AwesomeNyappy

I agree. I've wondered why so many people who used to be into J-Rock are now into K-Pop and after some thinking, this was my answer. Ultimately, the marketing and demographic are similar. VK fangirls having a favourite member or buying checkies, supporting new bands by buying their records and a lot of merch...it's the same as K-pop. Liking a band, for most people in both scenes, is not only about the music, but also about the visuals and the personality of the band members, which is a great marketing stragedy. Like, if I only like the music, I might buy their album (or maybe not, I might download it illegally), but if I feel close to the band members I might just buy all of their stuff to support them, might try and advertise them to others by streaming their videos or posting on social media. While visual kei is more underground and secluded, it still works in similar ways. I'm also thinking about all the special editions you can buy (although this could be a thing of the Asian market in general.)
 
I know a lot of people who used to like visual kei and are now into K-pop. I see a young generation in the manga and anime scene who is predominantely into kpop and not into Japanese Rock and Metal (how it used to be around 10 years back.) This honestly makes me wonder how many people are actually in it for the music, tbh. I also have the feeling that a lot of people in the manga and anime scene are listening to kpop because it's "special" and "different" although the music is just, well, pop. You could as well listen to a western band. So that leads me to the conclusion that they listen to kpop because of the visuals and bandmembers. Which is absolutely okay. I just cannot stand people who'll tell you that BTS's lyrics are super profound (some lyricss are great, others are cringe) or that they are musical geniuses. I have nothing against their music, I like many of their songs. It's just that some kpop fans put them on a pedastal, saying that the music is soooo much different from western pop and that everything is sooo deep. When in reality kpop companies also hire western song writers...
 
Now for me personally I enjoy some kpop bands and songs. At first, I hated them when my friends first started listening to them back in 2008. They also used to listen to Japanese rock and then were sucked into kpop. However a few years later I started listening to some kpop occasionally (mostly big bang), but I still didn't much care for it. I had a few songs on my ipod and that's it. Nowadays, I like 2NE1's concept, and I enjoy listening to BTS and Big bang (and that one mamamoo song haha.). It takes some getting used to for me since I'm more into rock and metal, but since I also like rap music, so bts fits the bill. Mostly, I get easily sucked into kpop because I LOVE variety shows. In my teenage years I started listening to the J-pop band kat-tun simply because I liked their show. I also enjoy watching bts videos or run bts. I enjoy their on screen personalities and I have fun being in a fandom that has the best inside jokes known to man. Do I listen to all of their songs or swoon over their music video? Not at all. I don't even like most of their videos because I'm not a fan of the visuals. But I love their dancing and I enjoy their entertainment formats. 

Here's a question for you: why film a promotional video if you aren't using it to promote music?
The answer is, there is none! To expect people to buy the promotional video to see it defeats the purpose of it's design, which is to promote your music. You aren't supposed to be able to directly make money off of the PV. The money you put into the video either comes out of your budget for the album or is something you recoup when you make sales. It's called the cost of doing business. Sometimes it's necessary to spend money to make more money. If you do make money off of the PV, that's just a bonus.
That's why visual kei bands seem to run into so many monetary issues. They spend a lot of money up front to get their costumes, photo shoots, albums recorded, etc. and then expect fans to pay up front for everything. Here, pay up front for this ticket to get this live distributed song which didn't cost us a fraction of the cost we're charging you to get it! Here, pay for this promotional video so you can see the song that we're going to make you buy twice so you can get all of the music. Also, buy both editions and get some meaningless poster bonus too! But you have to buy them from Like An Edison only to get the deal! Like shit, I get that you need to recoup your losses but there are better ways to do it. I'll name a few below.
Why don't Japanese visual kei bands run an official YouTube channel where they can place all of their PV's (or hell, all of their music if they wanted), and some live performances and just make you sit through an ad first? That's extra money that doesn't cost them too much work to get. Why don't really indies independent Japanese visual kei bands put their releases on Bandcamp or iTunes and set a minimum price? There are lots of ways they can cut out the middleman and save themselves some serious cash, but they don't.
But yet it's expected that we should just shell out $40 for the music? It's 2014 music doesn't work that way anymore bb.

Bought all the shit except for the black tees because they looked like shit 😕

I would be very surprised if there wasn't one and/or if Keisuke doesn't call upon the crowd to do a wall of death. You should definitely go and have fun, even if it is just to support the band's overseas adventures. I hope this tour is very successful and gives them the confidence to tour elsewhere.

They're great live!
Saw them a few times here in Tokyo, with the current line-up!

I saw them at their first oneman (mind you, this is back when Ryuya, Seiya, and Hiroto were all still in the band) and they sounded fantastic live. Keisuke was a bit stiff and I think they tried to sound perfect rather than give a good live show. But again, this was four years ago and they've added new members and had time to work on their stage presence. In the live videos they post to twitter, their lives look super fun and they'll probably be begging the audience to mosh as much as possible. The members themselves like the non-VK crowds a lot, so I can guarantee it'll be a blast if you like to move.

The Gazette tour 2006 - 2007 Decomposition Beauty: The Meaningless Art That People Showed live @ Yokohama Arena DVD
Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Super Music Collection (This was EXPENSIVE!)
System of a Down - Toxicity

The first batch of pictures was what I got last week, but due to my job, I haven't had time to post it. 
 

 
This is what I got today along with some Morning Musume singles that I didn't take any pictures of.

 

I....didn't even know about that, wtf.
Yeah, I draw the line as nazi imagery. I don't know what is a bout vk bands and just using nazi symbols like they are some kind of joke. It's what I mean when I said they just want to provoke. They just seemed like boys who just used shokcing material for sake of being shocking, and that I just find meh.

Yeah, the one on the Osaka Hall VHS/DVD. It's from 1999 though. -I'll-'s first known performance is from August 3, 1998.

Feels like we talk about these "rate your DEG albums" topic every other weeks. 😂😂

1. Withering to death
2. Vulgar
3. Gauze
4. Uroboros
5. Macabre
6. Dum spiro spero
7. Arche
8. Kisou
9. The marrow of a bone
 
Vulgar and withering to death keep changing places, I can just never decide which one I find best. Kisou has some amazing songs on it, but in general the sound is just....too much? If I liste to the whole album, I usually get a headache. Embryo, Mushi or undecided are great songs (and Zomboid is super fun), but in general I would put it last with the marrow of a bone (which had the same problem, basically.) Arche and dum siro spero are very well put together albums imo, I can just listen to them while relaxing on the train, the beginning and endings of songs are seamless. However, some of their older albums such as WTD had more highlights for me.

1. Withering to death
2. Vulgar
3. Gauze
4. Uroboros
5. Macabre
6. Dum spiro spero
7. Arche
8. Kisou
9. The marrow of a bone
 
Vulgar and withering to death keep changing places, I can just never decide which one I find best. Kisou has some amazing songs on it, but in general the sound is just....too much? If I liste to the whole album, I usually get a headache. Embryo, Mushi or undecided are great songs (and Zomboid is super fun), but in general I would put it last with the marrow of a bone (which had the same problem, basically.) Arche and dum siro spero are very well put together albums imo, I can just listen to them while relaxing on the train, the beginning and endings of songs are seamless. However, some of their older albums such as WTD had more highlights for me.

Huh, this sounds very interesting. I can imagine that being the case. And yes, I also thought most fans were into decora 😂 Oh boy, was I wrong....
I still remember people buying sex pot revenge in online shops 🤣 Seems like such a long time ago. 
The style of sub cultures in general is in such a decline....15 years ago there were a lot of punks and goths around, nowadays people still enjoy the music, but the stores are all closing up because people don't tend to dress to such an extreme. Ahhh, the good old 90s/early 2000s...I feel like such a grandma now.

Yeah, this is what I am talking about ... I did listen to AnCafe back in 2006 and maybe that's why I was firmly under the impression that decora style stuff among fans was still commonplace or at least acceptable but that doesn't seem to be the case! I suspect it's because in Japan fashion kind of developed A LOT as a thing of its own - Harajuku fashion scene and whatnot ... Nowadays girls worldwide know "kawaii" fashion at least - and a bit away from what it was in the 90s and 2000s, closely tied to music styles like americanized punk / yankkii stuff or visual kei itself which is more or less what I said in the beginning of the thread. But that's simply a wildddd guess.

don't forget the ~mistresses~ who act all holy and mighty and bitch at anyone who interacts with them. not to mention when they take requests, they cast you aside because you weren't ~specific~ enough in your message
 
you know who you are  

Hi. I’m one of the really old fans. I visited Tokyo in 1995 and came back to the US (NYC) with a pile of Luna Sea CDs and VHS tapes. At that time there was nothing about Luna Sea or visual kei on the English-language internet. Actual nothing. Well, the internet barely existed, it was just transitioning to websites from bulletin boards. I made some mix cassettes and handed them out to my friends.
 
Around ’96 or maybe ’97 I checked the internet again, and now we have something: California sisters Freda and Joannie’s website Rockin’ Heaven, and the X Japan ML on cohprog. It was tiny at first, like maybe 100 people. This was the entire Western VK fandom. We had all discovered Japanese music either on a trip to Japan, or through a Japanese friend.  A few of us were so noisy about talking about other bands who were not X that the Jrock ML was formed, so we took our OT over there and it exploded. There was no file sharing or international online stores at that time. I created a page to bring something like tape-sharing classifieds online, a manually updated list of people who had stuff to trade and what they were looking for. We copied cassettes and sent them by postal mail. It’s laughably low-tech compared to nowadays, but suddenly we were all listening to multiple bands instead of just our one gateway band. The Jrock ML membership and traffic was exploding week by week. There was one loud and cynical French guy who was really into super-obscure bands and claimed that he went to Japan and was friends with bands, but nobody knew whether to believe him or not. Word of mouth was definitely a thing — I gave my little sister a few mix tapes when she went to college and she came back for break cursing me out for those tapes, because all her friends had fallen in love with them and now she had to listen to VK all the time.
 
I think it was around ’98 that we started to see some improvements in bandwidth and webpages that let us take it to the next level. There was a guy in Singapore (Paul? maybe?) where they had better wiring, who first started putting up a few tiny RA and RV files on a site, and he had one of the early message boards too. By this time I was out of school and my circle of friends and I were working in the early internet, which gave me access to equipment, software, and bandwidth that almost nobody had at that time. My friends were installing the actual wiring and servers to build the NYC internet, and uh… while they were at it, they stashed an old computer somewhere to be our own FTP server. We put up my files (I had a ton of stuff because I’d been running the tape-exchange listing, and also I bought stuff from the Japanese stores in NYC) and allowed other people to upload their own. I added a message board which was originally supposed to be for requests or whatever but it took on a life of its own as a discussion place.
 
Maybe ’99 or 2000, CD Japan opened. The fandom was growing exponentially and everyone was trying to explore new bands, and even tiny indie bands were getting fan bases. Lots of people were putting up file sharing sites, using multiple GeoCities accounts to create these huge octopus sites. We started to have meetups IRL. Go (JrockNYC) and his friends had a cover band and put together some meetups around NYC. Cameron was in Tokyo and writing on Glam Japan, and some of us were traveling to Japan too. A few people went to that huge concert that Luna Sea did, Dir en gray had fans going, me and a bunch went to Lareine’s last tour in August 2000. (I met Cameron there for the first time)
 
By maybe 2002-ish most of the file sharing was happening on the P2P networks, and Livejournal was becoming popular. I moved to Tokyo in early 2002. Go was living in Tokyo too and documenting the scene on JrockNYC. It would be nice to read it again but I don’t think his old stuff is on line any more. This is getting to the time period where there are lots of people who were around to remember, so I’ll leave it.

It still shocks me that people got into VK during the 90s and early 2000s. I always thought it was a MySpace era thing but seeing all the poorly aged blogs was such an eye opener.
 
I know someone on the Diru subreddit who actually went to their Blitz 5Days concert during the Macarbe part of the tour. 
 
 

I came here to talk about my problem with procrastination, and found this video! For me, the problem is that since last year the panic monster just stays quiet, and I am honestly worrying about my future. Because it is not that I don’t care about my studies, I am actually quite motivated. I am just tired of pulling all nighters. I procrastinate on many things in life.
please wish me kuck or my last two papers  that are due soon! 

I came here to talk about my problem with procrastination, and found this video! For me, the problem is that since last year the panic monster just stays quiet, and I am honestly worrying about my future. Because it is not that I don’t care about my studies, I am actually quite motivated. I am just tired of pulling all nighters. I procrastinate on many things in life.
please wish me kuck or my last two papers  that are due soon! 

A funny presentation on procrastination. I need to do this less for my papers 😅

You're not wrong, but I do think that there's something to be said about Kpop being "different" and "special", but the difference doesn't lie in the music, it lies in the culture.
 
The reason that VK fans can so easily transition to Kpop is that the fan cultures surrounding them are so very similar, despite the music being so different. On the inverse - take "Black" American pop music for example: Musically, "Black" American pop/r&b/rap is like the mother of Kpop, as it directly inspires Kpop and sets the trends and standards for a lot of Kpop, yet you don't see a gang of Kpop fans praising too many "black" artists. Now the music from these two scenes are VERY similar, so you'd think that Kpop fans would also be naturally interested in both (and to be fair, some are, but i don't see this to be the case in general). But the cultures surrounding both scenes are so different that you don't really see a lot of cross pollination between the fanbases, despite the music being so similar.
 
So I do think that kpop fans genuinely enjoy the music, it's just that the music comes secondary to the culture. I think it's the culture that attracts most ppl first, and then the music is something people actually find enjoyable after. But not often the other way around. Now obviously there are ppl who are open-minded enough not to give a fuck about the cultures and will listen to anything that they like, but the impact of culture can actually be pretty profound, because culture often gives a context in which to perceive the music. And you'd be surprised how much context can influence one's taste.
 
I've experienced this personally many times. It was like this for me when I got into J-rock. I grew up in "black" culture where rock music was mostly considered a "white" thing, and so we didn't fuck with it like that. I didn't really listen to rock music until after I got into J-rock. Because J-rock offered a different cultural path to rock music than the stereotypical American White culture that I associated it with at the time. But after developing a true affinity for rock, I was able to go back and appreciate the rock music that I previously avoided due to cultural boundaries/ignorance.
 
So yeah, that's my thoughts on that. Culture affects our perception of things more than we realize. They say culture is to humans as water is to fish - so we can't always see what cultural perspective that we're operating from until after we've experienced other cultures, or until after we've swam in other waters, if you will.
 
-
 
But with that said, I personally think Kpop is a lot of fun. I don't listen to it or seek it out on my own, but whenever i'm exposed to it, it's always a joy. The visuals, the dances, the production - the general pomp of it all - it's all pretty exciting. So I see how ppl can enjoy it. For me, KPOP is like eating sweets tho. Like yeah, I enjoy them for sure, but too much and I'll get sick.

I agree. I've wondered why so many people who used to be into J-Rock are now into K-Pop and after some thinking, this was my answer. Ultimately, the marketing and demographic are similar. VK fangirls having a favourite member or buying checkies, supporting new bands by buying their records and a lot of merch...it's the same as K-pop. Liking a band, for most people in both scenes, is not only about the music, but also about the visuals and the personality of the band members, which is a great marketing stragedy. Like, if I only like the music, I might buy their album (or maybe not, I might download it illegally), but if I feel close to the band members I might just buy all of their stuff to support them, might try and advertise them to others by streaming their videos or posting on social media. While visual kei is more underground and secluded, it still works in similar ways. I'm also thinking about all the special editions you can buy (although this could be a thing of the Asian market in general.)
 
I know a lot of people who used to like visual kei and are now into K-pop. I see a young generation in the manga and anime scene who is predominantely into kpop and not into Japanese Rock and Metal (how it used to be around 10 years back.) This honestly makes me wonder how many people are actually in it for the music, tbh. I also have the feeling that a lot of people in the manga and anime scene are listening to kpop because it's "special" and "different" although the music is just, well, pop. You could as well listen to a western band. So that leads me to the conclusion that they listen to kpop because of the visuals and bandmembers. Which is absolutely okay. I just cannot stand people who'll tell you that BTS's lyrics are super profound (some lyricss are great, others are cringe) or that they are musical geniuses. I have nothing against their music, I like many of their songs. It's just that some kpop fans put them on a pedastal, saying that the music is soooo much different from western pop and that everything is sooo deep. When in reality kpop companies also hire western song writers...
 
Now for me personally I enjoy some kpop bands and songs. At first, I hated them when my friends first started listening to them back in 2008. They also used to listen to Japanese rock and then were sucked into kpop. However a few years later I started listening to some kpop occasionally (mostly big bang), but I still didn't much care for it. I had a few songs on my ipod and that's it. Nowadays, I like 2NE1's concept, and I enjoy listening to BTS and Big bang (and that one mamamoo song haha.). It takes some getting used to for me since I'm more into rock and metal, but since I also like rap music, so bts fits the bill. Mostly, I get easily sucked into kpop because I LOVE variety shows. In my teenage years I started listening to the J-pop band kat-tun simply because I liked their show. I also enjoy watching bts videos or run bts. I enjoy their on screen personalities and I have fun being in a fandom that has the best inside jokes known to man. Do I listen to all of their songs or swoon over their music video? Not at all. I don't even like most of their videos because I'm not a fan of the visuals. But I love their dancing and I enjoy their entertainment formats. 

The song itself is very cute, however Kanon is just not a vocalist. He's great for back vocals, and there are singers that are way worse of course, but I don't think he is good enough to go solo. 
This might sound a bit mean, but I couldn't help imagining Miku singing this song, and that it would be way better this way. Or any other singer.
Apart from the singing, this is exactly my style, I really like it!
 
 

I agree. I've wondered why so many people who used to be into J-Rock are now into K-Pop and after some thinking, this was my answer. Ultimately, the marketing and demographic are similar. VK fangirls having a favourite member or buying checkies, supporting new bands by buying their records and a lot of merch...it's the same as K-pop. Liking a band, for most people in both scenes, is not only about the music, but also about the visuals and the personality of the band members, which is a great marketing stragedy. Like, if I only like the music, I might buy their album (or maybe not, I might download it illegally), but if I feel close to the band members I might just buy all of their stuff to support them, might try and advertise them to others by streaming their videos or posting on social media. While visual kei is more underground and secluded, it still works in similar ways. I'm also thinking about all the special editions you can buy (although this could be a thing of the Asian market in general.)
 
I know a lot of people who used to like visual kei and are now into K-pop. I see a young generation in the manga and anime scene who is predominantely into kpop and not into Japanese Rock and Metal (how it used to be around 10 years back.) This honestly makes me wonder how many people are actually in it for the music, tbh. I also have the feeling that a lot of people in the manga and anime scene are listening to kpop because it's "special" and "different" although the music is just, well, pop. You could as well listen to a western band. So that leads me to the conclusion that they listen to kpop because of the visuals and bandmembers. Which is absolutely okay. I just cannot stand people who'll tell you that BTS's lyrics are super profound (some lyricss are great, others are cringe) or that they are musical geniuses. I have nothing against their music, I like many of their songs. It's just that some kpop fans put them on a pedastal, saying that the music is soooo much different from western pop and that everything is sooo deep. When in reality kpop companies also hire western song writers...
 
Now for me personally I enjoy some kpop bands and songs. At first, I hated them when my friends first started listening to them back in 2008. They also used to listen to Japanese rock and then were sucked into kpop. However a few years later I started listening to some kpop occasionally (mostly big bang), but I still didn't much care for it. I had a few songs on my ipod and that's it. Nowadays, I like 2NE1's concept, and I enjoy listening to BTS and Big bang (and that one mamamoo song haha.). It takes some getting used to for me since I'm more into rock and metal, but since I also like rap music, so bts fits the bill. Mostly, I get easily sucked into kpop because I LOVE variety shows. In my teenage years I started listening to the J-pop band kat-tun simply because I liked their show. I also enjoy watching bts videos or run bts. I enjoy their on screen personalities and I have fun being in a fandom that has the best inside jokes known to man. Do I listen to all of their songs or swoon over their music video? Not at all. I don't even like most of their videos because I'm not a fan of the visuals. But I love their dancing and I enjoy their entertainment formats.