I think there is an handfull of rock bands bigger than DeG, but I don’t think there is much of an inaccuracy with “one of the biggest”, just a bit generous with scope
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The venues of Dir en grey’s europe tour gad capacities of 1000 - 1500 people and most concerts sold out. So there is def more 100 people around europe who care and let’s be honest the only promotion was posts on their social media. They could also sell a us tour. Miyavi toured europe last year, Kamijo and Jiluka are coming and the sells to go well.
I mentioned it in another post not every fan comes to this forum. I discovered it just recently and I am into vk since 2004. I have 4 friends who also like vk but they don’t care about conneticting to an online community. We just talk to each other and that’s enough.
So while the active community seems small there is at least some demand. But I guess there is more potential. I was thinking about doing some kind of workshop/talk on anime conventions to get more young anime fans interested 
but I don’t really know how to make it the most intresting. I think talking abrutschen the history of vk is as dry as all history lessons but just showing mv’s isn’t really a talk.
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I kinda like that idea. Maybe you could open the whole topic with vk-bands that had their songs used for anime intros and/or outros. From that point on you could introduce the scene and broad music spectrum behind it and the big variety of bands.
Maybe that could get people interested?
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a lot LOT of people became familiar with visual kei thanks to Nightmare - the WORLD, so I think that could be an good approach
First of all thanks for all the replies. I was ready to get made fun of, but you all are kind, almost! Haha. It makes me happy.
I read all your replies and I still wonder if there aren’t just a couple of hundreds fans on the planet, ok one thousand for the concert that they scratched together from literally all countries in the whole EU, and maybe some japanese fans even flew there to support them as a tourist trip at the same time (I found a nico nico account about this), and maybe some from the american continent as well.
I am not trying to downplay it, but I still stand with the statement that there is really no community around it. One reaction video that at the time had 15 views, from one of the biggest jrock bands ever, isn’t much…
If the year was 2005 though, things would have been different. Its such a bummer the japanese companies with their nazi-laws forbid all kind of spreading of the music outside of Japan.
For any kind of kpop act, even smaller ones, there are “communities”. A whole movement for them on all kind of platforms. I dont like to compare kpop to jrock, but its still a good way to see the difference of two asian things trying to appeal to the west.
And its delusional that DeG is one of the biggest jrock bands? What is bigger? Hyde cycling around on the streets?
Also no babymetal please, i feel the fame of babymetal is just based on sexual tension and fetishes… sorry. Small cute japanese girls play instruments and its “broootal”.
I have probably made most enemies on this board so far, and it seems nothing seems to change…
Cheers to you all. And let me tell you this before you make fun of me, I am one of the biggest jrock/vk-fan gais 
I went to see X-Japan live back in like 1995. I went to Japan when like no other foreigner had traveled there before, and saw them live!
I hope the community that we had back in 2005 can come back! The whole movement was amazing.
Idk dude, I think Babymetal unironically slap. Their latest record has some awesome vocal melodies, the music is well written, and the backing band is super talented. If anything, the fact that it’s a somewhat silly pop act is I think a net-positive, it brings metal instrumentation to an audience that may typically not engage with that sort of music very much, in turn opening doors for people to expand their musical palettes 
And I’ve honestly never thought they were marketed in a very sexual way. Their costumes are pretty modest, from the material I’ve heard doesn’t have provocative lyrics… hell, when they debuted weren’t two of the members like 14? From what I can tell they’ve been pretty intentional in not going down that route
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Sorry but its a typical japanese fetish that they managed to make into a big business for foreigners. But creds to the success and if the songs are good, thats great. But its originally a japanese fetish.
BUT all power to the people out there, if they like what someone makes and are happy to pay for it, its all good! Move that economy!
They had 9 concerts in 4 countries 
only 2 were not sold out. One of two concerts in Warsaw and one of 3 in germany and that was the biggest venue. Berlin(1500), London (890)and Paris(1500) sold out 2 days each. And there were more people who wanted tickets. They absolutely did not need to scracht together people. They probably could have made another stop in spain and sell out.
The thing is… a lot of people who were into j-rock switched over to k-pop and I think it also takes up new people who could have become j-rock fans.
The Neo Tokyo in Berlin used to sell all kinds of j-rock stuff, now they sell mostly k-pop stuff. This might be a bit unfair … but personally that’s the reason why I despise k-pop.
Sadly, that’s very unlikely. See the thing is a lot of music acts or scenes get big because they become teen favorites. And it happen in Japan when X was big and in the West in the early 2000s and well I guess new generations have other scenes they like. But I think there is nothing wrong with it being a niche scene. At least that’s better than becoming acapitalist nightmarish plastic product like k-pop.
kpop is more accessible. accessible VK units that have lasted to this day have their own fandoms - gazette would be pretty much the only real major example, but the problem is that the scene lost a lot of promising people who had to retire/passed away, and there was no interest from younger people to step in and fill in the blanks.
I can think of D.I.D./paranoir run was cut off with their vocalist developing a mental condition and retiring, but d.i.d.-adjacent NAZARE has their own western clout, and does not even venture abroad, focusing on domestic presence primarily.
free-will seemingly no longer bothers with hunting for vk bands, delegating darker/edgier side of the things to starwave, a ratty ass record label that does the bare minimum promoting their acts.
I think it will get better as time goes on and newer people are going to attempt doing something, but VK really depends on healthy economy like no other scene, and we aren’t exactly doing fabulously overall.
That’s enough? Or you want more of those tweets?
The thing is sexualizing of bands or bandmembers happens almost everywhere, some bands push more into it because they know it sells.
Did Babymetal ever push into it? Nah I doubt that was their intentions
But do the simps help? Yes of course, the same way the amount of simps DeG has helps them too.
Babymetal have 2.1million listeners on Spotify, have several awards or nominations from foreign media outlets. Have collaborated with big western artists, they are currently bigger than dir en grey, if you like it or not.
Past Babymetal
One OK Rock has 3 million Listener’s on Spotify and thats only the Spotify numbers
SIM have 1.8 million Listener’s and are touring in the US currently with Crystal Lake, Within Destruction and Fame on Fire
DeG have 165K subscribers on YouTube and 145K monthly listeners on Spotify
How many people you think listen to them via CD only?
I don’t think they can reach a million Listener’s and that although they just released a new song.
Don’t get me wrong, DeG are a stable band they are definitely one of the bigger Visual Kei bands. (if you account them as Visual Kei that is)
We have to stop, comparing J-ROCK to K-POP!
There are so many reasons why it’s wrong. From the fact that we compare two different genre to the fact that Kpop had a completely different foundation to be based on (yes I am talking about the government fonds that went into that industry, something that never happened in Japan)
You want to compare Kpop? Compare it to JPop at least.
And yes Jpop is lagging behind, because of copyright, because companies are in the hand of old men who can’t keep up with modern trends, because they never had a government officially boosting a whole industry, because they plain ass never had or cared to expand because the Japanese music market is the second biggest in world still.
Kpop had to expand, because their music market itself is too small.
Now let’s get to the problem that Kpop is pop and Jrock is rock (or sometimes metal)
Pop is and was always an easier accessible genre.
Rock and metal had its height in mainstream popularity in the late 90s early 00s.
Since then Rock and Metal went out of fashion, and sure that also had an influence on JRock and VK.
But Rock and Metal recently started to get a bit of a revival in popularity, and yes, if you like it or not, people like MGK or Olivia Rodrigo had a hand in that too.
Actors like Margot Robbie admiting on TV that they are into Metal etc
That stuff helped to show Rock and Metal aren’t dead and we are also not only metallica.
We have bands like Knocked Loose playing chochella and teaching influencers what a moshpit is. Spiritbox had a Grammy nomination and Bad Omens and Lorna Shore went viral on tiktok.
And in the long run that also has an influence on the Japanese scene.
I can see that r/visualkei is getting more and more users by the day and has far more activity than it had still 2 years ago.
And we are getting new users each day too.
But I am also on the point as Nick, in the long run a JRock community that includes Jrock and VK is better than one that is only VK based and forces borders onto the participants/user.
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There’s nothing wrong with comparing K-pop and JRock and you’re 100% accurate. Japan had its chance about 10 years ago when everybody was into Japanese music and cosmetics as well as kawaii goods etc. They decided to gatekeep absolutely everything refusing to sell things overseas even going so far as banning purchases from package forwarding services.
Then everyone started to shift their attention to Korea and Korea was more than happy to cater to foreigners allowing for easy shipping abroad sending their bands on tours etc etc so everybody just lost interest in Japanese products in general and you can’t blame them for it. Japan is finally starting to come forward a little bit out of pure financial desperation especially subculture brands and such that have lost all popularity in Japan but still have some fans abroad, allowing package forwarding etc but it’s just too late now.
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I think the Jrock fans to Kpop fans switch is overstated as the appeals are completely different. One can overtake/overshadow the other without the fanbases being the same demographic.
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I do think a lot of weaboos turned into Koreaboos and I do think that a lot of people who like Asia find the two interchangeable. But regardless of that I think it’s pretty hard to argue that 10 years ago Japan was popular and nowadays Korea’s popular whether that be music fashion cosmetics or even characters TV dramas Etc and there’s a reason for that. It’s more accessible. Also I think it’s a bit close-minded to think that just because somebody likes rock and metal they can’t possibly like pop. Personally I like both equally and I know a lot of people do as well.
I mean I know real people who switched from one to another 
can’t deny that.
And the thing is… and this is probably a hot take but well it’s the right thread for that anyway:
There is one thing that k-pop and j-rock (especially vk) have in common: hot asian guys fans project their fantasies on. A lot of the vk fandom was more about this than music and that’s the part that switched easily and it is also the demografic that could be into j-rock but is into k-pop now.
This sounds meaner than it is. Visual kei has it’s name for a reason and there is a bunch of music genres for a reason. K-pop also sells not just musics buts looks. It is part of the concepts. But I give you that it wasn’t part of vk in the beginning but is probably built into k-pop.
I personally do like hot guys as well and tbh that is one reason I do like vk.
I could have switched over as well but I stayed at vk because a) I am a nostalgic person and can hardly abondon stuff I started liking b) I like the weird and dark stuff so so badly c) I do prefer rock over pop most of the time
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Literally the opposite - their entire schtick of lolita fashion began as a way to deter creepy dudes by dressing in a child-like manner. The fact that it’s become a fetish for many speaks towards those people, but to say it’s “originally a fetish” is just factually incorrect
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The weebs I know haven’t switched. I like visuals but not for idolization or sexual fantasy purposes. But even in that case - VK is largely crossdressers and (what would be considered by outsiders) goths and Kpop is geared toward conventionally attractive pretty boys (and girls). So not everyone who likes one will find appeal in the other. There is just so many things that set them apart and so little that brings them together. The Asian part is only the real dual appeal.
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I know it doesn’t seem like it would fit, but I used to have a tight knit friend group of five who all loved VK, three of them all switched over to being mainly K-pop fans around the same time in the early 2010s
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I said this with no word. I said their is people who were into vk for mostly the pretty boy part and those moved on to k-pop. Of course this does not apply to you. Obviously it does also not apply to me as I mentioned above. But it does apply to a group of people and we just should not underestimate this effect. There was a part of the community that was mostly here to swoon about the members.
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I never doubted that there was any overlap at all just that it wasn’t as significant as people make it out to be because the appeals are so different (aside from them being Asian) that only some VK lovers would move over but Kpop would pick up a lot of fans from elsewhere. The last western boyband I would hear anything about was One Direction. I think Kpop is pulling fans that would be into groups like One Direction, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys more than fans that would be into VK. I think you could say the west’s failure to create successful boybands and girlbands has contributed to the success of Kpop at least as much as Japan’s failure to promote VK has.
Going after girls that dress like children is creepy dudes’ thing.
That said I don’t think there was strong intent to make Babymetal pedo-bait and I think the brootal-kawaii stuff was a bigger part of it.
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K-pop and vkei are based on an “idol” business format. That’s what made them interchangeable to western fans. No, it’s not really about the music, because as has been hashed out many times already, there is lots of non-vkei rock and metal and always has been.
It’s the selling of a character or specific image that music and performance are a vehicle for. There isn’t really an equivalent of the idol industry in the west because music industries are a lot less centralized, so it’s understandable why this genre of business model is novel and interesting. It doesn’t matter if it’s coming from big corporate-funded acts or small local groups; the appeal is the fundamental model of PERSON/CHARACTER expressed via music/spectacle/artistry.
Vkei has always been insular and was always a niche music scene at best, whereas k-pop was founded on more mass commercial appeal and had huge amounts of money poured into it.
Seriously, this comparison is so stale. I was an earlier vkei > k-pop convert, largely because vkei and Japan overall did indeed feel so closed-off and unreachable, but I happened to circle back and it’s chill. Let people like what they like.
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