I mean I can see it be annoying if someone who is not male is in Japan for a short amount of time and the only show of their fav band is male only. Or if someone seldom has time because they are working in gealth care or something and the one show they could make, they can’t go because of their gender. That won’t happen with wearing black.
That’s why I personally don’t like one gender only shows.
that’s fair! i guess there’s some element of give and take
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The following text will contain some dirty words.
I really don’t know where to go from with all the replies, but for someone who has lived in Japan for 20 years. I know how it works in Japan, not meaning to sound arrogant.
I love Japan and it is easily one of the best countries on earth, when all plus and minuses are counted in and compared to the west, especially recently in say the US where people need to work 3 jobs only to be able to pay the rent, etc. Only the part that you can live safely and quietly is huge, Japan is also a non confrontative culture so if you don’t confront anyone, no one will ever confront you. Well, unless its some weirdo or drunk person.
Well with all this said, like I have mentioned before, sex is everywhere in Japan and this might sound silly as it is one of human’s basic instincts, to mate. But it is different in Japan from the say US or EU. This all comes from old chinese culture and philosophy and to make it easy more or less all japanese people origin from China, same with South Korea for example. If we go really far back Japan was stuck to the part that later became China.
Well no one feels for reading an essay so ill try to keep it short, but the difference from the west is big regarding this basic instinct. Things that would become an outrage immediately followed by a police visit if someone tried it in the west, is completely normal in Japan. For example if you walk around in the cities you see signs for sex shops everywhere, literally everywhere (especially in bigger cities, of course), some signs have women looking sexy. This is where small kids walk. Porn magazines were sold at seven eleven at a height kids could see them easily, and where the magazines were, were where maybe most of the customers who enter a seven eleven go because its the fastest way to drinks (especially now when its so hot), and why I am writing in past tense is because seven eleven stopped selling porn magazines just this year, 2025. Until 2025 they were there, and its not to exaggerate that tens of millions of kids were exposed to them, year after year growing up. I remember going with my kid when they had a magazine with an enema special, and luckily I could save him from it.
What I personally find a bit funny and sad at the same time are the shops saying DVD that you might have seen if you have been in Japan (picture below), they are only masturbation boths for people who haven’t realized there is uncensored porn online yet…
Not to forget about the porn corner in video shops, that is almost half of the shop that also has regular movies, magazines, manga and tvseries. It is normal that young kids go in there and look while laughing before staff find out. I have seen it myself many times. And ive been in there too just to look at how it looks, and I almost lost faith in humanity… there are whole selections with only r**e porn etc.
Well I can continue forever, the list is endless, and I will really try to shorten it down from here on. But the main point is that sex is blatantly everywhere in Japan, even small kids are exposed to it just by walking in the city, then imagine what they are doing on their smartphones, the small kids. The other day they showed on tv that the age of watching adult stuff among kids in Japan is getting lower and lower, apparently even 5 year old kids are watching extreme stuff. Small girls too. Just the other day I heard primary schoolers walking around and singing “chinko manko chinko manko nakadashi” loudly so everyone could hear, four boys and 2 girls, they even made it into their own melody. I looked out of the window and they looked young, probably around 6-7.
I know times are changing and its happening in the west too - there is much sex going on in the west too, but Japan is on a whole other level. That is why almost all industries that have to do with exposing good looking people on tv etc, are fueled by an abormally strong and twisted lust for that basic instinct. There is a reason for why there are 200 year old paintings or “porn”, with women having sex with octopuses etc… So it all has gone the wrong way to be honest in Japan, while I love Japan and love to live here. But I can’t think of any other country on earth that is like this.
So of course any girl idol group’s popularity is fueled by this (say a group with teenagers), except the minority of other young girls who like them, but the majority is men and often older men who go to their concerts, buy their cds, goods etc. You should look at live from those “underground idols”, only sweaty (old) men.
On the other hand, for major boybands like Snow Man, most of the audience is female with a few men here and there. — So do the puzzle pieces start to come together why most of the people who go to vk concerts are women, a big majority, with a few men here and there?
Sorry for the essay after all
日本は最高だけど、掘ったら日本の闇はかなり深い。他のどこよりも。
If you wonder about anything particular I will gladly answer. And again I don’t think I know more or are above anyone else in here, I have zero intentions to “sound smart”.
Peace!
**Some edits to fix grammar, sorry.
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You might want to order one of Andrea Dworkin’s reprints that came out this year.
she has a book on pornography and it did not really age that bad throughout the 40-something years from its og release.
(all of her most notable writing is also online for free, so treat yourself for what you find a reasonable cost.)
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It’s really not as deep as one might think. It’s more about how a lot of male fans feel out of place in concerts where 90% of the audience is female and avoid going (Japanese people hate standing out as is). Having male only shows gets rid of this insecurity. Maybe more moshing and not expecting the guys do furi (many find it cringe) But that’s just my speculation. I imagine many band members empathize with these guys and may have been nervous or avoided attend concerts in their youth. Even in regular shows, it’s not uncommon for band members to point out if there’s a larger amount of guys in the crowd and they’re always happy about this. VK bands always comment on the amount of guys in attendance when performing overseas and even then it’s like 70/30
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Dworkin worked with rape and sex trade survivors, including incest victims (which later went into her legislation activism) and wrote quite extensively on the social aspect of what it meant for her at that time to participate in cracking down on unregulated pornography production, and how much resistance any action to curb pimps reigning over it had.
she makes another point I haven’t arrived to on my own that a society that makes it very easy to get big new jiggly booba and fresh poosay botox and promotes selling sex as a quick way to get fast cash also generally does very little in terms of adjusting female wages for mundane work to be fair - this is where your take in regards to Japanese lack of feminism overlaps quite a bit.
I’m not really surprised, tbh.
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Let’s keep the discussion about gender ratios at lives, thanks!
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I thought we cant speak about politics and related stuff here… 
reported thread!
We all know this… nobody disagreed about the reason or needed the “puzzle pieces” laid out. Just the ratio, especially for bigger bands, was what people disagreed about. Which is not surprising, since humans are extremely bad at estimating crowds, appearently.
Yeah, woman like vk and k-pop and a lot of other stuff because we like to see attractiv men. That is obliviously one part of the appeal. But it’s not the only appeal. You are not a creep or unmanly for liking it. Because this whole discussion sounds a lot like this is the your main concern 
Do you really think this is mainly for gay men? I think you are understimating female horniness here and how popular boys love is cute guys being hot together… absolutely aimed at women.
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I am just explaining the reality about gender ratios at vk lives. First I did women, then I covered men. If you cant take the truth or accept it, ignore me but don’t censor my messages just because you don’t like it. I was writing the truth about men at VK lives. I can understand that it was too real for some of you and maybe your romantic image of VK got a bit destroyed, but it is the truth. I did not think admins here would censor things like this. What happened to free speech?
Do we have a romanticized view of vkei here? I mean honest question, i’m curious your thoughts & others’
I feel like the general voice of this forum is somewhat to fairly jaded, and we’re more interested in the politics and history of vkei than daydreaming, following our favs, and arguing who’s the GOAT
But maybe that’s just my perspective!
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Nobody censored anything, I am not an admin. I didn’t disagree about women, I even implied we are more horny for bandomen than you think. I didn’t even say you were wrong about gay men either just that you might overestimate what is aimed at them. 
I am sorry but do you even read or understand what I am writing?
I don’t have a romanticised view. I know very well about the host like part in VK and varoius scandals. We discuss these stuff a lot here.
You sound absolutely condescending, talking about a truth only you know and have to teach us all about it, like there is secret underground society in VK that sacrefices gyarus to the devil (Yoshiki). 
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Not to mention that the original point of contention wasn’t that “the large majority of attendees at VK shows are female”. We know that, obviously.
It was “the large majority are all young girls” when referring to the Gazette’s audience.
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I’m an NB person but for general purposes we’ll say I’m a “guy” who’s into VK.
I’ve been going to vk concerts for over a decade, and even though I don’t generally identify as a manly man, I do feel out of place a little in some situations. I’ve definitely attended shows in Japan where I was the only “guy” in the crowd, or there was only one other person like me.
It’s easy to feel out of place, but the girls are always welcoming and don’t make a big deal out of it.
A skewed gender ratio doesn’t make me uncomfortable necessarily. The only thing I feel uncomfortable by are people who go to shows because they like the way a band looks more than they like the music. Like, I’ve had conversations where the other person goes on and on squealing about how hot someone is, and I’m like… not typically into it.
((Unless it’s Toshiya.))
But that is to say, I am usually there because I like the music first. VK bandmen are people who exist in my headphones first and foremost. Lol
The fact is, no matter what concert you go to, people will be there for all sorts of different reasons. Different strokes for different folks.
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I talked about this in another thread some time ago. When I was in Japan this year I was able to attend a few concerts. Here’s how the audience was for each of them:
-Metronome/ensoku: I was the only guy there. All domestic attendance was young women. Atmosphere made it seem like they were younger but my impression was the were mostly university students or recent graduates.
-Nightmare: a handful of older men. The rest were all clearly women past their formative years and a good size was middle aged.
-Deadman: more men than Nightmare, same bulk of female audience, but I didn’t see anyone middle aged as in Nightmare. I was also under the impression that some of the few male attendees were gay. Envelion was at the same live maybe they can chime in.
-Floppy: All woman, mid thirties most 30% solid forties.
-Morrie: All order woman 45+ easily and one (1) local young guy.
I’m more interested in comparing this to overseas attendance; in my experience is almost split, maybe 40% men 60% female. I wonder why VK didn’t had the power to attract that many male japanese audiece while it doesn’t look like an issue in the west.
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That’s what i was thinking. Shit got deep pretty fast there. 
I feel like that is something we could base a whole ass study on.
A little intake here
I do wonder, how many bands in the west that are known to have a big amount of female fans, like bad omens or sleep token, how many men inside their audiences will be partners, boyfriend’s??
In comparison to maybe Japan, where people rather go alone than with their partner I would suspect.
Maybe a thought too 
No idea
(Also sorry guys but I didn’t read this whole thread)
As a guy that likes visual kei but dislike most music that tends to be sucessfull mostly with western females I get the feeling maybe jap locals easily identify that VK is particularly aimed at wonen in a way westeners don’t, so only local men who really like the music or are open find themselves in line for vk concerts.
You’re absolutely right about that. It’s not “manly” in Japan to like vk. And it’s seen by a lot of people to be fan servicey in the way idol groups are for men. So it makes sense that some guys won’t even give it the time of day. Or if they do, they just don’t show up for the lives.
Or like shonen-ai or yaoi is usually made for women.