Same for me. I was always an edgy kid and liked spoooky shit. When I discovered VK, especially the dark and angsty stuff from the early 2ks I was hooked. Before that I mainly listened to Metal, but I wanted something that wasn’t just dark and gloomy in the lyrics department… classic VK with its Heavy Metal guitars, Hardcore singing and Punk song structure and Gothic Rock-ish tinge appealed to me.
I would soon after get into proper Goth (and Post-Punk, Darkwave and Deathrock), and a lot of old VK is a kind of strange inbetween thing between Metal, Punk/Hardcore and Goth/Post-Punk, with various bands often leaning a bit stronger to one of these. In a way that combination kinda existed in the West, see Gothic Metal á la Type O Negative, Paradise Lost or early Anathema… but that stuff came specifically from Death Doom and never managed to sever its connection to Doom Metal, so it never developed a truly unique sound and identity like VK did in the 90s.
VK, despite taking influences from mostly European musical trends of the 80s, was such a unique mixture it became its own thing. It’s not Japanese (Hair) Metal or Japanese Punk (let alone Goth); VK is VK. And the original 90s is so strongly tied to the region and Zeitgeist of Japan at that time there’s nothing that compares to it (sadly not even current VK does… the oldschool sound is completely lost sans a few copycat Kote bands and recently revived bands like Kein).
But yeah, no one does fast crazy punk-ish drumming with Gothy jangling guitars, elaborate “fake it 'till you make it” Metal-style guitar solos with vocals that alternate between bad Bowie impressions, Robert Smith’s or Rozz William’s wailings and Hardcore and Metal style screaming and growling like your classical Kote band does. Even the more pop-ish and Softvi acts had a sound that’s specific to that one scene.
I don’t want to diss contemporary VK though… there’s a few bands I like that sound nothing like the classical stuff but they just produce good, solid music.
Looks used to impress me deeply too, but nowadays the sound is just as important to me if not more so. But I like musicians and bands that also have an image. I never truly got this stupid notion that if you spend some time into your appearance (and how you present yourself on stage) than you aren’t a trve musician or a real artist… and I hate people who instantly dismiss an artist because of the way they look. On the other hand; if you don’t dress up that’s fine too. And VK bands dropping their looks isn’t the end of all as long as they don’t drastically change their sound (in order to become more marketable to the masses).
However; VK looks can be so cool and artistic that it’s really inspiring and sometimes I just like to stare at pictures of interesting and beautiful people (the same way I like looking at pretty pictures or nice visual art).