YOHIO (GACKT YELLOW FRIED CHICKENz, DISREIGN) new Japanese album, “dreamchaser.” will be released on 12/11. It is his first Japanese album in 11 years, since the release of “BREAK THE BORDER” in 2013.
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Presave:
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His VKei music wasn’t really good. But his later work outside of VKei is amazing. So I hope he does bring some of that gained experience to this album
I’m curious who this is for. Growing up, I remember this guy being a laughing stock in the VK community. Does he have Japanese fans? Swedish fans?
maybe weebkei fans who are only interested in non-jp acts like madmans espirit, etc? 
That seems like an extremely small audience, lol.
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From what I could gather he was very famous initially. Especially with his first band. His solo VK work was also well received until he overstayed his welcome and became arrogant about being a foreigner in VK.
I know currently in VKei he’s considered to have downgraded. I think the opposite. His more current music is much better than anything he did in VKei
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What is the problem with small audience ?
Madmans esprit had a succesfull european tour, this is not a small audience.
The time of Tokyo Hotel is over people either want the real thing or a oversea equivalent of the real thing not a Tokyo hotel.
If you want to define the audience truly as only interested in oversea acts with Japanese influence which still are accessible enough western pop rock you indeed only get a small amount of people, properly some Germans folks who got so drunk that they did not notice the further passing of time after the mid 2000s
I didn’t like BREAK THE BORDER because it felt like he was trying to imitate the scene instead of being himself. It’s been 11 years. Let’s actually see what he delivers before we clown on him.
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I can’t imagine that he has many fans tbh
Honestly I’m willing to become a solid fan of his now that he doesn’t do VK. Nocturnal Serenade is undeniably a great song. If he releases more stuff like that I’m all in. Even if he does unhinged rants on Twitter
when did he leave vk? he still collaborates with vk artists and performs with Gackt and Kamijo, and his newer stuff reads more like those bland light vk solo projects nobody cares about
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Idk why but he has both mia and hizaki vibes
He’s a bit forgotten in Sweden. He became well-known here when he almost won Melodifestivalen, but over time, Swedish media slowly lost interest in him. To be honest, I haven’t heard anyone mention him in years, haha. I think he moved to Japan to establish himself there, which might explain why.
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Yeah swedish people don’t care about him anymore.
It’s a shame Disreign never kept at it; they sounded perfectly normal and fitting with the scene, which is a ridiculous feat imho for a band of all foreigners who just showed up and at least seemed like they were trying to make it work on Japan’s terms. I put all their singles together in my iTunes and still listen to that “album” every once in a while; it’s not bad and has its own strengths! But seems like nothing since has been, we’ll say, written for an audience w/ tastes like mine
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Didn’t know he still performed with Gackt and Kamijo I don’t keep up with either. I know some of his solo work in recent years and it’s definitely not VK and if it does somehow fit into VK, it’s far from bland. Songs like Nocturnal Serenade, Merry Go Round, Daydreams all slapped and even if the VK audience refuses to accept it, it deserves an audience.
Also comparing Yohio’s singing from his earlier days to now is like night and day. It’s clear he’s taken some serious vocal training
A significant portion of this material has been released beforehand. He’s been dropping this vk-esque Japanese material sporadically for the past couple of years.The English language showtune material mentioned above has at least half a decade on it and sounds nothing like this, and he hasn’t dropped anything like it since slowing down in activity and putting his other projects on halt.
It’s a shame Disreign didn’t come to much, I liked the second and third single tracks quite a bit, but he’s been in a habit of spurts of frantic activity and then either swerving or ceasing altogether. Understandably it’s most likely due to external circumstances, juggling between countries, the availability of the other musicians and financial considerations.
These new Japanese tracks sound like they’re a passion a project and he doesn’t care to try and make them into a thing – it’s just the kind of stuff he likes to play and he’s playing it. The conversation about whether he’s vk or not and what the reception is like is something that no one who’s been following the guy really thinks about, and no one Japan cares either. To be honest, I kind of wince when I see the same conversations around the guy I saw 15 years ago or something but I realise not many people are so chronically swede-kei as I am. All these dudes moved on a looooong time ago and have released albums worth of material since then.
His online fanbase at its peak few years ago had almost zero overlap with the vk community. He’s acquainted with bandmen from years ago and plays with them, because he’s a fan too, and he’s sort of pivoting back to those influences with this stuff. Suji’s assessment of this sound is about right. I’m curious what he’s doing as a day job. I figured it’d be producing since I think he started doing that towards the later Keios period, but he’d probably have some credits somewhere by now if that was the case.
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Tokio Hotel are pretty successful still actually.
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