Visual kei

1980–2000: Origins and success

Visual kei emerged in the 1980s underground scene, pioneered by bands such as X Japan, Dead End, D'erlanger, Buck-Tick and Color. The term visual kei (the kanji kei meaning "system", "order", "origin") is believed to come from one of X Japan's slogans, "Psychedelic Violence-Crime of Visual Shock", written on the cover of their second studio album Blue Blood (1989). The movement designated a new form of Japanese rock music influenced by Western hard rock and glam metal bands like Kiss, Twisted Sister, Hanoi Rocks, Mötley Crüe, as well punk-gothic rock influence, and it was established in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The movement is roughly divided into two generations, with the first in three transitional eras, of which the first lasted almost a decade.

In the late 1980s and until the mid 1990s, visual kei received increasing popularity throughout Japan, when album sales from visual kei bands started to reach record numbers. The most notable bands to achieve success during this period included X Japan, Buck-Tick and Luna Sea; however, a drastic change in their appearance accompanied their success. The first band whose recordings achieved a notable success was Dead End, whose independent album Dead Line (1986) sold over 20,000 copies, while major Ghost of Romance (1987) reached No. 14 on the Oricon albums chart. They even had two albums released by American label Metal Blade Records, however, Dead End and D'erlanger disbanded in 1990, and from the mid 1988s and 1989s Buck-Tick and X Japan started to gain mainstream success. In 1992, X Japan tried to launch an attempt to enter the American market, even signing with Atlantic Records for a US album, but this ultimately did not happen.

Two record labels, Extasy Records (Tokyo) and Free-Will (Osaka), were instrumental in promoting the visual kei scene. Extasy was created by X Japan's drummer and leader Yoshiki and signed bands, not limited to visual kei acts, that would go on to make marks on the Japanese music scene, including Zi:Kill, Tokyo Yankees and Ladies Room. Luna Sea and Glay, who went on to sell millions of records, with Glay being one of Japan's best-selling musical acts, had their first albums released by Extasy in 1991 and 1994. Free-Will was founded by Color vocalist and leader Dynamite Tommy, while at the time not as popular as Extasy, it had many moderately successful acts, such as By-Sexual and Kamaitachi. Currently Free-Will is still going strong and has been a major contributor in spreading modern visual kei inside and outside Japan, whereas Extasy followed its owner and became based out of the US, signing and producing American acts, and has since faded away.

The second transition era began in 1993 by bands such as L'Arc-en-Ciel, Glay (although formed in 1988, their first album was released in 1994), Kuroyume, Malice Mizer and Siam Shade. They gained mainstream awareness, although they were not as commercially successful, except for L'Arc-en-Ciel and Glay whose later huge success was also accompanied by a drastic change in their appearance and were often not associated with visual kei. Around 1995 the visual kei bands experienced a booming success in the general population. It lasted four years, when began the third transition era by bands such as La'cryma Christi, Penicillin, Shazna and Dir en Grey with moderate success. During the 1990s emerged some subgenres, local Nagoya kei (with more emphasize on music rather than fashion), and several conceptual like Eroguro kei (notably band Cali Gari), Angura kei (underground style, wearing traditional kimono or Japanese uniform), and Ouji kei or Kodona kei (prince/boy style, notably Plastic Tree).

By the late 1990s, the mainstream popularity of visual kei was declining; in 1997 Luna Sea was on a yearly hiatus, X Japan had disbanded and one year later their lead guitarist hide died, in 1999 died Malice Mizer's drummer Kami after departure of singer Gackt, L'Arc-en-Ciel publicly distanced themselves from the movement (in 2012 were promoted as visual kei rock band), and in 2000, Luna Sea decided to disband as well. In 1998, Billboard's Steve McClure commented that "To a certain extent, hide's death means the end of an era, X were the first generation of visual kei bands, but the novelty has worn off. For the next generation of bands, it's like: That's it. The torch has been passed to us". As other bands could not meet financial expectations most major companies backed out of the genre, and it became an underground style often associated with rebellious generation, non-conforming to proper society.

2001–present: Neo-Visual Kei

A second generation emerged in visual kei-specific live houses managed by record companies like PS Company (Free-Will) and Maverick DC Group. Notable newer visual kei bands include The Gazette, Nightmare, Alice Nine, An Cafe, Sug, Mucc, D'espairsRay, who have all performed overseas. Veterans of the scene have also established new acts, such as Malice Mizer's Mana with his band Moi dix Mois, and three members of Pierrot forming Angelo. In 2007, visual kei was revitalized as Luna Sea performed a one-off performance and X Japan officially reunited with a new single and a world tour. With these developments, visual kei bands enjoyed a boost in public awareness, with bands formed around 2004 having been described by some media as "Neo-Visual Kei" (ネオ・ヴィジュアル系). From this generation emerged subgenre Oshare kei which changed the sound and look of the genre, producing pop-rock type with bright attire.

The difference between the first and second generation is that the second; has no straightforward music style, ranging from metal to pop, but still seemingly focused on heavy rock genres; the fashion and gender ambiguities are of central importance; although economically not very significant for the Japanese music market, it became the first Japanese genre which succeeded on international scale.

Although the first international concert was held in Taiwan by Luna Sea in 1999, only from 2002 the visual kei bands started to perform worldwide (United States, in Europe from 2004), with the initial interest coming from conventions like A-Kon. In the first five years Dir en Grey was especially well received. In 2007 was held first international exclusive festival, Jrock Revolution, in Los Angeles. Although recently some bands like The Gazette played at Tokyo Dome (not in full capacity), the majority of acts play in much smaller venues like Shibuya O-East. In 2009 at Makuhari Messe, and 2011 at Saitama Super Arena, was held V-Rock Festival which gathered over 50 visual kei rock bands.

As an epilogue to their 25th anniversary, Luna Sea hosted a rock festival titled Lunatic Fest on 27 and 28 June 2015, with an estimated 60,000 fans attending. Held at Makuhari Messe, there were three stages and 12 artists, with the host band performing twice both nights; once as opening act Lunacy and again as Luna Sea. Other acts included X Japan, Dead End, Dir en grey, Siam Shade and Tokyo Yankees the first night, and Aion, Buck-Tick, D'erlanger, Glay and Mucc the second night.

A visual kei rock festival was held at Makuhari Messe in October 2016, Visual Japan Summit, which was a revival of the Extasy Summit after 24 years. It included X Japan, Luna Sea, Glay and many other music acts.

Criticism

There has been criticism directed at newer visual kei bands for having lost the spirit of their forefathers, copying each other in design and sound, becoming all the same. As far back as 1998, Neil Strauss reported that to visual kei bands "after X" makeup and outrageous looks became "more important than music". Several older musicians expressed their discontent; Kirito (Pierrot, Angelo) said "now it's more like people are dressing up a certain way because they want to be visual kei or look visual kei. They are doing it to look like others instead of doing it to look different. This is obviously very different from when we started out more than ten years ago.", while Sugizo (Luna Sea) that "they cannot make good sounds and music is more like a hobby for them. I cannot feel their soul in the music".

Although almost from the newer generation himself, Dir en grey bassist Toshiya said in 2010 "to be honest, when we first started and we were wearing a lot of makeup on stage and stuff, there were a lot of bands doing that at the time in Japan, and people thought it was cool" and added "the music was so unique, too – bands like X Japan. At that time, there weren't any two bands that sounded alike; these days everyone sounds exactly the same". Kenzi (Kamaitachi, The Dead Pop Stars, Anti Feminism) commented in 2009 that "back in the day, there were bands, but people would try to do things differently. Nowadays, there's one band, and everyone copies off of them", with Free-Will founder and Color frontman Tommy concluding with "I don't think our breed of visual kei exists anymore".

Popularity

Visual kei has enjoyed popularity among independent underground projects, as well as artists achieving mainstream success, with influences from Western phenomena, such as glam, goth and cyberpunk. The music performed encompasses a large variety of genres, i.e. punk, metal, pop and electronica.

Magazines published regularly in Japan with visual kei coverage are Arena 37 °C, Cure, Fool's Mate Express, Shoxx, Shock Wave, Rock and Read among others. The popularity and awareness of visual kei groups outside Japan has seen an increase in recent years, mostly through internet and Japanese anime, shown for example by German magazines Peach and Koneko, as well European record label Gan-Shin. The biggest fan communities are found in United States, Germany, Poland, Russia, France and Brazil, and to some extent Finland, Chile and Sweden.

From these international youth subcultures and influence emerged bands like Cinema Bizarre, but they hesitate to consider themselves as visual kei because are not ethnically Japanese, and instead as glam rock. Despite the existence of visually similar music acts, including such as Marilyn Manson, Tokio Hotel and Lady Gaga, in the West the androgynous look of the visual kei bands often has repulsive effect.

According to the musicologists, the Lacanist psychoanalysis of the subculture indicate that the fascination to the singer's voice (the lack of understanding amplifies the effect), as well ineffable and unfulfillable desire, are what attracts most of the (predominantly female) fans to the groups on international scale. The female fans (bangyaru) show a behavioral pattern while attending the concerts, as there several furi (movements) like tesensu (arm fan), gyakudai (reversed dive), hedoban (headbang), saku (spread hands in the air). The explicit fan fiction, and homoerotic acts on the stage by some musicians called fan sabisu (fan service; a sexual term borrowed from manga culture), are related to the Lacanian man's type of desire (to be recognized by the other, desire of the other), i.e. the female fans do not desire the musician himself, but his desire, kind of cultural social training ground for the inescapable process of learning how to desire.