Random Thoughts: The Return

[sanctum]

Caught some 'roras:

So was it worth seeing in person?

 

[sanctum]

I might see if it's possible to extract just the inner frame from the backing, but I have no idea if it's part of the work or what.

How did that go for you anyway?

I've been living in Japan now for so long that the sight of carpet is slightly confusing.

Now that I'm back in Australia after living in Japan for so long I can report that I hate carpet.

So I had more than a bit of a scare today: got in a painting of an archangel in the Cuzco style here, and it arrived in grievous condition:

I had a weird dream about this painting last night.

 

[flowersofnight]

So was it worth seeing in person?

I think so, although it doesn't look anything like photos in real life. Without a long exposure, the auroras are pale bands with maybe the faintest tinge of green.
There was a Japanese couple there (by way of Manchester) who said seeing the aurora was on their bucket list. I told them on a clear night like this I could see the little star next to the Big Dipper but they didn't get the reference

How did that go for you anyway?

Oh, upon further inspection it seems the whole framing was done by the artist himself, or at least his studio, so I left it as-is. I did find a place to hang it at least.

I had a weird dream about this painting last night.

Freud would have a field day about the gun that no longer exists.

 

[guroseii]

Is Robbie Williams really unknown in America? I couldn't pick out any of his music but I remember seeing/hearing him everywhere twenty or so years ago.

kind of, if you're referring to that biopic depicting him as a ... chimp? it was destined for failure imo and i mean the only reason i'd heard his name so much as an american is because i lived in the uk for a while

 

[sanctum]

This collaboration is so odd, https://x.com/Diver_frog/status/1882040439060259208

 

[König Lindemann]

I think only vkgy people use those terms "kote", "tanbi", "nagoya". I haven't seen nobody outside this vkgy niche (people who only knows band by vkgy) using this. It doesn't sound natural. It's not like pop, metal or something like this. But technically is correct, since have different styles of vkei and vkei-dressing. It's just weird.
This is not a critique to vkgy website tho.

 

[flowersofnight]

This collaboration is so odd, https://x.com/Diver_frog/status/1882040439060259208

They've already done everything else, it was inevitable.

I think only vkgy people use those terms "kote", "tanbi", "nagoya".

I think "Nagoya" was a thing people actually said at the time. Geographical names like "NYHC" or "krautrock" have a long and distinguished pedigree after all, so it's not surprising.

This is not a critique to vkgy website tho.

I'm not going to stop you even if it is XD

 

[König Lindemann]

I think "Nagoya" was a thing people actually said at the time

It's more terms like “oshare”, “tanbi”, “kote” that are new to me personally. I see a lot of new playlists of old songs that are considered “kote”. There are terms for such specific things, even in metal there aren't so many derivations.

I'm not going to stop you even if it is XD

I think then, the thing that makes me annoyed there, is how in articles a band X is categorized with a type of kei and on their page it says “not visual kei”, or even people asking for it to be removed.
Example: BOOWY being considered korefuku kei the father of the glam metal visual kei hair metal (predecessor of okeshou-kei, bands like LUNASEA, XJAPAN and so on), being I think the first type of “visual kei”. However, when you enter their page, they are not considered visual kei.

I like BOOWY a lot, but anyone who considers BUCK-TICK visual kei should consider them too, especially with BUCK-TICK having been called “the new BOOWY” for years.

 

[König Lindemann]

there is one exception- oshare-kei existed for a brief blip in the mid to late 2000s and then mercifully died, it was...not great? imo? lol.

Oshare kei is the closest thing we've had to a Japanese wave of the emo scene, and it's been growing again as social networks try to revive this style.

Even using vk.gy to look up 'fashion' is a fallacy because the bands change looks CONSTANTLY, so you can't look at a photo of an established band and say, "Oh, so this is their look!" because if you see another picture for the year after that one, they could look completely different again. You're trying to grasp smoke lol

Taking this opportunity, I basically said exactly that about THE WEBSITE, they put several things in one band, basing themselves and trying to label styles, it makes me a little uncomfortable. VKEI shouldn't be about labels, it should be about a form of expression. You listen to their music and you like their style too.

I don't know how to feel about the current VKEI, because it all looks the same. The same thing with edgy, it's not even cool edgy, it's just stuff... Pig sounds... I don't see anything very unique. It's like that “tanbi” wave we had a while ago, of people wanting to be elegant aristocrat goth and then everyone was calling it a bunch of “Mana clones”.

 

[sanctum]

All the Japanese people I know who grew up with v-kei just call it v-kei (or visual-kei) and would have no idea what any of these niche terms mean (they'd probably just comment 'wow, foreigners are really into this stuff, ね'.

anyone who considers BUCK-TICK visual kei

They also consider Buck-Tick, The Zolge, L-arc-en-cial, Glay and Luna Sea to be visual-kei as well.

It's a useful term for talking about a specific time and place in Japanese music history, but trying to cram everything under visual-kei is a ridiculous endeavour. Take Wikipedia's wording for example; Japanese musicians that have a strong focus on extravagant stage costumes. Maybe it's just me, but when I look at bands like Buck-Tick and X-Japan, what they were wearing on stage doesn't seem any more extravagant than what was contemporaneous with the glam metal (and glam rock before then) scene (just noticed that X Japan's wikipedia even describes Visual-kei as analogous with glam), or even strike me as much of a costume (compared to say Malice).

Then you look at a band like Seikima-II, who do wear elaborate costumes (far more elaborate than other V-kei bands, just like Malice), but they're not considered part of visual-kei. I'm ranting, but I just wish people would care more about the bands and their music than futilely trying to pigeon-hole everything into artificial categories that do nothing but confuse people.

 

[Vana Nihil]

I think only vkgy people use those terms "kote", "tanbi", "nagoya"

I think you underestimate the role of sites like vkgy, it's not that they don't know bands without vkgy, it's just the most accessible database of them, that is available, and then this people post on social media, and other people, who are into the visual kei, are introduced to this terms, and then they start to use them themselves, without even knowing, that there is a thing like vkgy. I heard about "tanbi-kei" before even hearing about vkgy.

This collaboration is so odd, https://x.com/Diver_frog/status/18820404390602592

I came to believe that Anno just doesn't care about Eva anymore, imho he outright hate it, because he never made anything that influential after it, nothing ever came close. But since it's his most profitable IP, so he is milking it to the fullest, and yes, I strongly believe that milking it was the reasoning behind creating Rebuilds too, because they are not just soulless imitation of the original, they are the anti-thesis to the NGE/EoE. It's obvious that he don't want to do Evangelion anymore, and he simply did it, so he can do movies he wants to do.

 

[sanctum]

he can do movies he wants to do.

I went to the Hideaki Anno exhibition that was held a couple of years ago and from what I remember the main focus was on his lifelong ambitions as a film-maker (starting with messing around making 8mm tokusatsu with his friends to his current works).

 

[flowersofnight]

It's a useful term for talking about a specific time and place in Japanese music history, but trying to cram everything under visual-kei is a ridiculous endeavour.

Yeah, it's kind of like "science fiction". You can try to subclassify everyone who ever wrote a book that had a spaceship, but the more useful working definition is probably closer to "People who were published by John W. Campbell and hung out with Isaac Asimov at conventions" (at least at a certain point in time)

I came to believe that Anno not just doesn't care about Eva anymore, imho he outright hate it

I mean, hasn't that been obvious since the first "End of Evangelion"? He hates Evangelion, and if you watched it, he hates you.
That's why he was fine with releasing nonsense like those dating simulator games from day one.

 

[Vana Nihil]

I mean, hasn't that been obvious since the first "End of Evangelion"? He hates Evangelion, and if you watched it, he hates you.
That's why he was fine with releasing nonsense like those dating simulator games from day one.

Not really, EoE feels to me more like a critique of escapism and in the end really hopeful movie. And I don't think that he hated Evangelion and Eva fans back then, even if it's absolutely understandable, since some of them sent him death threats. It just feels too hopeful for that.
And for the sim games, I would like to point out, that he didn't own the Eva IP back then.

I went to the Hideaki Anno exhibition that was held a couple of years ago and from what I remember the main focus was on his lifelong ambitions as a film-maker (starting with messing around making 8mm tokusatsu with his friends to his current works).

I mean... it's sad that Love & Pop isn't that much known.

 

[König Lindemann]

L-arc-en-cial

L'arc is now considered by them as "vkei went non vkei".
Recently, they changed, as an influential non-vkei band. They've removed the tag, you can even check by the first comment questioning it.

Japanese musicians that have a strong focus on extravagant stage costumes.

They also have a specific 'kei' for type of thing.

I just wish people would care more about the bands and their music than futilely trying to pigeon-hole everything into artificial categories that do nothing but confuse people.

What really puzzles me is how everything has to be specifically placed in labeled boxes, when that's not what vkei is about. This even contributes a little to vkei being the niche of the niche, where people don't give other bands a chance. Some of them looks like the same thing.

Some change their style with each album.

 

[flowersofnight]

They also have a specific 'kei' for type of thing.

They have as many words for visual kei as the Germans have for schadenfreude

 

[König Lindemann]

schadenfreude

Schadenkei
By the way, wordhippo tried to put synonyms in english for what a schadenfreud means. Cool name for a vkei band from 90s.

 

[sanctum]

L'arc is now considered by them as "vkei went non vkei".

Which begs the question how many bands were consciously v-kei, as opposed to just aping whatever they were imitating during their 高校 daze.

He hates Evangelion, and if you watched it, he hates you.

EoE feels to me more like a critique of escapism and in the end really hopeful movie.

EoE to me had cool robots fighting each other and a whole bunch of psycho-babble.

Cool name for a vkei band from 90s.

Can't wait to see what vk.gy genre 'Epicaricacy Sadism' receive.

 

[flowersofnight]

Which begs the question how many bands were consciously v-kei, as opposed to just aping whatever they were imitating during their 高校 daze.

Yeah, I think any "genrefication" of VK has to take into account that the largest genre by far was "Just doing this to get a girlfriend" XD

 

[sanctum]

the largest genre by far was "Just doing this to get a girlfriend" XD

Boshū-chū-kei, coming soon.