunate they were starting to get better. Really hoping Ray continues in a new band, especially with Mast, and i would love to see the rest of the members form a new band too. (like Mast, Ray, and Cain together)

fuck yeah

The singer from Dog in the Parallel World Orchestra is what I imagine a soulless vessel for the devil would look and sound like. He has dead eyes.

They put a skull fucking revolver up to other band's heads

Other than Filipino food (Adobo, Sinigang, Lumpia, etc.), I don't really venture beyond steak and scrambled eggs regularly. While I could cook anything as long as I have instructions, I only feel like doing extensive stuff when it's for a group of people. Otherwise, I'll drive to the nearest "Cook-Out" or order stuff online >_>...

Ahem... "V-STYLING DJENTCORE" -JILUKA

Nanase Aikawa is forever bae. Bad girls for the fuckin' win.

b7klan is terrible :') They cancelled the merry tour also, and the organisation is always pretty shitty. Everyone hates b7klan in France XD I'll go to Paris anyway. DIO wasthe first VK band I listened to, so I'm glad to see them live.

love hate nimbly~ love hate nimbly~ the fortune flower told me that I should care about you - one-sided love

nice songs ! i miss Royz so much !

their new album "HYSTERIA" will be released at 2016/04/20 (12 songs, 3,240yen)

This stuff came with my copies of Kiryu's Irodori type C&D. I also got the exact same poster as @itsukoii. (it is REALLY UPSETTING how often I get trading card doubles.. I even got triples once..)

Shitposting is the only way I can get off anymore

Track list: ［Disc 1］ 1. ZeTeS 2. Malice against 3. EXCEED 4. NG＋ 5. Deep Inside 6. the strength I need ［Disc 2］ 1. Malice against (Instrumental) 2. Rebellion (Re-Recorded / Remastered )(2016) 3. A Bullet of Skyline (Re-Recorded / Remastered )(2016)

This haha, samples at the very least are coming very soon most likely!!

The absolute best concert experience I've ever had was in seeing Seikima II and Inugami Circus-Dan at A-kon in Dallas, TX in 2011. Seikima II was on their 25th anniversary tour with stops in Tokyo, Paris, and....A-kon. (an anime convention) Biopanda and I got to sit front row, and......it was just magical. We saw them the next day as they were doing autographs, and we got a poster signed. I talked to Demon Kogura for a second too.