Compared to the other subcategories of visual kei, I feel like misshitsu kei is kind of mysterious.The definition of misshitsu kei is kind of inconsistent, at least based on the way bands are categorized on vkgy. For example, I was surprised to see that the Gallo and GURUGURU Eigakan have been placed in the same category. What do they have in common?
I don’t really know what classifies a band as misshitsu kei. I have my own associations, but perhaps someone who has more firsthand experience with the scene has a better understanding. I also want to add that I’m curious about the origin of misshitsu kei as a whole. I kind of attribute its origin to cali≠gari, but again I’m not really sure. Any thoughts on this?
The term originated from cali≠gari’s own indies label Misshitsu Neurose (密室ノイローゼ). They used to have events and small underground mini-festivals with like-minded not-too-mainstream bands who then somehow ended up being called “misshitsu kei” by fans. I don’t think the bands would label themselves as such tho (?).
To be honest I personally can’t really describe it musically, it’s just an arbitrary categorization like so many random “…-kei” types.
edit: the event series is called Tokyo Chikashitsu (東京地下室) if you’re interested to check the lineups on the band’s vkgy profile.
i think it’s helpful to think of all these xxx-kei s as not being like, on the same level, equal categorizations. 系(kei) is just like ‘style’ anyway! on vkgy there’s a whole category of Rob-Kei - not bc this is a way even a single fan in Japan might talk, just bc Rob likes a certain sound and someone wanted to tag all the bands that appeal to it.
for me in the US i think of terms like crabcore & buttrock that are absolutely useful and meaningful terms. there’s something these both say about an aesthetic, some common elements in the music, and maybe the lyrics too. I might say “Crush 40 is buttrock” - i might also say “there’s no band more buttrock than Crush 40”, but that doesn’t mean that Crush 40 wouldn’t consider themselves some degree of hard rock to hair/glam metal.
i remember a tweet of something from Koudai from Royz saying something about “i wrote this song to prove Royz is more than just キラキラ系 (kirakira kei / sparkly style)” (there have been many similar statements from him over the years)
so obviously this term carries some weight to him, tho it’s not one we use as much over here.
but i don’t know that in Japan, by the bands, these terms are so much discrete buckets that bands are plopped into like how we talk about them here (eg “is Versailles tambi kei or erega kei?” / “is Gallo taisho kei or angura kei?”)
i hear a lot used more like… okay Royz is pretty sparkly and bright so makes sense to put a hashtag ‘kirakira kei’ on them. But Egoist is a cover of Rosier, and Kazuki mentions writing Lilia w/ 90s riffs, so there’s some relevance to the ‘kote kei’ hashtag there! and their whole sound is that post-2000s mix of kote & osare, so sure why not let the tag ‘koteosa kei’ apply, and so on so forth
(sidenote, i know the word is おしゃれ(oshare) as a word but watch how bandmen talk, in the context of vkei i always see it as オサレ(osare))
When you see any 系、you should think that a group of people think that something is “-ish” enough to put it in the category. Not only bands, also tv programs, food, literally everything. 密室系 bands was signed the same label, so they were categorised so, at least in 90s.