People made fin of his hight for 20 years… I guess it just stopped being funny at some point or not:
When I told my friend I gonna see nightmare, she send me this for size difference comparison:
When I was wondering what the hi-touch for the VIP packages was supposed to be her answer was:
Well for Yomi, everything is a “high touch”.
Can you believe this man (allegedly) showed his ass and dingaling at a live while wearing face paint and a towel around his head?
Yeah this was when Chiba was banned from Budokan right ?
Idk why they banned Nightmare. Yomi isn’t responsible for his younger brother…
im crying yomi is just my height 
ig i only think i’m short when trying to find pants that actually fit
I am seeing since certain political events in the US more and more tweets talking in disbelief of how VK bandmember don’t support LGBTQ, etc
And … I am quite surprised to see those opinions, as if older fans have not over years again and again, have mentioned that most bandmember are conservative and the stuff on stage is only theater play.
And after VK being around for over 30 years we can still count the openly queer artists down on one hand. That should have been a hint for everyone.
And if you wonder now if bandmembers queerbait??
Is Shonen Ai or Yaoi, made by women, for women, queerbaiting too?
A little disclaimer, if I use any terms wrong, I am sorry please correct me on it. Also I am not here to talk about politics, they are against the rules, but it’s another time again to showcase the gap between japanese VK scene and the foreign scene.
Edit: A gap that I think by the way that has gotten bigger over the years, instead of smaller surprisingly.
Can we get some applause for an actual unpopular opinion in this thread? And it’s not from me! Even more surprising! 
But yet, I agree. I’ve been around long enough to know that many fans (even non-LGBTQ) treat the scene as a mirror, a reflection of one’s personality. They may see a lot of themselves in the art, aesthetics, sound, and other aspects. This community is, and will continue to function as, a safe space for those in the LGBTQ community. Hell, I just came back from the JILUKA concert and the self-expression on display at that concert was wild.
But the relationship between us as fans and the visual kei scene does not have a feedback mechanism. It is not a mirror. We have something akin to a digital portal where we get a snapshot into how this music scene functions, and they operate largely unaware of (the majority of) what we do. This entire conversation about the intersection of the LGBTQ world and visual kei is one I’m trying to weave carefully, not because I’m afraid of saying something wrong, but because - and I want you to think about this from a moderator perspective - this “conversation” has advanced and continues to advance at different speeds in different parts of the world simultaneously. If we use Japan as the point to orient ourselves around this space, we can see that some countries have a more advanced conversation and dialect around LGBTQ rights, some countries are at around the same place having the same conversation, and other countries are not as advanced. And then if you break it down to the individual level, you can also see that different people are at different places in this space. Some people have simply spent more time thinking about and identifying with the LGBTQ community than others. So while it is tempting to take my world view and my total understanding about LGBTQ and project it onto the visual kei scene, this would not line up with reality.
We are just not in the same “place”. We are not having the same “conversation”.
As an admin here, I have to come to an understanding of where any given person is at on any topic before I can begin to have any kind of “conversation” about anything, let alone have an expectation for visual kei bandmen to have implicit or even explicit support for a cultural movement that they may not even identify with!
Remember that whole conversation about simulation and simulacra? Where us as fans make things up in our head to fill in the gaps left by lack of proximity to the scene, and the conclusions that we arrive at sometimes reflect reflections of reality? That’s what’s going on here, full stop. And it’s 100% a bitter pill to swallow, but I think it’s one that’s necessary to have if you don’t want to become discouraged or disillusioned by a “scene that never was”.
If you truly love visual kei, you’ll have to accept it for what it is, not what you perceive it to be. The scene is imperfect because it is made up of people, whom are imperfect. And that will be the case as long as people continue to be involved.
And just to be extra clear: I still support this place being a safe space for LGBTQ people.
While i don’t disagree w/ most of what’s said in these last two posts, i think it’s not absolute wrt if it’s a copy of the US’s LGBTQ culture vs completely closed off and irrelevant.
I can think of a few times recently when the international (i guess i mean “English-speaking”, my perspective being what it is) community made such an unignorable and targeted complaint towards an artist they ended up addressing it in English - whether in a way i personally respect/appreciate like Rands Karma or in a way i personally don’t, like Belle.
Non-Japanese speakers and their culture, sensitivities, and preferences have always been some tangential part of the scene, i imagine, but even the 2000s with ameblo & fanclubs, there’s no way that compares to the ease and ability of just being able to straight up DM bandmen on IG/Twitter with a “click to translate” option
All that to say i don’t think it’s necessarily fair or realistic to imagine vkei bands as unaware or agnostic of how they’re perceived internationally, tho that may have been much more true and fair just ten years ago.
Also, i think there might be something to be said about what “being out” means in cultures like Japan’s vs say, the US’s. For example, would Exist Trace Omi be counted in the list of “out” musicians? Somebody with better memory/google skills than me please correct me if i’m wrong, but unless i’ve imagined it or read a fiction story, i remember in some magazine interview that was translated, she tells a short story about hearing/reading about lesbian/bi women in music, thinking that was cool, then thinking “isn’t that me, aren’t i that?”
Which isn’t as loud, consistent, and noticable as we like to advocate for our identities in the US (not criticizing just observing!)
Essay aside i remain so curious what gay people in Japan, specifically gay Japanese men, think of Sendai Kamotsu. Bc i see their videos, hear their music, and think it all seems to me like in-jokes, like ridiculous (tbh childish and not to my tastes…) caricatures of a group they’re with, rather than of a group they’re not with that they’ve spent twenty years mocking, attaching to their own identities sarcastically. That second possibility would be hard for me to believe - but that could well be bc i’m only looking at it across the Pacific from my own culture!
Very well put, both above 
If you have spent any significant amount of time learning about Japan as a society and vkei as a scene within it, it really should not come as a shock that your average bandman is likely to have much more conservative views than your average liberal in the western world.
However, I think leaving it at that is also a bit too simplistic. Japan is a conservative and highly homogenous society and scenes like vkei exist as a kind of counter to that. I am careful here to avoid calling it a “subculture” or “counter culture” because it is not really equivalent to the punk or goth movements here in the west. But it is something outside the norm and people who find it hard to conform to societal expectations (for whatever reason) will be drawn to it, either as a performer or a fan. It is not explicitly a LGBTQ+ space (despite what the fanservice might make you think) but I would argue that it is to an extent a queer space. A space where you can experiment and express yourself more freely than elsewhere with no questions asked.
So while vkei is absolutely not the LGBTQ+ haven some western fans seem to think, there are still queer people in it. Not all of them are out, and not all of them even know it themselves, but I am sure there are way more than the few who are open about it. It is not too difficult to find queer themes in the art either, even if they are not explicitly about homosexual relationships.
This gets more into speculation but to me it seems that Kyo (deg) for example has really been through it in terms of self-exploration. The viceral hatered he had for anything feminine and gay in the late 00’s to then produce some absolutely beautiful queer art in the more recent years. I do not wish to speculate on his sexuality here but whatever he went through and whatever he discovered on the way, I do think that the vkei scene was absolutely vital for him to have a space to express it through his art.
There is also a tendency for many (often young and/or new) fans to question whether onnagata bandmen are some flavour of trans or queer and for older fans to scoff that they should not apply western ideas of queerness here. They will, with conviction, say that the dress is just a costume and for the most part they are likely right.
However, I feel like that is also too simplistic. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar but for others those costumes do also offer a way to express themselves in ways they would not otherwise have had. They might not ever admit it, maybe not even to themselves, but it is there nevertheless. Someone as dedicated to the bit as Hizaki for example might not be doing it purely because. In fact I think I heard somewhere recently that he had confirmed as much.
Then there are the separate but somewhat connected scenes like Tokyo Decadance, which is very explicitly a queer space. Not all vkei bandmen ever interact with it ofc but there are many that do. And while that absolutely does not tell us anything definitive about the bandmen who do interract or even their political leanings, it is also probably not completely meaningless.
I suppose I, being queer myself, might be reading too much into it but I honestly think there is nuance to this that often gets overlooked in these conversations. Queerness is not just being openly homosexual, it is a wider spectrum. It is nonconformity, rebellion and self-expression outside the norm. It is by its very nature undefined, something that exists in the liminal space between the self and the society. And vkei is a space that welcomes those qualities, to varying extents.
Yes, on the face of it it is just a costume, just a performance, just fanservice. But it is also art and art is fundamentally about self-expression. I really think the longer you keep immersing yourself in it, the more likely you are to think of these things a little more deeply. There is only so long you can keep kissing other men on stage before you have to think it through 
That is not to say that anyone who has been in the scene for a longer time and still does fanservice or wears dresses should he presumed queer. But I do think that for the most part they have had to confront the queerness at some point and make some sort of peace with it, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.
Edit// I took so long writing an essay that someone posted before me 
“both above” refers to Rena and Zeus here)
Edit 2// Now that I have also read the post above, I have to say I absolutely agree with this:
I contemplated mentioning this myself but I am really not too knowledgeable about LGBTQ+ culture in Japan so I decided to leave it but I am glad @rsm_rain brought it up.
I lack the time to read everything properly now, I hopefully can come back later.
I think that’s what you’re referring to, right?
Unaware? No. Agnostic? Maybe? Prioritizing other things? Most likely.
I just came back from a JILUKA concert, so obviously they know we’re out here! But there’s something subtle that happened last night at the concert that I want to compare and contrast with what I think is one of the best topics started this year - GreatNorthernVK’s 2024 Live Report Extravaganza.
Where am I going with this? Take (almost) any post in that thread and read about one of her days when she’s going around Japan taking in the sights and absorbing the visual kei. There seems to be this level of personal connection between her and the musicians that we do not get over here. She gives them Cheezies, lines up for 2-shots, even having small talk with some band members. Compare this with what I experienced last night (which was awesome), but to even get a fraction of that, you had to pay for VIP. And, much to the dismay of someone who was asking where the 2-shots were after the show, JILUKA walked out of the venue ten minutes after it was over and into a facility across the street.
What I’m trying to say is that these are two fundamentally different scenes, even though they overlap in many ways, and so the band men conduct themselves differently. In Japan, I’m confident you could have a better chance linking up with them after the show. In the US? Pay for VIP beforehand if you want that experience.
So I feel like it’s fair to assume that this translates online. They may be more aware of us than ever before, but I feel that a lot of their attention and time still lies with their domestic fans, with whom they’ve built up a relationship and history with. They get prioritized over us accordingly. Nothing malicious lies at the root of it; they just have a budget for attention and it’s already been spent!
That’s why I feel like it translates over to this discussion. I believe @Dorian described this perfectly. Let me quote.
This is exactly what it is. There are a lot of parallels, but it is not a true mirror, or reflection, of what we’ve got going on here. There will be some things that are way different, things we may not prefer, and maybe even some disappointments along the way, but if you’re really about being a part of this (larger international) community, then you’ll take the good with the bad.
There was also something else that happened last night. Something completely separate, but still worth bringing up in this context. There are a lot of people out there that both listen to JILUKA and don’t know we exist. I have no idea where these people hang out, but I linked up with several different fans last night and almost no one knew what JROCK ONE was. @Axius did a good job in promoting us to one potential fan, but we couldn’t reach everyone.
So if there are English-speaking fans in my area that don’t even know about this community, that’s another layer between us and our favorite musicians. They might know about their fans on Twitter, but do they know about us here? Do they take the time to read my rants? Or are they a little intimidated by the length? Maybe some do! Maybe some don’t! But in that same vein, even though I could, I don’t go to Tanuki and translate every post to get a better idea of what’s going down in Japan at the moment. Some of us do! Some of us don’t.
The grand conclusion is…frustrating inconsistency lies at the heart of this topic.
Ty!!!
You’re welcome. Knew where to look for it so it was easy.
Also hey maybe if someone can work some remembering or searching magic again…
i’m not certain, but i feel like i remember reading something, maybe an interview bit maybe a series of tweets idk, from Sakito when Naitomea was starting their hiatus and Jakigan Meister starting up, that his look for JKG was the way he always/lately wished he could, but for whatever reason couldn’t/didn’t with Naitomea.
And if you compare Sakito’s look for jkg’s first album (@ zeus an i allowed to say it’s name here lol) with his look for Naitomea’s single at the time, Awakening, seems to me like he’s going for a look that’s much more feminine than androgynous.
(edit bc i’m afraid i’m leaving the quiet part too quiet: i would feel waayyy assumptive to say something like “therefore i assume he’s (secretly?) a trans woman”. But i feel safe personally assuming: “this more feminine aesthetic is something he finds meaningful and artistically fulfilling to work with, and i think that’s cool as a fan and artist-hopeful myself!”)
@Dorian while i appreciate your whole post & perspective, imho this line is particularly well-put, somehow both something i’ve felt or guessed these 10+ years but could never put to words myself!
Not to divert from the topic at hand, but I wanted to dig into this a little more. I wonder where this difference comes from, the band themselves? The management? The promotional company? Simply the amount of popularity?
I went and saw NAZARE in San Diego 2 weeks ago and then JILUKA in Los Angeles 1 week later. The experiences couldn’t be more different. JILUKA’s show was exactly as you described, and exactly what I am used to for international concerts. The band plays their music, we have a great time, buy merch, and then leave. Maybe you can catch a glimpse of them arriving or leaving the venue, and maybe you can get a pic or an autograph if you get VIP. The NAZARE show was much more similar to the smaller shows that I’ve gone to in Japan. After the show, the band was wandering around the venue with us and even giving a little small talk, and then they had a 2 shot session right at the merch table where anyone could line up and pay only $25 USD to take a photo with them. Almost every fan got a 2 shot from what I saw, and everyone was having fun. (For comparison, when JILUKA had 2 shots in LA earlier this year you had to pay $85 for the session (included 1 group shot) and then $50 each for any 2 shots. The small talk was limited to the time it took them to sign items and develop the cheki.) When I was buying my random chekis at NAZARE, I was even able to ask one of the band members who was standing right there if he would choose them for me (It was Mio and his luck was terrible but thats a different story lol). The VIP “after party” for Nazare was only $55 USD, and was a place where people could very easily approach the members and have small talk with them.
I used to think the difference was only band size/popularity, but now I’m thinking that the promotion company has a big part in it too. JILUKA was brought by FAKE STAR and NAZARE was brought by Japan Music Revolution. I don’t think it’s the only factor though, because FAKE STAR also brings over ACME (ACME has fan trips, JILUKA does not), and Japan Music Revolution also brought over Fukuro (Fukuro did not have 2 shots, Nazare did. They both had fan trips and after parties).
Now to make this back on topic, I’ll add my warm take: I think (at least as Americans) we don’t get these friendly opportunities as much because a portion of fans aren’t great at treating the bandmen like people instead of circus animals, and that combined with the language barrier is probably a little overwhelming, or not willing to take the risk. I think that the atmosphere that we had at the NAZARE show was only able to happen because it was a smaller show, a handful of the fans could communicate in Japanese, and limited to 21+. I hope we get more experiences like that again.
I would just like to correct your use of the term “queerbaiting” – queerbaiting is a specific term meaning a queer relationship or character is teased in media but never delivered on. However, you’re referring to performative queerness, where people ‘perform’ a queer relationship without it being genuine or they themselves being queer. I guess with yaoi it’s more just… fetishisation. To give an example to make it clearer, queerbaiting would be if a yaoi manga had a gay couple on the cover but never actually portrayed a gay couple in the book itself, or if this MV’s teaser hinted at the couple but you watched the full thing and they just never appear. You bait people into thinking the media is queer for initial engagement, then never actually depict a queer character.
Not that I engage with vk fans over twitter specifically, but in general, people (and especially younger queer folk), project their values to maintain some hope about the world. Bandmen’s performative behaviour is at least better than watching them being explicitly homophobic, I guess. And some foreign fans may be unaware of yaoi/BL as a whole subgenre of media and assume it’s good representative material. They’ll learn eventually, it’s just twitter allows ignorance to be oh so loud. In the past young people figured this stuff out privately or in their own circles, but that’s changing a lot nowadays, so you see it a lot more.
Just coming in with my two cents and also the fact that I kinda joined into vkei late into its early boom…I understand after the Livejournal fans started to move in the early 2010s after something happened IIRC, things got a bit scattered for the nightmare fandom, at least from what I read.
I mean, there is excellent material on Tumblr but yes, I’m surprised they’re not even bigger right now in the overseas fandoms; I wish they had the same level of popularity/recall still!
Perhaps with this tour, they will, too, gain that resurgence!
yes, yes, yes, YES, YES, THANK YOU. Oh my god, you have no idea. I’m so thankful I’m not the only one who feels this way. I think especially because his old interviews have stuff that can be very easily (mis)interpreted/assumed too quickly as such, but actually, in the current scheme of things, as you said, it is a side of himself he finds meaningful and is exploring. Of course, if, and only if, one day he should feel or say anything different about this, I hope very much he will be given that privilege and space to do so in his own words, way and time rather than anyone but him saying or defining anything so personal to him, for him.
Sorry for the long paragraph hahaah I’ve been living with this fear that somehow something will rob him accidentally of the chance for him to define this on his own terms, whenever he wishes to, so I’m extremely full of gratitude for you writing about this here. But yes, whatever Sakito feels is him, whatever he feel he is, I adore him for it <3 thank you so much
I vaguely recall this too, might be in a tumblr blog. I became a big fan of Nightmare properly from last year, so I vaguely remember consuming everything I could there. If I find it I will let you know, would you prefer DMs? (as much as I want to spam here with Sakito love) Discord is cool too.
Edit: I’ve found something, I’ve DM-ed you! @rsm_rain
But yes I can echo that Jakigan is basically what he can’t really do with Nightmare.
I hear you! I’d like to know too!
I think it really comes down to
A) Logistics of a tour (their other plans, how tight their flight schedules are, whether the members plan on doing social media lives afterwards, etc). I was also given a heads up that some states have laws regarding how late a venue can be open for “all ages” events, which has never been a concern where I’m from.
B) Because they feel it’s what they can get away with charging/offering.
I wouldn’t say that the poor behaviour of a couple kids is really enough to change the band’s behaviour, otherwise they would just stay behind and not come if they were really so concerned. Nor are Japanese fans innocent of this by any means.
It could perhaps change the promoter’s behaviour, as often the ones who are most concerned about how the foreign fandom comes across tend to be…other foreigners.
Perhaps Jiluka’s management or Fake Star figure that they can be selective about who gets to take 2-shots by limiting it to VIPs, or may not think they need to offer it because they’ll make enough money on ticket and merch that they don’t need to add another 2 hours to the schedule for them.
Jiluka themselves are a band that aim for gya with money, it seems. That event that I attended was considered quite a good deal, apparently. 2500 yen for a guaranteed five shot and 5000 yen for each 2shot, with a random pick signed cheki incentive to earn more 2shots. The price for such an event is normally much higher and 2shots for onemans are awarded every 10,000¥ in non-cheki merch sold.
Objectively, a better deal than either their normal Japanese events or overseas lives.
But I haven’t been to an overseas live of theirs yet, so I wouldn’t be able to compare exactly how the value of the overseas lives in which 2shots have been offered compare to the ones where they haven’t, compared with their normal Japan lives.
Basically fans see the stuff like the fan service, two guys kissing each other, and go “oh it they accept guys kissing each other l, they must be fine with gays” but then you dit deeper and figure out that half the bands are the opposite of friendly towards that sexual preference.
From my understanding “queerbaiting” was used in that context too. Or maybe “gay baiting” ? 
So whats the hottest take recently guys that everyone is talking about?
That’s a usage I’ve never seen before 
. That seems to be an offshoot of queerbait’s original meaning: straight man who’s alluring to queer men.
By the second definition, shonen ai/yaoi is still definitely not queerbaiting, and to apply it to bandmen you’d need to know their intentions. Would you say Kaya queerbaits when doing fanservice? Do they have to be explicitly queer to engage in that behaviour? Then you get into the sticky area of forced coming outs, etc. etc. So I still find that queerbaiting even with that meaning pretty useless in this context and I’d hesitate to call it queerbaiting.
Basically fans see the stuff like the fan service, two guys kissing each other, and go “oh it they accept guys kissing each other l, they must be fine with gays” but then you dit deeper and figure out that half the bands are the opposite of friendly towards that sexual preference.
This is what I mean by people projecting their values onto others, rather than bandmen themselves pretending to be progressive to trick people/gain fans. Fanservice is meant to be entertainment, which can become a misunderstanding on some fans’ side.
