Think of this topic as a counterpart to this topic:
The difference is, this topic is about posting confessions about yourself that relate to visual kei or the Japanese music scene as a whole. Like always, this is a discussion thread, so feel free to add your opinion to any stated here, and let’s keep it fun!
I’ll start.
I must confess that I don’t understand the appeal behind Senketsu A-kochan and Kane to Juusei. New visual kei is hit or miss with me, but these two are on another level of “no”. I brought it to the discord and the consensus was that people like them for everything music-adjacent, and since I don’t keep up with what band men do in their personal lives or social media, there’s nothing left for me to grab on to.
I must also admit that I haven’t tried enough XANVALA! They are good, I just need to warm up to them.
KanetoJuusei was one of my first bands! They have some funny moments and interviews out there on youtube and Chill is just a character. Musically, they aren’t anything spectacular whatsoever, but there is likely worse out there. Nothing really stands out, but they have a good sound.
For me, my first confession is im VERY new… like I have only been a fan for a year and a half if I am being generous. Obviously I can’t control that but I feel so strange for it
Also, I like a lot of bands, but all my favorites are 2000s and beyond (Minus D) and I feel like the earlier bands are more popular, whereas the “new gen” bands are less enjoyed even though I like some of them the most!
My confessions is, I criticizes VK fans for being into the looks too much, but there are so many bands nonVK and VK bands I got into just because I thought one of the guys is hot.
But hey, I do still end up and stay for the music.
I think that’s the point, right? If you stay for the music, it’s alright.
I always wonder how that works if people are only into looks. Do they never listen just to the music? Like put on a playlist?
I have like one band that I only like live and for the looks and I confess that’s Jiluka
But otherwise if I want to find out if I like a band, I put all their stuff into a playlist, click play and , start doing something else and see if :
I get annoyed → not for me
I get distracted by what else I am doing → maybe not for me
My attention keep coming back to the music → for me!
My confession:
I am very bad a remembering song titles or recognizing songs without visual connection like an MV or having heard a song like a hundered times in a row so that’s another reason why I like the visual part in vk…
yeah a lot of my interests in bands started out like this. i’d find one member and be like ‘HIM…I LIKE HIM’ and then if the music was also very good i became a fan! it was a bonus if everyone was gorgeous (9gbo comes to mind lol).
also, if the bassist was an oddball/weird/quiet, i was into it severely
I’ve been a fan of visual kei for 15 years, but the more prevalent bands and subgenres—the “dark” side—have largely been non-starters in my regular music rotation. The macabre and morose elements, sometimes gothic in nature, just don’t resonate with me, no matter how unique the music might be. While others might see it differently, this preference sometimes makes me feel distant from the global visual kei community, whose epicenter tends to revolve around the largely dark side of the genre. Should clarify I’m using “dark” to broadly (and admittedly, imprecisely) clump all the visual kei subgenres that token “dark” elements, even though I’m aware they have vastly different musical DNA.
My confession is that i have no interest in quite a few of the bands that foreign fans tend to go for. (not because of that though, it’s just a coincidence) Most online discussions in english are centered around these bands and none of them resonate with me:
DeG - tried them, been to see them, just couldn’t get into them. I cheer for Shinya when he shows up as a support drummer at lives and i think his twitter is really cute but DeG doesn’t do anything for me.
Moi dix Mois / Malice Mizer - I’m just not into the french(?) vibes
Versailles / Jupiter / Kamijo - same as above. i think hizaki is a really cool guitarist and they’re really good, but they don’t do anything for me personally
And a few final bonus ones:
I don’t care about taking pictures with bandmen unless it’s someone REALLY special, like I’ve been listening to their music for 10 years or something like that. Band I started listening to a year ago? Nah.
I don’t go out of my way to listen to dominor bands… I prefer to go for bands who are kind of rising in popularity / already sort of popular when I first listen to them.
I don’t care for regular non-vk jrock. or any non-vk j-music.
I confess that I’m having a hard time finding newer bands to like.
I’m not a fan of heavy filters and make-up (I’m talking about the stuff that completely change their whole facial features and makes them look barely human anymore) and I’m out as soon as I hear obvious autotune.
A lot of the new bands just look and sound so similar, I feel like there is much less variation compared to the pre-2010 eras.
I do like some songs of newer bands, but most of the time, It’s just one or two songs of one band and that’s it.
I’m not giving up though
Oh, and bonus confession: I would rather pay 40 Euros for a concert of a band that I like, but is far from my favorite, than paying 20 Euro for a Cheki or something of my favorite
I was just never into autographs and things like that and before discovering this forum, I didn’t even know what a Cheki is (oh, look, another bonus confession )
so that’s another reason why I like the visual part in vk…
)