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One of the small joys of being a VK fan is the unique phenomenon of enjoying a band while having absolutely no idea how to say their name. And I don’t mean because a band’s name is in Japanese, I’m talking those band names that are ostensibly written in English but because of weird characters or punctuation you just have no idea how to properly pronounce or verbalize their moniker correctly (although most of the time the pronunciation just completely ignores the extraneous symbols). Let’s try and trace the history of these unnecessary symbols and letters in VK bands’ names and highlight the influence (or lack thereof) of these punctuation provocateurs. D’erlanger The band: One of the proto-visual kei bands that began in the ‘80s and had an outsize influence on the first generation of post-X visual bands. The name: D’erlanger kinda makes sense as a French word, so they themselves are forgiven, but it is apparent a lot of teenagers in the 80s who would go on to become players in the golden age of visual kei saw that apostrophe and thought “oh cool!” for entirely unintended reasons. I said D’erlanger makes sense as a French word… but it’s not a very ‘band name’ kind of word. Can’t imagine throwing up the metal horns to a band called ‘from Erlangen’. See also: L’Arc~en~Ciel, La’Cryma Cristi, La’Mule L’Arc~en~Ciel The band: No introduction necessary really. Almost certainly on the Mount Rushmore of VK bands, whether or not you like what they’ve done since the start of the new millennium (and I don’t). Pretty and melodious songs with just enough edge to appeal to a wide swath of fans. Not to mention a sexy frontman. The name: Another word that makes sense if you’re French, but L’Arc~en~Ciel up the ante by adding some tildes for no reason other than young Tetsuya and Hyde probably thought they added an even more magical feeling to the word ‘rainbow’. L’Arc~en~Ciel’s (making their name possessive *does* add a certain balance to the word…) popularity in both VK circles and a mainstream audience meant that adding dumb punctuation in the middle of your name for no reason was now completely tolerated. Tetsuya has specifically denied he got the L’Arc~en~Ciel moniker from a cafe near where he worked as a teenager with the same name. It may have also been stolen from the D.H. Lawrence book ‘Rainbow’, but even that story is tainted because it includes the *movie* version. See also: a million song and album titles with tildes in them, E’m ~grief~ cali≠gari The band: Either groundbreaking, experimental rock that revolutionized and kick-started the ‘eroguro kei’ genre, or dissonant-sounding weirdos; depending on your tastes. The name: Obviously lifted from the groundbreaking German silent horror film “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”; an admittedly cool source of inspiration for an art-y VK band. The name even has a cool rhyme and visual symmetry when written/pronounced in Japanese (カリガリ). See also: a ton of also-ran bands that have stuck unnecessary equals signs in their names: Loz'a≠Veria, D≒sire, Kar+te=zyAnose, Eyes≒Mirrorge, PARANOID≠CIRCUS ZI:KILL The band: Early VK rockers that burned out too quickly to be mentioned among the all-timers. The name: Originally formed as G:KILL, which doesn’t shed any light onto the inspiration for the name, but is an interesting fact. G/Zi:Kill both *kinda* sound like Jekyll when katakan-ized, and Visual Kei has no lack of love for that story. You may be noticing a trend so far; early VK bands apparently hated having blank spaces in their names. See also: La:Sadie’s, ru:natic,【_Vani;lla】, ha;qch, DAS:VASSER, L'yse:nore Aliene Maφriage The band: One of the harbingers of VK starting to get really dark and almost certainly offending the middle-aged parents of the teenagers listening to it. Lots of leather and hair... and in Aliene’s case; some good songwriting to back it up. The name: In the book Freakonomics the authors cite a study that shows, all other things being equal, people are more likely to be asked to interview for jobs if the interviewer/hiring manager can pronounce their name. I have to believe this is why even Kyoka & Co. started writing their name simply Aliene Ma’riage eventually; they were probably tired of having to pitch things to record label execs who looked at their name and thought “pass” before they even heard the banshee wails. I couldn’t find anything about the origins of their name. It is a vast improvement over their original moniker Autism though. See also: √eight, ∋elf gravity∈, ZETSURIN⚡HAGUKI Kagrra, The band: The undisputed kings of beautiful neo-japonisme in VK. The name: Even Kagrra,, who peddled a very classic Japanese aesthetic, weren’t immune to an unnecessary flourish such as a comma at the end of their name which, when spoken, led to a kind of hesitant mumble as if you were supposed to continue a train of thought which was still at the station. I mean, revisit that previous sentence I wrote, should it really have been written “Even Kagrra,,”? Kagrra,’s name certainly gave the editing staff at Shoxx a headache. Kagrra,, originally called Crow, took their name from 神楽 (Kagura), a Shinto music and dance tradition. See also: Thankfully the comma didn’t catch on much. +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 Nuvc:gu The band: Nobodies. The name: I honestly was pronouncing this “nuv-ka-goo” until I heard @Biopanda say “New vogue” in a Rarezhut stream and the lightbulb went off. I almost want to give them credit for using the *shape* of punctuation to emulate letters, but then I realize that’s incredibly stupid unless you’re working with some seriously custom fonts. See also: VΩID, k@mikaze, SHAD∞W, XOVER Exist†trace The band: Probably the most successful all-girl-kei band ever (which unfortunately isn’t saying much). Started out very gothy and have gradually transitioned to a more mainstream sound. They let the pretty one sing and it makes me sad because Jyou has come up with some flat out beautiful, haunting vocal melodies. The name: Miko said in an interview that, And let’s be honest, that explanation makes no sense. It sounds cool though, and really that’s what you need in a band name (and something unique that can be Googled). My biggest problem with their cross symbol is that it probably shows up as a question mark or some other placeholder punctuation 20% of the time because who the hell has the time to look up the unicode symbols? (although I’m sure people who write about Witch-house bands have the code for the cross symbol memorized.) See also: Serpentine†Ghost, Jail†Breaker, Vice†risk xTripx The band: A surprisingly endearing mix of oshare kei and numetal. The name: Weirdly, I always pronounce the first ‘x’ in xTripx’s name but not the last one (ecks-trip). I actually think more bands need to come to terms with the fact that eventually the world will run out of new band names and everyone will have to resort to having a moniker that looks like a circa-2002 emo fan’s AIM screenname. See also: xジハードx, 【TRiANGLE▼SONiX】, Noi’X 12012 The band: Undercode stalwarts that started out lo-fi and disjointed and nu-metal influenced but very charming, and graduated to poppier fare when they decided to take a stab at becoming famous. The name: ‘Ichi ni zero ichi ni’ if you’re Japanese, ‘twelve-o’-twelve’ if you’re me. Allegedly named after a section of the California penal code that deals with illegal weapons… and that actually kind of tracks. It’s an extremely boring section though (besides we know Wataru prefers hand-to-hand combat): Not a cool law for a band name. I think we’ve got a retconned term a la 420 and 311. See also: Plenty of other band names that need a pronunciation guide: 0801弐209XX6* (zero hachi), …。(silence), 6→7 (upper) *The guitarist of zero hachi should get an unnecessary punctuation in band names lifetime achievement award. He was in all these bands according to vkdb: †Zaide†, Diod'honneur, カレヰド, re:Make, 0801弐209XX6. Be sure to add your favorite band name with unnecessary punctuation!

Thanks everyone for taking the time to vote and share your thoughts. We had 69 people submit a vote for this poll, which has to make this one of our most popular polls of all time! It is intriguing how little the hive mind opinion of our scene has changed within the last ten years. Over 75% of us believe that piracy is still a necessary evil, 72% of us cite piracy as one of the main factors of engagement retention, and that a whopping 60% of members believe Monochrome Heaven would get worse if downloads and piracy were to disappear overnight. I tend to agree with the majority, but I also agree with the minority. Things haven't gotten any easier to acquire legitimately as a sailor of the high seas since the turn of the century, and it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon, but I'm reluctant to force sweeping changes that I don't fully understand to an ecosystem which is one of the few remaining and active ties to the scene. On the other hand, we provide a valuable service through piracy that record companies couldn't throw enough money at to replicate, and the answers you all gave to the poll show that. So this is what I propose we do next, just to see how things play out. The GazettE is releasing a new album, "NINTH", on 2018-06-13. Let us not share this album here until 2018-06-27. Ideally, as a scene we wouldn't share it at all, but I have no control over anything not posted here. If you purchase it on your own, please refrain from sharing here, but you can write reviews and openly talk about it. If you never planned on buying it, you may have to wait an additional two weeks. What I am interested in seeing is just how much our piracy impacts sales, and how much higher CD sales are if we don't immediately put it on the internet for free the day it comes out. Maybe Ruki will even make a twitter comment about it so we can get some deeper perspective. We can do this with two or three more hot releases, and then come back to discuss this again with some more information. I have some thoughts about how this will go, but I will save them until after the experiment is complete. Thanks for reading.

When talking about shirts, i wanna thank Elias for selling these amazing prints through his shop Necrosphere!

Voted ≠ because cali≠gari. I remember once coming across a VisualKei band whose entire name was a bunch of unicode symbols, but I can't remember the name (and honestly, who could?)

Here's some live footage from our gig in January together with VII Arc and Kerbera:

ヴァージュ - 高潮トキシコーシス I was actually expecting this to arrive on next Monday but surprisingly I got it already today! Finally a pleasant surprise.

Also worth noting: As of earlier this month they have a bunch of stuff (Limited Collection & The Beautiful World Never Dies included) on Spotify. Sweet!

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After disbanding at 2014/4/25, CATFIST will reform. Additional details will be announced at a later date. Vo.心 (Kokoro) (ex-INSANITY FRONTIER-->CATFIST) Gu.大輔 (Daisuke) (ex-fiore-->INSANITY FRONTIER(啼/Dai)-->storyteller's Undead(Ba.)) Gu.ミヤ (Miya) (ex-クレイドル (Cradle)-->ヤタガラス (Yatagarasu)) Ba.&Cho.夜紫 (Yoshi) (ex-ANOTHER AGE 696-->Ravens Nest-->KiLiK-->ガアラ (Gaara)-->CATFIST-->ヤタガラス (Yatagarasu)) Dr.xxx

伊弉諾(IZANAGI) (ex.Embrace) session band "Mareni Mirell" will perform at Ikebukuro BLACK HOLE at 2018/04/29. It is a session band of the aesthetic series of the 90's, for example: MALICE MIZER, Raphael, LAREINE,... The project began in mid-2017. "Mareni Mirell" members: vo.&.ba.伊弉諾(IZANAGI) (ex.Embrace) gt.陽(Haru) (盲目ダイアリー(Moumoku Diary), the Möria) gt.Setzer (ex.Noire Neige) dr.屑希(Kuzuki) (ex.Metis Gretel, now in 盲目ダイアリー(Moumoku Diary)) ヴェル・エール (Bel Air) (MALICE MIZER) 症状3.XXX症 (Shoujo 3 XXX) (Raphael) ヴァンパイアロマンス (Vampire Romance) (LAREINE) They have opened a twitter account a couple of days ago

アザレア (Azalea) new mini-album, "鬱と静 Melancholy and Silent" will be released sometime this year. [tracklist] 1.メランコリーオルゴール (melancholy orgel) 2.生きるという事それは死ぬという事 (Ikiru to iu koto sore wa shinu to iu koto) 3.茜 (akane) 4.replica 5.残夢 (zanmu) 6.Silent new look (鬱 ver)

The band Klan Aileen are going to release their third album on May 23. The title is for now unknown. The song Datsugoku is available since February :

It's a combination of Karte (German for Medical Charts/records) and a misspelling of Cyanose

1. GUILTY AS CHARGED I've always mentally pronounced them xTRIP. 2. Shouldn't it be xTR⚡Px? Also props to Nuvc:gu for one of the least obvious pronunciations ever devised, right up there with kar+te=zyAnose (like srsly tho how do you pronounce that). I would have never thought "new vogue". I have a feeling a lot of the bands here are unknown because no one ever knew how to tell them about it, and then they could barely ever spell it. I'd love to see a companion list of all day of vk bands with the most generic, impossible to google names.

TYPE A : 1620 yen CD : 01.イノセント 02.D.o.R 03.Iron Fist TYPE B : 1620 yen CD : 01.イノセント 02.D.o.R 03.脳内暴想(Nônai bôsô)

I think the size of the band is irrelevant. I'm only proposing we do this with this one release to get some hard data on piracy, our impact, and our place in the scene (instead of hypothetical outcomes, since that is all we have available to us right now). No one in the scene has ever bothered to do something like this before, because there's always been a trade of new music for internet status. As long as one person in the scene thinks they can get net cred for being the first to share "NINTH", it will spread on the internet like wildfire. It doesn't need to be an international fan because the leaks can come from within Japan too! Even if the staff deletes links for the first two weeks, other sites don't have to do this, and I'm really not expecting every single blog and site out there to comply with my proposal. That would be madness. We have no control over anything not on MH. You can consider yesterday's proposal a test of the patience and cooperation of the entire scene. Can we hold out for two weeks? Is piracy an everyday part of the scene that we must accept? Can we even survive as a scene if we're at a two week lag? As obvious as the answers may seem, we don't know for certain.

Dogma is a masterpiece Metalcore + gazette = one of my dreams came true I've always wanted them to be a metalcore band. It has many great tracks like ( dogma. Lucy. Ominous. Blemish. Deux. Deracine)

my child has grown up...

Sorry I haven't been active I forgot my password.

1. Disorder 2. Akuyuukai 3. Cockayne Soup 4. Hankou Seimeibun 5. Madara 6. Spermargarita 7. Gama And aside from Gama, Taion and 2-3 tracks off Dim I don't like anything this band did after 2004. I kinda agree a bit with Ghost. I don't hear any hardcore punk influences on Disorder or any of their other releases, but I do enjoy the general punk influences and punky attitude of a lot of the songs made up until 2004. The riffs, the productions on every release, Ruki's nasal voice, the general chaos of the releases. In one way they seem like compilations as they are all over the place and seem kinda unfocused, but in another way they've managed to melt all these different influences and sounds together. Stitched it up real well. Disorder ranks among my favourite Japanese albums ener. A complete masterpiece!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/catfist/646285668

BABBY'S FIRST DATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also on iTunes, and this includes DEFINITE PROMISE which never leaked. The files were transcoded from MP3s, so buyer beware if you're not on Spotify

NIL is a pretty great album. Nausea & Shudder, D.L.N, and 体温 are just amazing. It's my third favorite after DIM and 大日本異端芸者的脳味噌逆回転絶叫音源集 (if that counts).

It's been a little over 3 months since I originally published this review, and the poll results are interesting. The most liked tracks of course seem to be the reworks of Fukai and THE IIID EMPIRE, which I don't find surprising. The more interesting thing to me is that Taiyou no Ao, Un Deux, MAGGOTS, and OBSCURE 2011 have no votes. This is precisely the fat I think Dir en grey can always trim from their albums. I still kind of agree with my review, but I think y'all are sleeping on Riyuu for realz >:|

Just added their histories

No.666 tho. amirite?

I'm half and half on Nil. It has some of their best work imo like "Taion", and "Baretta" and "Nausea and Shudder" as you guys have mentioned. But tracks like "生暖かい雨とざらついた情熱", "Shadow" and "Silly God Disco" are so forgetable and don't fit with the tone of those aforementioned tracks. And I think Kareuta should have totally replaced cassis! I feel like it maybe doesn't get talked about as much because Stacked Rubbish was released like only a year after and it generated more buzz because of tracks like the hilarious "Agony" and because of the various RnB/rap influences the album used. At least, I remember it being a polarizing album because of it's somewhat extreme style shift. I also think the "Filth in the beauty" PV helped them gain more attention internationally. I often saw this PV being compared to other Dir en grey's PVs for graphic content, lyrics, and etc.. Disorder takes place first place for me though. I still think it's their most original album and it marked the height of their punk rock sound which is my favorite Gazera. It took the foundation of their past work like hardcore punk rock, heavy riffs, experimental electronics, catchy pop hooks, and japonesque melodies and compacted it into one album. Yaaaaaaas

I needed budget GazettE to make a comeback and this is just lovely.

Looking at the average Vk names, I rather like it. (Discarded alternatives included PussyPunch and FelidThump)

I like you already. Welcome to the forum!! I'm sure you won't regret actually making an account here Feel free to look around the artists topics and give your two cents.

I keep getting recommended vids of the Steamed Hams meme (????) but i don't watch the simpsons.....the fuck

Gonna do a lot of fapping scanning soon~ MERRY - AGITATE pamphlets Kalavinka - 春を哭く人 & 残片

Kinda necroing this thread but Vidoll were amazing. I'm glad I own their V.I.D. album in physical copy. Anyone who dislikes Face Pisaroto or Face Mayura needs to logout from MH.

hello again

まみれた - 死因:暮らし アクメ - ROTTEN ORANGE (Type B )

I live in Australia and shipping costs are really expensive so its hard to justify buying releases unless it's on itunes or something. But if the vk piracy scene died I would just buy the (relatively few) releases I'm interested in and share them on slsk (this is assuming jpopsuki is dead too). I'm lucky enough to live in a first world country so I would be able to do this. The main problem would be live limited releases which would completely fade out of existence to the West (or should I say more then they are now). The other problem would be there would be less discussion about bands/releases because many people wouldn't be able to listen to them and it would be harder sorting the bad from the good.

I just tried Angelo for the first time (I have been really neglecting them, ironically, being a Pierrot fan) and god I've been missing out on some good shit

Tracklist : (limited edition) 1.Greenman 2.Mask 3.Haunted Mansion 4.Countdown 5.Ashes to Ashes DVD : 01.Greenman Tracklist : (regular edition) CD : 1.Greenman 2.Mask 3.Haunted Mansion 4.Countdown 5.Death Eater 6.Ashes to Ashes

kitty is not pleased to be honest, just enjoying no-makeup life.

i loved avelcain but in savage/depain's defense they cant beat

Wow, everyone is really pretty! My picture is terrible quality, but it's me!

Riku's statement, basically conflicting with the band's announcement, and spilling some tea about quitting the band for a bit, contact issues with the band and Rame, and even hiring a lawyer(???) (if anyone can provide a translation, that'd be great) :

Wow I never knew this. Is that only on Japanese itunes? Edit: Oh I see now they just added most of these. International iTunes btw. Same with Spotify. Brilliant way to promote themselves in preparation for reforming.

after being single my entire life i am suddenly not single and it feels surreal.......???

My hair is getting pretty long again