ANOMIE reads visual kei stuff so you don't have to!

[ANOMIE]

Starting up this thread to share interesting facts and tidbits I come across as I try to make a habit of reading something in the realm of vk (mainly interviews but books too) every day.

As many of us have, I started collecting Cure and SHOXX magazines in the mid 2000s, enjoying the pretty photos but also wishing that one day I could understand the text too.

Fast forward to COVID and I finally decided it was time to lock the fuck in, going from a decade+ plateau of basic-intermediate Japanese to passing the JLPT N2 in 2023. Now I can confidently say I kind of sort of understand what these dudes are talking about and I want to share it!

Here’s what I’m currently reading:

• ROCK AND READ BAND 005 [2025.12]
• Oishi Masahiro Jiden: Yume no Fune (D.C. Maverick label president AKA “Mr. Jack’s” autobiography) [2020.7]
• Cure vol. 50 [2007.9]

I’ll keep updating this post as I discover the deep lore.

[ANOMIE]

Okay first thing I wanted to share because I’ve been obsessed ever since I finished Chapter 9 of Mr. Jack’s autobiography which focuses on the topic of expanding into the global music market.

By the mid 2010s, the domestic market for Japanese music was shrinking and with L’arc~en~Ciel’s success abroad, it was time to shift gears and move into the streaming era.

To test this expansion, Mr. Jack worked with a rights agency called “Merlin” to distribute 30 songs from independent artists and within a month, saw a profit of 200,000 yen.

Around this time several major Japanese labels started to explore this shift into streaming but there was one glaring issue. The music largely lacked essential metadata that conformed to the international standard required for monetization. In other words, the industry was missing a global royalty infrastructure years after the streaming era had taken off.

Japan was so bottlenecked by this formatting issue that the government actually subsidized it to the tune of 3 billion yen in 2018 through a program called J-LOD. This program would continue for several years and also helped tackle the impact of COVID on the entertainment industry.

I went down a total rabbit hole reading about this and one of the other requirements is to provide an English song name if the original is written in a different character set. Meaning Japanese songs needed to be translated but in a way that properly reflects the songwriter’s intent. (I do not know if the English requirement means the song can just be romanized)

Source: musicbiz.org Music Metadata Style Guide

This sort of paints a broader picture for me as to why so many bands were so slow to come to platforms like Spotify until the pandemic pretty much necessitated it. It also explains why some releases are region locked and how others may never make it onto streaming platforms. There was a time when the visual kei streaming catalogue was extremely limited. We had L’arc, some Diru, Girugamesh, and MUCC and it really wasn’t that long ago that was the state of things.

One thing I’ve noticed about Mr. Jack is that from very early on, he has been open and eager to expand his bands into foreign markets. I bought my first Japanese CD at a Suncoast in the mall around 2004. It was L’arc~en~Ciel’s “SMILE” album, the edition distributed by Tofu records. Sort of felt like a full circle moment to be reading a book by a guy who had a hand in that moment!

[x51715x]

@ANOMIE

I bought my first Japanese CD at a Suncoast in the mall around 2004. It was L’arc~en~Ciel’s “SMILE” album, the edition distributed by Tofu records.

that was such a time!!!

@ANOMIE

There was a time when the visual kei streaming catalogue was extremely limited.

it was so frustrating !!

[shigai]

in 2004, i bought both laruku’s smile and utada’s self titled english album at a now defunct store called mediaplay. god, the MEMORIES lol

[zeetabyte]

Thank you so much for doing this!! I feel that a lot of the current discourse lacks a lot of appreciation for the facts and contexts that surround the bands, the band members and the industry at large; I’ve been spoiled by early tumblr when people used to do this more often (though there are still very excellent tumblrs for diru for example!) And I currently feel like just a strange pool of trivia waiting to be useful. I look forward to more of your wonderful insights! Already your first post has got my attention and I’m ready to learn!

[ANOMIE]

I really do miss those tumblr days. I’ve started posting there in the last year but the community is tiny compared to what it once was.

I wonder why there’s less of an appetite for reading and discussing interviews beyond the death of print media. In some ways, it’s more accessible since there are several sites that publish interviews and machine translation is way way better than it once was. I suppose the interest is more on band’s social media content.

[ANOMIE]

For those who don’t know, Mr. Jack, big shot manager that he is, looks like this:

(The doors Akemi Oshima has opened amirite)
You can watch him in this glorious form on the MAVERICK DC GROUP Youtube channel via his talkshow produced by MUCC’s YUKKE.

I’m making my way through chapter 10 of Mr. Jack’s autobiography which focuses on his work with MUCC, SID, and DEZERT. For this post I’ll just focus on SID first, it’s a chunky chapter.

When we get to SID, we find that the band originally had a different manager, a colleague of Mr. Jack’s and things weren’t going too well between this guy and the group so Jack ends up taking over as their manager and he sees big big potential. Looking back Jack remarks on the strengths of the band members. You have Mao who is a talented vocalist and appeals to the ladies, bassist Aki has that rock and roll attitude and brings in male fans, then guitarist Shinji and drummer Yuuya are very technically proficient musicians so they appeal to the music nerds too.

So yeah he takes over management, throws away their CD stock and then goes on to produce the band’s first album “Renai” with input from Sakura as well. What stands out about this endeavor is that Jack fully takes the reins, having control or input in regard to just about every aspect of the band because these guys are his baby and he’s gonna get that baby to Tokyo Dome one day. Within 6 years, and riding the success of a few major hit anime collabs, the band makes it to Tokyo Dome in 2010.

One running theme throughout the book is that Jack is ambitious, he has a bit of an ego. He doesn’t just want to book Tokyo Dome, he wants the band to sell it out.

It was the same for L’arc~en~Ciel’s 2012 Madison Square Garden show. L’arc was originally offered the smaller MSG theater venue but Jack was insistent, they had to book “The Garden” and it was going to be a full house. Neither show fully sold out but hey, it’s still a hell of an accomplishment!

Speaking of SID’s anime theme songs, Jack explains why this band was so successful at it. He says the band had the ability to work and compose like commercial songwriters. They could meet and adapt to the unique requirements for anime, like creating arrangements that work well within an 89 second opening, and they actually enjoyed the work. The creator of Black Butler also favored the band’s look and sound which landed them a second song for the show in 2014.

Personally, my opinion on bands delving into anisong has somewhat changed over the years. It was how I discovered L’arc but when GazettE put out SHIVER I was really put off by it, I sort of saw it as selling out. From the perspective of a band manager though, it’s a no brainer net positive opportunity isn’t it? Your music gets exposed to a much larger audience both on the domestic side and internationally.

Thinking about it, I don’t think we’ve seen a visual kei band reach the same level of success with anime openings since SID, right?

[viridian]

@ANOMIE

tumblr days

I missed out. My era was the livejournal days. I’m a dinosaur.

I’m hooked by your thread! Thank you for taking the time to write these up!

[rukarukaruka]

@ANOMIE

throws away their CD stock

oof i bet that’s why those early versions are so rare now​

@ANOMIE

these guys are his baby and he’s gonna get that baby to Tokyo Dome one day. Within 6 years, and riding the success of a few major hit anime collabs, the band makes it to Tokyo Dome in 2010.

in SID’s players book, they mention that they barely had time to breathe in between big arenas - they’d do one big arena, and the boss would immediately tell them to work towards the next big arena, so that checks out too.

interestingly, Mao mentioned that the band really wanted to go major a few years earlier than they actually did (in 2009, with Monokuro no Kiss) and it was the boss who said they had to wait.

I guess that was a smart business decision then, a highly anticipated anime + a song that fits the theme + an up and coming band that’s been playing in bigger and bigger venues for years’ major debut.

@ANOMIE

Thinking about it, I don’t think we’ve seen a visual kei band reach the same level of success with anime openings since SID, right?

i’m thinking hard, but i can’t think of any… i think most bands (if they even do anime tie-ups at all) only end up doing one or two. it’s really impressive how SID keeps getting booked for them, considering how you never even see vkei bands doing anime openings anymore.

[ANOMIE]

I finished the book! This is the first time I’ve read an entire autobiography in Japanese, I highlighted so much and now I need to go back and gather my thoughts that are actually in order with the chapters so stay tuned.

The final chapter features anecdotes from Mr. Jack’s contemporaries and many of the band members he’s worked with including L’arc, SID, D’erlanger, and MUCC. They all share how much they respect the guy and nearly all of them address what seems to be a pretty legendary drinking problem. This book was released around his 60th birthday so it was funny to see all these bandmen being like, “Please take care of your health!”

[x51715x]

wow good work

[ANOMIE]

Backtracking to talk about Chapter’s 1 and 2 which cover Mr. Jack’s upbringing/background and his introduction to the 80s Japanese Metal scene.

Masahiro Oishi grows up an introverted kid and as a result his mother encourages him to perform in front of others. He gets really into the band Deep Purple and starts playing in school cover bands. Though he can play bass, drums, and keyboard he prefers staying outside of the spotlight and becomes interested in PA work and sound engineering.

He soon meets 44MAGNUM vocalist PAUL and after helping the band rent a live house to record a demo, he becomes friends with the members and ends up managing the band in addition to being their sound engineer. It’s 1981 and he’s only 21 at this point when he sets up “44MAGNUM OFFICE” which would morph into Danger Crue records.

With the success of the band LOUDNESS, Japanese Metal is on the rise at this time and Mr. Jack starts to focus on booking 44MAGNUM at the now legendary venue Meguro ROCKMAYKAN. (Side note: is it fair to compare this venue to the likes of CBGB in terms of its place in proto vk history?) Throughout the metal boom period Jack starts organizing bigger live events like “All Night Metal Party '84-'85” and “New Age Attack” in 1986. While this period led to the major debut of many Japanese Metal bands, the movement waned due to what Jack states was a lack of proper management and production philosophy. By 1987 with the likes of X and D’ERLANGER (also managed by Jack), visual kei takes over.

Mr. Jack acknowledges that although the genesis of visual kei as a term comes from the BLUE BLOOD album’s tagline “PSYCHEDELIC VIOLENCE CRIME OF VISUAL SHOCK,” the genres roots likely began in the late 70s where glam and punk bands wore makeup and leather outfits and where the music shifted into more progressive rock. He credits acts such as 山水館(Sansuikan), Novela, Visual Scandal, and 魔璃鴉(Maria).

You can listen to Maria’s album on Youtube, a work that was recorded in 1976 and released in 1991. Hearing it now I think a lot of fundamental elements come through, curious to see what others think!

[ANOMIE]

In the book Mr. Jack states he isn’t super well versed on the history of visual kei but I’ll provide a brief summary of how he sees it:

90s - The visual kei boom dominated by YOSHIKI and Dynamite Tommy (He notes that both these camps got into a lot of trouble and banned from various bars, not the best reputation haha). In 1996, the TV Asahi Program “BREAK OUT” plays a big role in promoting visual kei bands to the general public. If you’re not familiar with this program you probably are familiar with legendary reporter “Rockin’ Mama” Noriko Shouji who worked on the show. She’s now 92 years old and still hanging backstage with bandmen! Here’s a clip from the show featuring SHAZNA.

Late 90s/Early 2000s- The initial hype dies and the bubble bursts for a few reasons.

• X JAPAN and LUNA SEA disband
• GLAY, L’Arc, and Kuruyome branch off from vk and into more mainstream pop rock
• A mixture of lack of talent and management failure
  Despite the grim outlook at the turn of the century, he does credit Dir en Grey as bringing in vk’s second era. (Not once is MALICE MIZER mentioned btw)

Mid 2000s- Things start to heat back up and by 2007 the GazettE and SID perform at Tokyo Dome and Yoshiki has launched the Jrock Revoluion festival in LA. He specifically uses the term “neo visual kei” to refer to this era which I understand is a debated term but in this context I feel it’s perfectly valid.

Post 2010- KPOP takes over Japan and pretty much bulldozes the market since it caters to women

2016-modern era- 2016 is what he literally refers to as the “Visual Kei Ice Age” due to another wave of disbandments/hiatuses (ex. DIV) and the harsh market.

Amid this crisis the industry bands together and produces “VISUAL JAPAN SUMMIT 2016” to reinvigorate the scene. The event drew in 100k fans over 3 days, impressive! Despite its ups and downs, Mr. Jack theorizes that the genre has managed to survive this long because it’s globally recognized and seen as something uniquely Japanese, I suppose like anime or…sake. He also mentions that once DEZERT joins the label, he does see a lot of potential and feels they can also lift the scene up again.

There’s actually a lot more to unpack with the modern era like with the whole streaming metadata debacle I opened the thread with so I’ll touch on that a bit more later. Overall, do you guys agree with Mr. Jack’s version of history?

[zeus]

Having lived through most of it, yes.