Maybe I’m just being picky about the term “mainstream” or focusing too much on numbers. And maybe I do just know all the wrong normies. I’m a bit picky about Oricon sales because a lot can impact where a release lands (such as what else is being released that day, how many editions of a certain piece are being sold, etc). If we look at a mainstream rock band (non VK) like The Oral Cigarettes, their sales drag any VK release through the mud, even if they happened to land on the same or similar numbers. But again, maybe I’m just focusing too much on every little detail. If I were to rewrite a more laxed version on my previous tier list, it would probably look something more like this:
Tier 1: God tier, household names. The college kid who’s barely discovering their taste in music is going to know them, your 30-50 yo coworker is going to know them, your grandma is going to know them: X Japan, L’arc en Ciel, Luna Sea, Glay, Hyde in general.
Tier 2: Mainstream bands as in a fair share of people in and out of the scene know them. You’ll see their billboards around the city, they do openings for tv shows, they get those trucks to drive around playing their music, etc: Dir en Grey, The Gazette, Nightmare, Anything with Kyo, Lynch, Mucc, Sid, Versailles, Alice Nine. Kuroyume and Penicillin would be here back in their days.
I would say the big two are Diru and The Gazette. With Dir en Grey being slightly in the lead for the reasons I previously mentioned.
Nightmare still hold a special kind of recognition power because a lot of people still remember them from death note and they still do tv appearances. The Gazette and Dir en Grey still play bigger venues than them though.
Tier 3: Popular VK acts that are popular to a bigger audience but don’t quite reach the guys in the top: Dezert, Kizu, Razor, Dadaroma, Arlequin. Xaa-Xaa and Gulu Gulu are getting here.
Weird Tier: The VK bands that are doing the metalcore/deathcore influenced thing. Probably selling as much as the guys above with the exception of Dezert and Kizu who are outselling everyone else: Dexcore, Nazare, Jiluka, Nocturnal Bloodlust.
Tier 4: Popular indie bands that are popular in the more underground scene: Ashmaze, Virge, Nicolas, The Madna. Xanvala, Ari.
Tier 5: They’re selling well now, but we’ll see where they’re at in a year: Kaneto Juusei, Dazzling Bad. Kaneto Juusei are basically the envy of the do-minor scene right now. I’m interested in seeing how they get to the the next step.
See I can only speak from the VK side on that regard. The aforementioned bands are special in that they play events with both metalcore/deathcore bands and with Visual kei bands. As far as the VK side goes, I think they’re pretty much the envy of a lot of other bands for it. Would love to hear more about it from someone who’s more familiar with the other side though .
Also I don’t follow any Japanese metalcore/deathcore bands, but I do follow quite a few western ones and partake in discussions with the fandom. It’s not rare for the occasional person to ask about “Japanese core bands” and bring those guys up.
(and it’s their “fault” since they aren’t even on my streaming service for instance, … and are afraid of planes supposedly.)