ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) started to form in Japan in the 1980’s, creating a genre where the visual performance of the artist is just as important as the music they make. The name itself is derived from the slogan “Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock”, which was seen on the cover of X Japan’s second studio album “Blue Blood”, released in 1989.
By combining the often flamboyant and androgynous looks with their music, these artists tell the story of their works in a more theatrical way than other genres worldwide often do. The visual presentation also allows these artists to express themselves individually in their own creative style.
While ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) is the “top” of the genre, there are a lot of artists who can’t be categorized in any of it’s many subgenres but still have the ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) style in their works. That’s why we’ve collected them here, as well as bands from other countries that have been inspired by this unique genre.
Before we get to the actual contents of this post, we have to do a little bit of an introduction first. Since we’ll be doing something a little different than usual… The following interview was not conducted by us here at Arlequin Magazine, but by オザキケイト (Ozaki Keito) in late August of 2021.
Perhaps you’ve seen word going around about this small project on Twitter, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this managed to sneak by you entirely either.
縁 (Enishi) was originally intended as a one-time-only session band lead by SUI, existing out of former members of Megaromania,
Nellfin are a ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) band from the 名古屋 (Nagoya) Prefecture, but we’re pretty sure that you haven’t heard much about them just yet. And if you have, well, then we hope to be able to tell you a little more about this duo and their music.
Which is why we’ve asked vocalist JURI
GLIM GARDO is still a relatively new band, given they’ve only formed last year and released their very first single, “Obscurial”, in April of 2020. Unfortunately for them this happened to be right in the middle of the pandemic. Despite this difficult situation they’ve managed
You might remember the interview I did in early January, in which I introduced you to MIRAI, Hideki, YURI, Shion and Rio’s work as Angels’ Temptation.
Angels’ Temptation is fairly unique in the ヴィジュアル系 (Visual Kei) scene because despite all members being from Japan, their style
In August of 2019 I shared a post about SUI starting a crowdfunding campaign with the intention to gather funds for the third anniversary of David, which he planned to have in Europe. Paris, to be exact. The crowdfunding ended up being a great success, even raising more money than the target goal. This
It’s a little bit last minute, but TAKA and SYU have announced a change to their live performance that was scheduled for May 30th:
Originally planned as a live performance like we’re all used to, circumstances forced the guys to move their stage from a live venue to the studio. Rather than
You said it would be awesome if I could do an interview with L from MEME. And yes, I agree. That would be pretty awesome. So I set out to do just that. I asked L if he would be interested in doing an interview, and as you can probably conclude from this article being here now, the answer was a resounding “yes!”.
You might have seen this small notification slide by on Twitter already, but in case you haven’t…
Do you remember the interview I did with the members of 摩天楼オペラ (Matenrou Opera) in late January of this year?
(If you haven’t read it, or need a quick refresher, you can find it here!)
One
To celebrate his birthday TAKA originally planned a live performance for February 24, 2021. Unfortunately this performance had to be rescheduled to another date due to Japan declaring the state of emergency once again.
After a lot of planning a new date for the live has been decided: April 7.
The performance
Even though it has been a hot minute since I was able to ask all members of 摩天楼オペラ (Matenrou Opera) a long list of questions about the band and their activities as individual members, there was one thing that wasn’t sitting right with me. Because most of you will recognize 響 (Hibiki) as the drummer of 摩天楼オペラ
It has been almost a year since the pandemic hit, and I don’t think I have to explain you how bad the situation is for everyone in all corners and occupations all over the world. But because of the subject we usually talk about here I’d like to limit ourselves to the categories of “musicians”