Takanori Nishikawa from T.M. Revolution, who started his career in VK band Luis-Mary, will reprise his role as Takanori Nishiyama in B-Project -NetsuretsuLove Call- (B-PROJECT: PassionateLove Call), the franchise’s third anime season. Nishikawa also serves as executive producer of the franchise, and he previously played this role (which is modeled after him with a costume similar to what T.M. Revolution himself wore in his “Phantom Pain” music video) in the first anime season.
This dude is by far the VK-related artist with the most contributions/appearances in other media such as anime and games. Check his wikipedia page for more deets.
Here comes another tacky ass project from YOSHIKI, which still counts as Visual Kei in other media, so…
For those of you not in the know, this documentary full of his usual BS, a.k.a milking hide’s death to this day, apart from his broken english and so on. The difference is that The Chainsmokers (USA), St. Vincent (USA), Sarah Brightman (England), Scorpions (Germany), HYDE (Japan), SUGIZO (Japan), SixTONES (Japan), Jane Zhang (China), Lindsey Stirling (USA), Nicole Scherzinger (USA), and more have joined him this time.
Anyway, during the premiere HYDE announced he has released his own organic ultra-premium vodka “PSYCHO LOVE”. It is produced in the USA and will be sold in the fall of 2023 in Japan. According to Natalie "“PSYCHO LOVE” is a vodka produced in the United States that is USDA organic certified. Organic wheat grown by farmers in Idaho and water pumped from a protected aquifer deep beneath the Snake River Plain, home to Yellowstone National Park. It is a product made from raw materials, and was supervised by HYDE with the aim of making it ``Japan’s most easy-to-drink vodka.‘’
The price is set at 4,290 yen, making it easy to obtain. It can be mixed with a variety of ingredients, but HYDE enjoys mixing it with soda and lime. Cocktail recipes will be posted on the official website of “PSYCHO LOVE” at a later date.‘’
This ain’t the 1st time HYDE has supervised the production of a drink, tough, as there is another one available here.
Interesting. This artist seems to specialize in VK content, eh? She wrote 2 other mangas about VK (Days of Bangal/バンギャルちゃんの日常& Bangal-chan no Chousen/バンギャルちゃんの挑戦).
Too bad I couldn’t find much info about her online, much less translations of her work, which’s too bad, cuz I’d really like to read it. It’s exactly what I wanna read about it, as it seems to chronicle the VK scene from the POV of a fan. She even describes how furitsuke works and has some glossary stuff as well as parodies of many artists from the scene. Looks great. Some of her work is avaliable here. Would be great if someone could ranslate it. It even got recomended by Rockin’ Mama. She’s one of the main responbibles for VK’s popularity, alongside Visual Kei Oyaji, specially in the 90s.
While looking it up I found some other VK-related manga:
Tamiko to Visual kei to (民子とヴィジュアル系と。)
47-sai, V-kei (47歳、V系)
The himitsu no bangyaru-chan (the秘密のバンギャルちゃん)
The Working Slave And High School Girls With Visual Kei (社畜とjkとヴィジュアル系)
Bangya Loop (バンギャループ)
Hanamuko wa Visual kei (花婿はヴィジュアル系)
Layla’s Guardian is Bandman (レイラの保護者はバンドマン)
V-kei joshi to bandoman (v系女子とﾊﾞﾝﾄﾞﾏﾝ)
In the End~最果ての二人~
Ren kote V-kei bandman × yancha neko no Iku neko funtō-ki (秋田 ペット漫画 れんコテ V系バンドマン やんちゃネコの育猫奮闘記 ペット-this one features the members of THE BLACK SWAN and is based on the life of their drummer-
Bangal A Go Go (バンギャル ア ゴーゴー)
おっかけ(Okkake)
OL Visual Kei (OLヴィジュアル系) a.k.a. O.L.B.B. (Office Lady Beauty Battle) - This one seems to have VK in name only, tough, as it even got a dorama that never shows anything related to VK at all.
There are also some hentai manga depcting VK artists and gyarus:
Yumemiru BanGal (ゆめ見るバンギャル)
Bangyakko! ~Visual Kei Keijiban no Ura Jijou~ (バンギャっ娘!～ビジュアル系掲示板の裏事情～)
and on an unrelated note, but still relevant to this topic, yesterday YOSHIKI Became First Japanese Artist to be Immortalized in Cement at TCL Chinese Theatre:
Miya & YUKKE from MUCC wrote this song for the Ensemble Stars (あんさんぶるスターズ!) app:
Some of the bands in this project, like, UNDEAD, Valkyrie & Eden look kinda VKish, even tough they sound like average idol music. It’s difficult to categorize, tough, cuz the OHP doesn’t explicitly describe any of the units’ music as VK or anything else, even tough it gives hints, like, saying the unit is very theatrical and has striking visuals and a strong connection to fashion, so go figure…
Here are 7 more fictional VK bands for y’all:
Back in 2021 Bandai Namco Launched a short-lived Visual Kei Themed Project called Visual Karma with 2 fictional bands: RegscenE & 果実のバブル (Kajitsu no Bubble).
They’ve released only 4 songs. 2 for each band. 再生 (SAISEI) was composed by 一葵 from ザアザア (xaa-xaa) & SACRiFiCE was composed by 涼太 & 太嘉志 from THE MADNA, while 宵闇ギルティ was composed by bo_ya from the Raid. & 狂気≠深愛ディストピア was composed by 緑川裕宇 (You Midorikawa) of 0.1gの誤算 (0.1g no gosan)
There are 2 fictional VK bands in the SHOW BY ROCK!! franchise:
One is called ShinganCrimsonZ (シンガンクリムゾンズ) and it sounds a lot like abingdon boys school. Their songs “NeoN” and “FLARE” were both composed by Leda from DELUHI.
The other is called Amatelast and it only released one song called “Cadenza”:
And the 3 bands from the musical anime Visual Prison, I’ve already mentioned in this thread: O★Z、LOS†EDEN and ECLIPSE:
Dont remember if it was posted here but there is a visual kei inspired character (well its directly said that he is from this culture but still lol) from the music thing/anime/manga/game called Hypnosis Mic.
Characters name is Jyushi Aimono and from what I remember his solo songs are composed by vkei bands/bandomen
Definetly know that his very first release is composed and written by Leetspeak Monsters
The song you mentioned, composed by Leetspeak Monsters, is this one:
and the song by his actual VK band アルゴ ξ Orchestra (ArgoξOrchestra) was written and composed by HAKUEI (PENICILLIN, machine, ライチ☆光クラブ (Lychee☆ Hikari Club) , The Brow Beat):
This song by cali≠gari is part of the OST for the dorama “Ashita, Watashi wa Dareka no Kanojo” (明日、私は誰かのカノジョ) or “Tomorrow, I’ll be Someone’s Girlfriend”
The band themselves appear in the final episode of season 2, in which a former gyaru called Emi attends their gig. The series is all about getting old, so I looked it up and their guitarrist makes this comment during the MC of the gig: “As someone in their 50s…
”
I noticed that most of the people in the audience seem to be in their 40s and above. Dunno if that was filmed during an actual gig of theirs or if those are extras for the show, tough.
Then they play the song above and that’s it. Also, in the beginning of the episode you can also see Emi has 2 cali≠gari posters in her room. Maybe there are more references, but I didn’t bother watching the rest of the dorama.
This ain’t their 1st time providing OST for TV shows, tough. 20 years ago they were responsible for the ED theme for ダウンタウンDX (Downtown DX) and in 2011 they appeared in the ED for THE BEAT TIME as well as a CM for Jewelry Maki:
A new ending for the 20th season of the Duel Masters franchise (Duel Masters WIN: Duel Wars
デュエル・マスターズ WINウィン 決闘学園編) debuted today. This song is called “ドロー” (Draw) and performed by ザアザア (XAA-XAA):
Type-C of the CD comes with a cover art of the band in the anime’s style and a trading card:
As part of the celebrations for their 20th anniversary AN CAFE is getting their own drama CD as well as their first new song in 5 years:
The story is about a voice acting school and the band’s vocalist, Miku, will be voicing the main character in his first work as a voice actor.
Even though the story doesn’t seem to feature any mentions to AN CAFE themselves you can see that the youngest character is holding a plush toy of the band’s mascot
The CD drops on the 25th and it features 4 drama tracks + the new song “Fly again”
Here is ザアザア (XAA-XAA) playing live inside of a bus in the middle of Shibuya last sunday:
That is, of course, a marketing stunt by this company, which seems to get quite a lot of attention by passers by and charges around US$200 for a gig.
According to the brand’s website xaa-xaa seems to be the first VK band to partner with them.
If you check the video in the background there are billboards for other VK bands in the streets where the bus passes by. I couldn’t identify which ones, tough. Any guesses?
In honor of the 20th anniversary of the release of the 2003 film MOON CHILD, which starred HYDE and GACKT together, it will once again be shown in theaters in Japan for a limited time. From the 10th to 22nd of November 2023.
Didn’t find much info about it, but according to the racer, it has a regular car plate so the car is allowed to run on the streets of Japan, instead of just racing tracks, and he often does just that.
LOL, an yaoi manga, ofc. I looked it up and too bad they don’t actually mention MALICE MIZER by name. Apparently the other characters were MALICE MIZER cosplayers, eh? Then the other dude dresses up as Mana and asks his robot bf to dress up as GACKT, even tough he looks more like KAMIJO, because he has a fetish and that’s where I stopped reading
