It’s the same with every genre of music your going to get fans who listen to your music come to your lives and say “you saved my life for xyz reason” and maybe show you scars and that’s okay if the band approves of it and encourges them to tell there stories as a strength not a weakness I’ve seen multiple bands do that for mental health in other genres
But there a big difference between “your part of helping my mental health” and “your idolising these problems and it makes me think oh thats not an issue”
They did put out a statement about it and fan twitter just went “COME ON WHY CANT YOU GIVE THEM RESPECT!” and others are like “waht happened” and its like…I’m sorry but can’t you see the type of people and things Senketsu (online base) does like it doesn’t surpise me this happened and I hope everyone envolved with it is okay
I make one comment about entitled vkei tiktok and suddenly Senketsu fan tweets are in my recommended this community is so much better in every way shape and form
Well, at least it puts the talk that “only” foreign fans do this shit to rest. Good to be reminded that the Japanese fanbase has their occasional weirdos as well.
Some early 2000s-end of 90s bands had some mediocrity (ex: Missalina Rei, Noir Flurir) they had actually peak ideas of music (and looks)…they just didnt managed it right (SUCH AS NOIR FLEURIR’S PUNK+TANGO), plus they wanted to sound really edgy with their lyrics (witch instead of doing in the cool way it was pretty bad). Sorry if I have bad writting, im from South America lol
Today I’ve read all post from june 2024 until now.
Heres my hot take: this thread has no business being this good and having the most thoughtful conversarion in the forum.
Now that I’ve gone to some domestic vk concerts I do have some hot takes to post but that will be another day, I already spent too much time in this thread today
Not related, but…
This fact was the main reason why I completely distanced from vkei (´･_･`) and not only teenagers, sometimes it’s scary to see how 20+ girls are obsessed with “me and my honmei have the same mental illness, we should be together AND WE WILL”
Yep! It’s so strange to see how music can evolve, 90s vkei roots are from gothic and sort of soft glam and progre, which were an example of a copying of the western style, and it ended with thing we all know as old school vkei, unique and cracked but somehow cool.
I’m back with the biggest First World Problem courtesy of setting up my Plex server. In terms of fish to fry, there are bigger issues that the scene could tackle. But while I’m on this hill, I may as well die on it.
For a scene that prides itself on the fusion of audio and visual, I’m a little surprised that there isn’t a band out there that presses 4K UHD Blu-Ray concerts. And by “isn’t a band” I mean Dir en grey, because Dir en grey has the deepest pockets out of almost anyone in the scene. If there’s anyone that can spearhead a revolution on this front, it’s them.
Quick recap for those who don’t know: traditional DVD caps out at 720p. Traditional Blu-Ray caps out at 1080p. UHD Blu-Ray scales up to 4k. I’mma flat out say that we should just retire DVDs en masse and move to Blu-Ray as the default offering. Replace Blu-Ray as a premium offering with UHD as a premium offering. It’s 2025 - no one chooses to watch a video in 720p unless it’s the only thing available. 1080 is seen as the default resolution now, and in some cases even 1080 looks like it could look a little better (this all depends on the bit rate used to press the video to disc). Like I said, we’re in a scene that’s all about the visuals now. How can we be consuming a fantasy at such a low bit rate and resolution in this day and age?
If you wanted another good reason why (are you paying attention Dynamite Tommy) UHD 4k discs are much harder to rip and distribute than 1080p or 720p BR/DVD. You wanna stop piracy dead in its tracks? Start shipping UHD!
Now I know asking for UHD is way too much! It costs more to do Blu-Ray than DVD and so it makes sense that it would cost more to do UHD than Blu-Ray. But we should really be standardizing on Blu-Ray in 2025, and leave DVD behind in the past.
I always go for dvd releases over bluray bc i can’t get blurays to play on my mac. I don’t really know what i’m doing though so if anyone has a solution i’m all ears.
I can only play blurays on my ps4 and my tv is a cheap one, so everything looks better on my computer screen.
When it came out we had a commercial that said “HD - more difined than reality”
And that’s exactly what I hate about it. It makes things on the screen look more sharp and defined than my real vision for things around me and my brain hates that.
For a tour I can bare it but for movies, I breaks the illusion for me. I am the person who person who watches at 720p on purpose, honestly.
Than you can’t sell them in Europe it’s just moving the problem, not fixing it.
I totally agree. But the first thing that comes to mind is the high cost of producing high-quality content, especially for newer or mid-tier bands that don’t have a massive following outside Japan. Even if they’re signed to somewhat reputable labels, shooting in 4K is still a nearly unreachable luxury. Renting studios, hiring a skilled crew, using top-tier gear… all of that adds up fast. And in the Visual Kei scene, where many operate on a razor-thin budget, it’s just not feasible to absorb those costs.
Then we have Dir en grey a band with name recognition, infrastructure, and huge overseas fans. They could be leading the charge in audiovisual evolution, but it feels like they’ve chosen stagnation instead. They keep putting out material in a quality that doesn’t impress anymore. It almost seems like they’re cutting corners, maybe even turning to AI-based solutions to reduce expenses (As a form of new innovation…laughs). If that’s the case, the message is pretty clear: profit over legacy.
Of course, piracy plays a role. They know that anything they release will be online within days. But that’s no excuse for delivering the bare minimum. If the scene is visual ~if the experience actually matters~ then the output needs to reflect that. And Dir en grey has every means to push that shift not just because they can, but because the symbolic weight of that move could inspire other bands to raise the bar.
Also, there are alternative routes. DL cards are already being used by a lot of bands and act like a bridge: they eliminate the cost of pressing CDs, DVDs, or Blu-rays and make digital distribution way easier. Sure, they have their downsides, they’re easy to pirate and can cheapen the value of physical items. but in terms of cost vs. reach, they can be a powerful tool. If used wisely, DL cards could even help make 4K content more viable, since they cut physical production costs and free up budget for higher-quality output. Not to mention the fact that the production/economy of physical media in Japan is struggling even today, where the world is more about streaming.
I’m gonna try not to nerd out with my new found knowledge.
I do like 4k but it has to be calibrated right. The screen has to be a good quality screen that can support proper HDR output of up to 1000 nits. There are a lot of terrible HD screens out there that advertise fake HDR but can’t handle the real thing, and the image gets worse because of it. HDR is the key to making HD look natural so if your image is too sharp, that sets off alarm bells to me.
The quality of the show you’re watching matters too because if someone does some terrible tone mapping from HDR to SDR it’s going to look grey and washed out. And then there’s also the advanced audio codecs such as Atmos and DD that come along with 4k videos. Here’s an example of what I mean from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence:
Also, I wouldn’t use Firefox to ever watch any 4K videos because it doesn’t support proper HDR, which you can see above. The first screenshot looks absolutely terrible.
I know it’s a screen issue as well and a lot of people seem to care so little they don’t even try to change the settings. I still use a super old TV because doing the research to get one I won’t hate is work I just don’t want to put into.
If I have to look out for all this to make HD bareable, I just don’t see the point of wanting it.
Because when properly calibrated, it looks lifelike! Not hyper real or overly smooth. It is actually worth it to invest into it if you’re someone who will be watching lots of movies and high definition content. It’s definitely changed the way I approach movies.
Next time you buy a screen, the choices will be almost overwhelming! But almost anything you get that isn’t bottom barrel junk will be an upgrade. Tech moves startlingly fast when it wants to.
And streaming 4k isn’t the same as physical 4k. Getting physical copies of stuff provides the best audiovisual experience. Which ties back to wanting it for visual kei. I’ve talked about the lack of Atmos mixes before, but in terms of production, Japan’s visual kei is way behind everyone else, still using DVDs and 2.1 stereo as the standard in 2025.
I got a DVD a few months ago of a band called Ethnic Legist, and the contents were so blurry it was unwatchable. What’s even the point of investing all that time and money into recording a live if you’re just gonna smush it onto a DVD and lose most of the quality anyway? This is primarily why I don’t buy DVDs of visual kei bands - they don’t look good and don’t sell the fantasy enough for me. I regret buying one of the NAZARE DVDs I own for this same reason!
I see you are invested and that. I am not. And no amout of paragraphs will change that I don’t have the mental capacity for it.
All screens I saw at other people’s houses had that terrible HD look… even some cinemas. And even the best HD set up won’t help with flood of unnessery CGI in current movies
@zeus you’re clearly extremely knowledgeable about this - any chance you could help me understand something related?
Naitomea uploaded a bunch of their Nippon Crown (2003-2006) releases on YouTube in 1080p. How do you think they’ve done this?? Can they pull more pixels off the analog master? Or is this necessarily software upscaling?
Whatever they’ve done, to my eyes it looks flawless - not at all like a modern video but like a less crunchy version of an old video. I don’t see any banding, jittering, frame rate weirdness etc that i associate with poor quality upscales.
The likely option is that either the label or the venue invested in high quality 1080p camera to record the lives. In either case, the lives were definitely mixed down to 720p for DVD distribution. It seems reasonable that in either case, whoever runs the YouTube account got their hands on the original masters and uploaded those directly.
This comment makes me think that the above is likely. But on the off chance that it was film, it would be possible to scale past 1080 and go to 4k too!
AND WE WILL”
it’s just moving the problem, not fixing it.
