Leaderboard

petitioning to have IKEBUKURO CHOP finally officially renamed to NEO TOKYO IKEBUKURO CHOP DOME

petitioning to have it renamed to OLD FRIENDS SENIOR BANDOMEN SANCTUARY

http://fuckyeahtanuki.tumblr.com/post/166631060946/tanuki-sex-thread-translation-170524-minpha this is a v. important update (cc. @ishiki-minpha-mpreg-kawaii)

It's almost 2018. I wish Moi Dix Mois would give an update on that album. They're truly missed...

ANYONE WANT SOME MOTHERFUCKING CHIPPENDALES TICKETS?

hahaha i definitely don't KNOW more this is 100% just me guessing from when i read the articles but given the parts about 'buying various products' & 'eligible to apply for gifts,' i wouldn't be surprised if the ~grand prize~ was something along the lines of 「hang out w/ the band, we'll take pictures like an official photoshoot, you can pick instruments to say you play, and come up w/ your own reason for leaving the band we'll tell everyone like it's real.」

Savage New look!

Ten years ago today, Spike760 and myself decided that we wanted to start a Japanese Rock forum. After a while of debating, we eventually settled on Tainted World (after the D’espairsRay song of the same name). Frankly, neither one of expected it to last all that long; this would hardly be the first forum that we had run together that didn’t go anywhere. But what started as a fun little project somehow blossomed into an amazing community. The fact that this site still exists after all this time has little to say about Spike and my’s original plan and everything to say about the members here. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping build this site into what it is today. While I was one of the key founders of this site, Monochrome Heaven is so much bigger than just me. That became clear to me when we went under the transition from Tainted World to our current name back in 2011. While to really understand why this is so important requires more context, I don’t want to go into a full on history lesson. But since that point, so many members have stepped up and dedicated themselves to this site, putting in the time and effort (and money) into making Monochrome Heaven as great as it possibly can be. To every member that has joined and felt like they were apart of a community over this silly niche interest we all have, I raise a glass to you. You all are what have made this place special. And to every staff member, current and past, no words can express my thanks to you - you are people that I have come to admire and consider good friends. But this post isn’t about me, but about the Monochrome Heaven! I want to hear from all of you as to why this community is special, why you’ve becoming coming back for 10 months or 10 years. Or tell us one of your favorite moments from your time coming, whether that was a release you were looking for forever or a stupid meme that took over the forum. Here’s some from other users to get things started!: @-jibakurei- @SEKHMET @Ada Suilen @Flame-X @Seiji @Platy @efuru @saishuu @Furik

Since I'm still here might as well post some new stuff. There'll be a whole lot more emo shit like this. ♡

Hi there! My band Nana:[shi] released their first EP called "Morphobia" last month. Today it's gonna become available on iTunes, Spotify etc. too, so I thought it's a good time to show you guys what we've been working on! Preview of the whole EP: Music video to "NOSTALGIA DRIVE": Hope you like the sound of it! We've been working hard for this the past year! Also we're gonna play with AIKOE, BatAAr, Kerbera and Madmans Esprit in Stockholm at 28th October! First time for me to play outside of Germany - pretty exciting to say the least.

This new mini album 「CINEMA」will be released on 2018.01.24. (2500 yen + taxes).

Asagi will finally release his first full length album for his solo project in January of 2018 in the last third of the month. Here's a guest musician list.

Hi everyone, it's nice to meet you. I'm Raist. I've been listening to Visual Kei since I was twelve (about 5 years ago), and I have just now decided to join here because I'd like to get to know some people who are interested in the same type of music, ect.. I like a mix of older and newer bands. I wouldn't say my taste is too horrible. At the moment my absolute favorites I can mention shortly are probably the BP Records three, Liraizo, and recent GazettE. I'm also studying Japanese, and I will take the JLPT N3 this December, so I'm about mid level. I plan to visit Japan for a week in about a year and a half, and m-maybe go to my first live. :'D Thanks, if you read this far. I hope we can get along ok. ;D

Live house AKASAKA BLITZ will change to MAINABI AKASAKA BLITZ at 2017/11/01 TBS TV Co., Ltd. acquired the naming rights of the company's live house "Akasaka BLITZ" for three years, and concluded a contract. For the three years from 2017/11/01 to 2020/10/31

I actually love the longer preview, makes me much more excited and interested in this single!

I wish they'd film a PV with these costumes x'DD

DAVID SHITO:AL/PLEUR IS BACK BITCHES jk it's literally marco schooling us w/ some sesame street REALNESS 😭😭😭 gives new meaning to tickle me elmo if u know what i mean ;)))))

oh yes, I would not use word like better, people have different taste, I just enjoy asagi's last single more btw, nice to see your signature, I ordered it's single which will release next week=w=

They just shipped out the EP and DVD preorders. So your shopping service or whatever you use should get it soon.

this is bad chorus 101, is this the same band that dropped 螺子時計リビドゥー, 天球シンフォニア, Supernova?

Because of you - kelly clarkson Can you please just love me even everyone hates me ?

@hiroki awwww I'm loving thisssss<3

Not bad. Clean vocals are a bit too low, the instruments are drowning it

He's gotten NEGA into some hot water for his credibility as a person, his gyaru, and the multitudes of tsunagiri he's had. "I'M SHIT NOODLE, BUT..." Is literally hilarious when you listen to it, if you think it's about San. That being said, he sounds great in LACK-CO.

I feel like Klaha was better than Gackt if only for all the off-key singing, that makes me cringe. But I find his voice to be much more pleasant and impacting in general. Such a waste...

I'm pretty new to jrock and vkei and saw that this forum definitely helped me find out about some really cool bands. I'm excited to see what happens!!! But yee, hallo c:

i always thought that bit was mostly a joke / 'hang out w/ the band' promo afaik you had to buy a certain number of mucc CDs and i think it was all types to enter; doesn't sound like something they'd require of finding new musicians lol def appreciate that CrowXClass infodump tho~ & for the record the main vocalist's old band 華風月 is much better than wagakki, imho

From last week. Live drawing

Yeah, Mucc tried that once and one of them was just a snake who left before doing anything because all he wanted to do was be in a band, and the other had to leave because his family didn't approve of VisualKei. It was a Shakuhachi and Shamisen player, but I can't remember which was which. Also, yeah, they've been using them since the beginning, though the amount used has increased over time, as well as the samples themselves having improved much over the years. In their early stuff, the samples along with the types of instruments varied a lot (Jubakuai and Onigokko using different samples for the same instrument, the Shakuhachi) and often sounded fake as hell. Now, I sometimes question whether the Koto and Shakuhachi are samples because the Koto sounds very real, and it sounds like the Shakuhachi is playing really hard to synthesise techniques. The Shamisen though is obviously still fake because it often plays way too fast (even for Tsugaru Shamisen, which are made for speed) and it sounds too inbetween a Tsugaru and a Jiuta style. (if you want to look examples of those up, Tsugaru is 津軽 and Jiuta is 地唄) Basically, I don't think they'd need real studio musicians. Plus, some songs take advantage of the fact they're just samples and not the real thing anyway. While most traditional musicians wouldn't want to do VisualKei, it's not entirely impossible. There was a VisualKei band once made up of professional traditional Japanese musicians. CrowXClass. Wagakki Band fans will recognise their vocalist and ex. Shakuhachi player (they had 2 Shakuhachi players), those being Kurona and Daisuke Kaminaga (who went by stage name Hibiki) respectively. Michiaki Shirata (Who went by the stage name Kanade) was the Shamisen player and he actually provided the Shamisen for the Naruto soundtrack (whom Kurona's brother also did Taiko for). The Taiko drummer was Hidemasa Hanahara (stage name Saku) from MUGEN. Now their Koto player, Shion, no one knows exactly who he is. It's usually assumed to be Kiyoshi Ibukuro (who is also in Wagakki), but another possibility is Shin Ichikawa, a lesser known Koto player that used to preform with Kurona a lot, and plays in a group with one of the Yoshida brothers. The band suddenly went inactive in 2016 for no reason. They didn't have as many fans, since they were an indie band, and had only one poor excuse for an album. I say poor excuse because it's not even long enough to be an album. Only 7 songs. 7 really good songs though. They announced a 2nd album on an official interview and said they'd release it at a certain live, but no sight of it is anywhere. Not their itunes, youtube, or even their official website (which ironically links the interview). So we're left with 7 songs + 2 only released on Youtube + a few unreleased ones that only exist as live footage. But anyway, tl;dr: If Kiryu wanted real traditional musicians, they could look no further than the ex members of CrowXClass (minus Kurona or Hibiki since they joined Wagakki and possibly minus Shion if he's actually Kiyoshi)

I hate to be ~that guy~, but the rest of the members are literally dead

their main composer is right here: i can't care less who got credited in their releases

just got my driver's license, yay!! finally got that grown-up thing over with.

SET-LIST: MIRACLE MUSIC SHOWTIME パピヨン(Papillon) ELECTRIC PSYCHO HORROR WANTED!

But why would you care anyway? Your only concern should be their music... The rest doesn't really matter, especially rumors.

Can westerners visual kei? Yoshiki: Yes www Me, an intelectual: no

I'd like to take YOSHIKI's quote and add my own context. This is the key. Visual kei was born out of Japan by those who felt like they didn't fit in anywhere in Japan. YOSHIKI isn't going to say that visual kei can't exist world wide because that's not good for his bottom line, but there's a very good reason why it hasn't taken off outside Japan. It has less to do with looks, singing capability, or chosen musical direction, and more to do with anti-conformity and rebelliousness within and against a homogeneous society. No other country faces the same mix of societal pressures and obligations the way the Japanese do, and as these pressures change over time visual kei changes over time too. This is in contrast to musicians from Western countries who want to emulate the style and look to their favorite and popular artists first. It's the difference between taking a picture, and taking a picture of that picture, and taking a picture of that picture. The farther away one gets away from the source and the conditions that cause that source, the less authentic the final product is. I fully agree with this. So many bands follow trends because it's the thing to do, but at some point a trend started as a unique idea. Much as I expect musicians to look within themselves and put their feelings into music, I expect inspiring Western visual kei musicians to do the same thing with their looks. The looks are supposed to be an expression of how one feels, not a style of the decade to phone in and gain legitimacy. I do think Western visual kei is a thing that can happen but the form it would assume would be so different we wouldn't even recognize it by looks alone. My ideal Western visual kei band would be identifiable with the sound alone. We would hear them and just know where those influences came from instead of the "lol i like visual kei and pocky" archetype that usually translates over first. I'm done ranting.

The vocalist is Yuui (Ex-Cindykate)

Tracklist: Limited Edition (CD＋DVD) DSI-010／￥1,980(+tax) [CD] 1.光 2.I Be 3.鑰孔の続 -ｶｷﾞｱﾅﾉｿﾞｸ- [DVD] 1.光 MV 2.光 MV Making 3.Oneman Tour 2017「一石を投じる」Document Regular Edition DSI-011／￥1,500(+tax) [CD] 1.光 2.I Be 3.鑰孔の続 -ｶｷﾞｱﾅﾉｿﾞｸ-

Those fishing pics were all the proof I needed.

it's me or this band is slowing down ?

Ruki starts ripping off Nordic doom metal bands.

visual kei """"""celebrities""""""

trying to enforce the dumbass ''rules'' of the vk scene overseas is a ridiculous idea anyway tbf', but i feel like we've seen this discussion before already

Hi, I have been a fan of jrock amongst other forms of music since 2010, and it is about time to say hi and participate a bit in discussions. If I had to pinpoint favorites, it would be hard, but I feel Sekai no Owari is up there for more mellow; Guild for visual Kei; and an honorable mention to Jikkendai Marmot. Hopefully I will be able to contriibute to this decent community.

Last one I went to was in April. I got to see Miyavi, Kiha and the Faces, and Slot Machine. It was an awesome experience and you can see how close I managed to get. Miyavi himself did not play any complete song, but played bits of some and just shredded on the guitar. The crazy thing is, he really was not the best act of the night, he was great, but the others were awesome.

i read naruto XD cool look

The vk scene stepped up their Halloween game this year.