I can’t believe no one brought this up but 3 members of Megaromania, one of the best bands to come out of UCP, transitioning to a Kisaki band should’ve been a fever dream…but it wasn’t.
Megaromania
to
Lin (second period)
The coming of the second period of Lin was more of a wet fart in comparison to their predecessors, as their discography was mostly remakes and rerecordings of said predecessors, followed by a quick hiatus + disbandment as a result. As for their actual original material, it was more like filler than anything, and Sui and Mizaly didn’t have that spark that they once did with Metis Gretel and Megaromania, now that Kisaki had the reigns. It was also clearly Kisaki’s last ditch effort to remain relevant in the changing world of visual kei as he would later recycle his 20+ year old previous band Mirage after Lin finally dissolved.
As for Megaromania, although they weren’t as big as Vidoll, 12012, and Phantasmagoria, they were one of the top bands of Under Code Production, one of the most legendary visual kei labels of all time, especially in the latter half of the label’s lifespan. Upgrading the kotekei fairytale sound of Metis Gretel to a melodic metal sound catapulted the band into indie greatness as they would be compared to the likes of Versailles, the leading visual kei band at the time, and helped establish the tanbi-kei sound as it is today.
To say that the remaining active members weren’t given a chance would be an understatement. With how huge Lin was after the disbandment of Phantasmagoria, it was a complete shock when the first lineup all ditched Kisaki, and yet Kisaki vowed to continue the band anyway. And continue he did, with the addition of Sui, Mizaly, and Yushi, plus Cero from the short-lived Tatsuya-led band zechs. Compared to the previous lineup, it was a total letdown for diehards as the excellent compositions from the previous lineup were remade for no purpose other than profit, followed by a lackluster group of scraps composed by the second lineup, all summing up a forgettable last run by one of visual kei’s infamous personalities.
I also wanted to bring up David, as it’s more recent, plus it’s Sui’s solo project and technically Mizaly did some support work for a bit.
David
All 3 artists are good, and Sui is clearly giving his all to David, but without Mizaly’s compositions and guitar work, again, they don’t really have that spark that Megaromania did. Most of David’s discography isn’t as memorable as Megaromania’s, and their discography is more of a mess of consecutive singles all later released into one EP and confusingly limited releases while Megaromania stayed consistent (with the help of a certain label of course) with banger album after album. As the visual kei landscape is currently leaning towards a harsher death metal sound, even attempting black metal at some points, David tries to adapt to that, but is staying safe to remain faithful to the melodic sound that Megaromania had, but the songs end up all sounding the same most of the time. With David going on hiatus after 5 years of activity, it’s no wonder that the project and Lin were behind the times, and both were unable to live up to the hype of Megaromania.
