ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) started to form in Japan in the 1980’s, creating a genre where the visual performance of the artist is just as important as the music they make. The name itself is derived from the slogan “Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock”, which was seen on the cover of X Japan’s second studio album “Blue Blood”, released in 1989.
By combining the often flamboyant and androgynous looks with their music, these artists tell the story of their works in a more theatrical way than other genres worldwide often do. The visual presentation also allows these artists to express themselves individually in their own creative style.
While ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) is the “top” of the genre, there are a lot of artists who can’t be categorized in any of it’s many subgenres but still have the ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) style in their works. That’s why we’ve collected them here, as well as bands from other countries that have been inspired by this unique genre.
You said it would be awesome if I could do an interview with L from MEME. And yes, I agree. That would be pretty awesome. So I set out to do just that. I asked L if he would be interested in doing an interview, and as you can probably conclude from this article being here now, the answer was a resounding “yes!”.
You might have seen this small notification slide by on Twitter already, but in case you haven’t…
Do you remember the interview I did with the members of 摩天楼オペラ (Matenrou Opera) in late January of this year?
(If you haven’t read it, or need a quick refresher, you can find it here!)
One
To celebrate his birthday TAKA originally planned a live performance for February 24, 2021. Unfortunately this performance had to be rescheduled to another date due to Japan declaring the state of emergency once again.
After a lot of planning a new date for the live has been decided: April 7.
The performance
Even though it has been a hot minute since I was able to ask all members of 摩天楼オペラ (Matenrou Opera) a long list of questions about the band and their activities as individual members, there was one thing that wasn’t sitting right with me. Because most of you will recognize 響 (Hibiki) as the drummer of 摩天楼オペラ
It has been almost a year since the pandemic hit, and I don’t think I have to explain you how bad the situation is for everyone in all corners and occupations all over the world. But because of the subject we usually talk about here I’d like to limit ourselves to the categories of “musicians”
I’m sure that most people by now have heard of 摩天楼オペラ (Matenrou Opera) as a band, but in the recent years I have seen their overseas activity get less and less. Yet there was a lot going on in the world of the band. Not only have they gone independent last year, they’ve also lost their guitarist,
Like I said in the previous article about SUI’s plans for January of 2021, he planned a large event spanning two days to celebrate not only his own birthday, but also the 4th anniversary of David as his solo project. Unfortunately the state of emergency was issued in Japan, preventing SUI from holding
Angels’ Temptation is still a relatively new band on the scene, starting their very first activities on their YouTube channel in November of 2018, and releasing their very first digital single “Fallen Angel” in July of 2020. So that’s quite some time between the very first
For his birthday SUI has announced that he will be playing not one, but two live shows named “Fragment & Reminiscence” in 浦和Narciss (Urawa Narciss) on the 23rd and 24th of January.
Originally it was intended as a full live show which would also be broadcasted through TwitCasting,
When I introduced Alpha999 last year there was something that I noticed almost immediately.
The one who introduced me to TAKA’s music lives in Japan. They have the option to go to Alpha999’s live shows and get their hands on CDs or merchandise. But since I live overseas, I cannot do any of
If you’re familiar with DaizyStripper you probably know まゆ (Mayu) as the lead guitarist of the band. But did you know that he recently jumped into a completely different project that has nothing to do with the band? He recently launched his very own clothing label Mr.SunFace!
The very first collection,
Scarlet Horizon are a ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) inspired band from Bejing, China, existing out of ZERO on vocals, 曜 (You) on guitar and backing vocals, 覚 (Satori) on bass and 亚弥 (Ayase) on drums.
In 2016 they released their first single “Unstoppable”, and since they followed that up with the