#also gackt’s solo stuff

[k9wa]

MALICE MIZER

i luv malice mizer :3 so much :3

[withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus]

What do you think of The Last Rockstars? I'm pretty excited about anything HYDE does, to be honest. (All four of them are great, and I love Yoshiki of course, but HYDE is my favorite.)

I think I'd made a post about it but I could be wrong. ^^> (I probably chickened out xD) Ok so at first I had mixed feelings, because personally I don't like Yoshiki (he's a legend, I'm in no way saying he is overrated or anything, it's just how I personally perceive some things he's done over his career) and I didn't know what to expect with him having Hyde (a person I am a big fan of) and Miyavi (sb I'm not actively following but have huge respect for) in the same band as him. With Sugizo, I didn't worry cause they've worked together before. So yeah, there was that and then there was also the concern of whether this will eventually turn to a real band, or be scrapped as fast as the previous time Yoshiki tried sth similar with the same lineup but with Gackt in Hyde's place. On to what happened later now...I saw a video from their first (?) performance at an xmas live at a Japanese channel (I forget the name rn, sorry ;;) and I found myself smiling and oddly, relieved. Their energy together was amazing, they seemed to be having looots of fun so, suddenly, I didn't mind it so much. I can't quite explain it but, because i'm too much of an emotional person and I love to see my favorite people, whether famous or not, happy, I let it be and now I'm quite glad they did that. I don't know how long this will go on, but as long as Hyde & Miyavi are having a blast, I'll be here cheering and supporting their project.

You probably didn't expect an essay, I apologize. xD But I should say sth for the music now too, cause yeah the shows look super fun, but music is a whole different game. Soooo....I personally don't like it. ^^' Not the first 2 songs that were released I mean. I can't say if this will remain that way in the future, but the 2 we have, so far, are not my cup of tea. They are all amazing musicians though so who knows? Maybe at some point in the future they will release sth that I like, too. ^^

I'm always excited about Hyde's projects too, in general but I seem to be more into what he does solo and stuff he did with Vamps. Which one is your favorite project @marlenadutch ? ^^

[withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus]

@diablerieholic Many vkei bands have tried goth rock before but those mentioned the most as mostly if not completely goth are Malice Mizer and BUCK-TICK. I do not listen to BUCK-TICK so I have no recommendations but since you listen to them already I am sure you will find plenty of songs to like. ^^

As for Malice Mizer, I think the most gothic album of theirs is Bara no Seidou, however please do try songs from their Tetsu (1st) era too, before Gackt, because it was heavily gothic, I just wasn't a big fan of Tetsu's voice so I don't know what to suggest from that time. If you wish to try Gackt era songs too, go ahead, but do expect a more medieval style goth.

I am not sure if I'm allowed to put Plastic Tree here, perhaps I'd go with their vocalist's solo, Ryutaro Arimura's. However I am not very good with distincting genres, not going to lie, especially since many artists like to blend stuff, so take this with a grain of salt. In case you wish to try Plastic Tree though, I'd suggest "Kuroi Kasa". There's sth haunting about this song and the emotion it puts out...I don't know if it's what you're looking for though.

Versailles do have some goth songs but most of them are symphonic metal. So I won't even try to suggest something here cause, I'll probably fail miserably. ^^' I think Lareine, Versailles' vocalist's previous band is more gothic than Versailles I don't know.

Another kind of gothic that's more witchy and ethereal to me is 9goats black out. Do try "Sink", "You", and "yasashisa no imi" if you like. They are all ballads but I'm a bit stuck right now and can't think of anything else.

D have some goth songs as well, but like Versailles, I don't know what to suggest. There is a lot of rock and symphonic metal in their works, but they do like to play with more stuff like jazz, pop, Japanese folk etc.

Kaya is another option. He does a lot of electronic music but he's got goth songs too, like Curse of Rose, Traumerei, Ophelia (although that does have his signature electronic music in too) & Vampire Requiem.

Ah Syndrome is fully goth I think. Syndrome is the previous band of the vocalist and guitarist of D. Do look them up if you wish. They are more old school though. You might have better luck finding their songs on Ask.fm than youtube btw. To check if they are your style I mean. You can also try the other D's guitarist's previous band As'Real. You can try "Carnation" from those guys. They're oldschool too.

Last but not least, Tokami is another band with a several gothic songs but they also had lots of metal. And once again I don't have specific recommendations but mostly cause I think I listen to none of their gothic songs, only rock or metallish ones.

These are the only bands I listen to that usually get tagged with "gothic rock" in vkei libraries. I hope something helps.

I've really slept on visual kei. BUCK-TICK's goth rock and post-punk tracks/inspired tracks are really good. Would anyone have any recommendations for VK songs or albums that are similarly goth rock-y and/or post-punk-y?

[olderthannetfic]

Since you seem to be litigating rpf right now and since you’ve been around awhile, I wanted to ask you about how it’s evolved, if you haven’t already talked about that? I’ve been in fandom for maybe 15ish years, and I remember reading a lot of rpf back then (when rps seemed like more common terminology), and I feel like there were more defined lines between fans and the real people they wrote about. A lot of “if you got here by googling yourself, go back” disclaimers vs the current culture where some fans seem to show the people or ask them about fic and art and other fan works. It’s like there was a culture of secrecy before where there was less of a desire for the fanworks to ever reach their subjects, rpf or otherwise. I think most rpf writers/creators still feel that way, but I see so many awkward interview panels where actors/etc are being asked about fanfic. Is this in my head, or is the shift real?

--

Heh. Well, I was never a fan of any boy bands or the like until bitten by the BTS bug. I didn't even know who BSB and NSYNC were at the height of their popularity. So I did not always have a front-row seat to RPF evolution, but as far as I know, it went something like this in English-speaking spaces:

Prehistory: 1960s magazines were full of "Your night on a date with [member of the Monkees]" type stories. Music RPF was floating around in various forms for a long, long time, though the m/m band member/band member stuff tended to be extremely locked down, often with the names replaced.

From Eroica with Love shows how horny everybody was for Led Zeppelin back then. I can only presume there were doujinshi of the members in Japanese, but I'm not really familiar with what was going on over there.

Idols & Visual Kei: English-speaking fandom of Asian groups was into RPF by the early 00s and perhaps before. I was tangentially aware of this stuff from being in anime fandom but wasn't interested because I wasn't into most of the music itself. (Also, this was the era of limewire computer viruses or paying like $60 to get a Japanese album legally in the US.)

Johnny's Entertainment fandom is what I associate with this, circa 2001. On the visual kei side, people were shipping Malice Mizer around then.

Godawful 2003 vampire movie Moon Child, starring Gackt (of Malice Mizer and solo fame) and Hyde of L'Arc~en~Ciel (yes, with a fucking tilde) did make people ship their characters but certainly did not dissuade people from shipping the guys themselves.

Popslash - Ye olde slash fandom converts: On the very, very Western side of things, all of the oldschool slashers started catching the RPF bug for "popslash" in the late 90s/early 00s. Prior to this, RPF was a HARD NO for much of this crowd and continued to be seen as a dirty secret. This umbrella term was intended for specifically BSB, NSYNC, and a few other pop stars, not just fic of any pop act. I don't know if people were calling it "RPS". I think they were just calling it "popslash", but I wasn't on the mailing lists and things. This was a pre-LJ era with that older infrastructure.

LOTR - Ye olde slash fandom converts again: Those that didn't get sucked in by popslash fell to LotRiPS when the Lord of the Rings movies came out in the early 00s. RPS was still seen as a shocking dirty secret before the advent of this fandom. Afterwards... people still hated it, but they'd realized there was no way to fully keep it out of their spaces. This also coincided with the move from the bajillions of LOTR (non RPF) archives with picky rules and mailing lists ruled with an iron fist to LJ with people's personal blogs full of their ungovernable wrong opinions and terrible taste in fandoms on display for all the world to see.

There was so much structured behind the scenes material for the LOTR movies that it formed a kind of canon of its own along with the press tours, and the actors were cuddly with each other. I don't think this is easy to understand now. Even the Hobbit movies didn't have this vibe, and there's so much more behind the scenes info and so many more youtube clips for everything now that the effect is much diminished. At the time, LOTR felt like a new era in sff franchise media.

There was tons of any two gu... um... somewhat generic hot porn, so even if you didn't care much for RPF, it became an attractive fandom. At this point, people were calling it "RPS", not "RPF", despite there being some femslash and het in the same spaces as all the Viggo/Orlando. The domlijah tinhats were notorious and did go bother the actors, I think?

The height of this fandom coincided with the height of cringey photomanips and "Why are their necks broken?" art with actors' faces on it. Fanartist The Theban Band was well known, though more for FPF than RPF. It's just that when you use the actual actors' faces, things tend to get conflated. Now, whether people started bothering most of the actors at the time in the early 00s, I don't know. Fanlore suggests that misuse of The Theban Band's art was already well underway in 2004. It's also often this stuff that Graham Norton bothers actors with years later.

It's not so much that fandom or RPF fandom changed at this point as that new people were into RPF who hadn't been before and much more importantly, the internet was changing. The level of access to actors and the level of awareness of online fandoms was changing radically around here. It changed again with Twitter and so forth, but this was still a major point in internet history.

Rockfic: "Rockfic" as seen on the Rockfic archive got started at some point. They meant Metallica, Bon Jovi, etc. I mostly know about them because there was beef between them and some of the popslash and bandom people around the time OTW was starting. (Popslash and bandom but not rockfic communities being well represented among OTW founders.)

Bandom: "Bandom" is another umbrella term with a general sound but a specific meaning. It was used for Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, and associated bands. This RPF fandom got big on LJ at the height of LJ fandom. It sucked in plenty of Western fandoms types who hadn't been into RPF before.

At the time, some of these bands and their associates weren't that famous, and they had personal Livejournals. It was not unusual for people peripherally involved with the actual people to be in the same spaces as the RPF. This was very much not appreciated by a lot of the fic authors. Band reactions seem to have varied between "yuck" and "Why doesn't anyone ship MEEEE? Don't you think I'M hot???" and other jokey lack of boundaries stuff.

A lot of the "Go away, X" disclaimers that sound like jokes are from this era and are due to some of these people actively going looking for the lulz.

Hockey - The final nail in the coffin for ye olde slash fandom: If the Popslash and LotRiPS waves didn't get people, Hockey did. After SGA, all the big slash writers that people follow from fandom to fandom seemed to be going to Hockey RPF.

Asianfanfics.com: Meanwhile, on the Asian media side of things, sites like Asianfanfics have been going strong for ages and are full of kpop rpf and the like.

Wattpad: Wattpad was the home of not only the Larries but of soooo much more Mary Sue/1D guy, and now Mary Sue/Jungkook.

--

How the boundaries are really depends on the era and the fandom.

The Rockfic archive used to make you pay a buck to sign up or something. It was extremely locked down, from what I remember, as you'd expect from a very old community writing m/m about macho bands.

The hockey people don't tend to be all up in players' faces because the players were mega, mega, mega famous long before the RPF fandom got big and because half the fandom doesn't even like sports: they're just there for the m/m AUs.

The Wattpad fandoms are a toxic hive of no boundaries and 13-year-olds posting their porn and too much personal info, but with fandoms as big as 1D or BTS, you can figure that plenty of individual people behave themselves.

Asking actors about fic in panels has become more common over the years, I think, though people have also learned to head it off better. I wouldn't say this is a RPF-specific phenomenon though.

[stingslikeabee]

💍 - fuck, marry, kill + Angeal, Genesis, Sephiroth. 8D

three choices . accepting

I literally woke up to this ask and thought 'whoa Muddy going straight for the jugular and I didn't even have my coffee' but okay. XD I guess I asked for this by posting this meme, haha.

1. Fuck

Going to say Genesis, because as an old-school VK fan, who didn't want to bang Gackt the moment he left MM for his solo career? I'm joking, though, that's not the actual reason. XD

Although in this blog Melissa has interacted with two lovely Geneses, I don't think I see a marriage potential there - passionate, dedicate lover potential? Sure. But knowing what's waiting for Genesis down the read with the decay and stuff... I don't think this seems at all possible.

2. Marry

Have to say Sephiroth because of the most interactions I've had - weirdly enough, even though we all know Sephiroth eventually goes on to become the big bad villain of the franchise, there is an entire heroic and very much human side to him in Crisis Core (meanwhile Genesis had already disappeared), and the Sephs I have written thus far were also very much kind to Melissa.

Not that Shinra would ever sanction this, of course. 8)

3. Kill

And this is Angeal, I think. I have absolutely nothing against the poor man, neither has Melissa - but I just never got to develop any Angeal connections so we hardly knew ye. :( Sorry Angeal. We wish we didn't have to pick someone for the 'kill' bit but we play by the rules for this meme.

[alaterdate]

Tagged by @theinquestitor for some monday night fun :^)

Name: Joejoe Pronouns: yes, i am pro nouns Zodiac Sign: Aquarius (hell yeah), Scorpio moon (😎), Virgo Rising (yuck!) Height: 5'10" & i wish i was taller Current Time: 10:30, but not by the time i finish this post Birthday: i'm a January Aquarius :^) Nationality: Mexican/Italian. & I speak neither spanish nor italian, à la place je parle un peu français et 少し日本語 😁 Favorite Bands: hrm... Bastille, 8 Graves, Empires (RIP), MCR. yeah these are all bands i'd go see in concert, IF THEY HAD ONE Favorite Solo Artists: Marina Diamandis, Florence Welch, Kevin Gates, GACKT When you made your blog: Made this one Summer 2013 Why did you choose your url: this blog has had several URLs, this one is because i think it's funny Last show you binged: i don't watch a lot of shows, but i think it was Castlevania and i didn't even finish it Following Count: 371 Follower Count: 205, and i'm sure half of these ppl followed me back when this was an A E S T H E T I C & Reference blog which was years ago ahahaha Average Sleep Time: uh ~5hrs. and time i go to sleep? who knows~ Other Blogs: Midorimahou - my art blog, but i hardly post anything i draw anymore :^T & Magusking - wolves, fire, night time, snakes, scary things, sexy things, cool shit, slow and only like 300 smth posts cuz i rarely see this stuff on my dash, but it's fun to look through. & now i'm reminded of my other other sideblog i should revive 🤔 Last thing you googled: dont use google, last thing i looked up: L'Arc-en-Ciel lol. I couldn't remember if they capitalized ciel Currently Wearing: pajamas Instrument: played clarinet in grade school, know some piano, tried the bass guitar Dream Trip: I want to go to d*****land france just for the ratatouille ride. i also want to go to rome Fave Food: chicken (but not fried chicken), chicken gnocchi soup, chicken & dumplings 🤤, ur telling me a chicken fried this rice? Fave Song: eh? hrm. how can i choose? I'll just share this french bop i listen to on repeat Top Three Fictional Universes: Dragon Age's Thedas, do i want to live there: no. whatever the fuck was going on in the The Phantom Tollbooth, do i want to live there: maybe. & i'd live in ffxiv for the catboys alone, idfk what's going on there tho

Tagging: @yuyuhakush0 , @pandorakarp , @bemused-writer , this one is long so not gonna tag too many of y'all, but if any one else wants a reason to talk about themselves like i do, tell 'em i sent ya!

[pekorosu]

a summary of the banana fish bits from the yoshida akimi + gackt interview in this malice mizer book (1998). i don’t think there’s a complete english t/l out there yet (please correct if i’m wrong) but there is a chinese one, so do check it out if you’re interested (thanks @vashak for the link!)

- Gackt once claimed to have read the series more than a hundred times and that he would love to meet the author. His wish finally came true and the meet-up took place at Yoshida’s home.

- Why was Gackt drawn to the series at first? Because of the art, especially the eyes.

- He has the tendency to go into different character POVs as he’s reading a story. For BF, he started out with Ash’s POV, then Eiji’s, and so on. He did it even for characters who die almost immediately, so once that happened he would go back to the beginning and start reading again from a different POV, repeating it until he’s done with all the charas.

- Yoshida says that she’s interested in how male readers view the story, because after all, it is a woman’s fantasy. She wonders if it’s hard for them to get into the story. Gackt says that he got really into it though. Yoshida concedes that there are men out there who like the series, but it is still a shoujo manga and the magazine it’s published in is also for girls, so she has never once thought about a male audience as she was drawing it. That’s why she’s curious about how it’s being read by them.

- Someone told Gackt about the manga, which is how he found out about it. He really liked the art style and the convos, and from then on, it felt like he got sucked into her world and couldn’t get out.

- For some reason, he also thinks that their collarbones are nice…? He talks about how the characters wear T-shirts and how the collarbones would just casually peek out and he thinks it’s nice. Yoshida’s like, huh, that’s a first. Lol. She also mentions that she’s not really the type to be particularly fussy about her art.

- Gackt asks what inspired her to want to draw BF. Yoshida says that during her college years, her generation was exposed to and was heavily influenced by drug culture, so everyone around her including herself was quite knowledgeable about the topic. And as she was reading all sorts of books on it, she came across something that mentioned that the CIA planned to use drugs for mind control and that apparently the Soviet Union had something similar in mind as well. She thought that was interesting. She also talks about how there are many weapons of war in this world, the main three being: nuclear weapons, food supply and oil... with drugs being said to be the fourth. Thinking about it now, that’s probably where the idea for the story was conceived.

- Editor(?) asks if she wasn’t just bringing in dramatic elements for the sake of creating more hurdles for Ash? Yoshida agrees that there was that too.

- Yoshida also talks about how she initially wanted to portray the main character as a more lively boy, since the ones she drew in the past were all kinda gloomy. She was aiming for something more positive or more shounen manga-esque, but it didn’t turn out that way in the end lol.

- Gackt says he was intrigued by certain words that came up in the series too. When he got to the word “Aslan,” a lot of stories started springing up inside him. At the same time, he got an inspiration for a song. That was when he came up with “Asrun Dream.” He didn’t know how to spell the word, so he had to do some research.

- Yoshida says that she doesn’t think the way he pronounced it is right… she thinks it’s supposed to sound more complicated? She talks about how she took French as a foreign language module in college, and she learned things like how the “h” is silent. For example, you’d pronounce hotel like “otel.” Anyway she thinks that there might be something like that as well when it comes to “Aslan.”

- Gackt asks about her readers’ reactions. Yoshida says that the most common one among girls is that they often identify with Eiji. They want to be Eiji, and they want to save Ash. And upon reaching the end, there was a lot of “Please don’t kill him.”

- Gackt asks if she’s thought of writing a whole story about Eiji and Sing after Ash’s death. Yoshida says that that story (GoL i guess) was supposed to be much longer... about how the two of them are going through life in present-day New York. But because of page restrictions and stuff when it came to compiling it into a volume, it had to be cut short. She says that the original story on its own was as long as an entire volume.

- Gackt says that he’s mentioned liking BF in a newsletter to his fanclub and that he’s drawn a portrait (of Ash? idk). Yoshida asks to see it and he’s like “sure” lol

- Editor says that BF feels very much like an American movie. Yoshida mentions that she had given the rights for a movie adaptation to Sakamoto Ryuichi, but for various reasons it ended up not happening. “Plus, River is no longer here too.” It was something like that.

- Gackt is asked if there’s any character he wants to play, and he says Shorter. Editor asks if that means he’s willing to cut his hair. Gackt says he would; he’d turn it into a mohawk, and then he’d shave it so that he can say this line in the movie: “I’m growing it out!”

- He also mentions wanting to play Arthur. Yoshida says that role might suit him better… the sad young man from the gloomy villains’ side. (t/l note: /raises eyebrow at “sad young man”)

- Initially, Gackt thought that he could do Ash or Arthur. But he felt that Shorter would be the toughest to play, so that’s why he prefers Shorter. Especially his final scene where he says, “Kill me.” What kind of expression should he make for that? A smile would be the toughest, wouldn’t it? And Shorter smiles a lot. Just what kind of feelings would there be behind that smile?

- Yoshida says she feels honored as a mangaka to know that he reads that deeply. Usually, she disappoints people because she always ends up saying “I never thought that far.” Editor says, but that means you’re writing it subconsciously right? Yoshida says well, I guess so.

- Editor says that, with such passion for the series, Gackt would be able to come up with a soundtrack or an image album, wouldn’t he? Gackt says yes, and that he’s come up with so many songs as he was reading the series. 

- He talks about how “Asrun Dream” has its own story behind it. Ash wakes up in the morning while Eiji is still asleep in bed, and he goes to lean against the window, looking out. That’s the scene inside him that evoked the song. Yoshida says that she would like to listen to it. Gackt says that it’s not released publicly and no one knows about it, but he still has it as an old song.

- Editor says that he should release it as a solo album, with the jacket art done by Yoshida. Yoshida’s like, wait what’s going on? lol. Gackt says of course, when the time comes he will request for it. If she refuses, he would do a dogeza all the way ‘til morning. Everyone laughs. He’s like, I’ll even quit my job. And she says that she feels the pressure mounting now lol.

- Gackt says that he’s always wanted to write down all the songs that come to him as he’s reading a story, and then compile them into an album bundled with a little book, like “please listen to this while you’re reading the book.” If there’s a chance, he’d definitely like to try it out. He says that he would always be waiting for that chance until the day he dies.

here’s a pic of her workspace:

[meztliel]

Tagged by @maiikawriter muchos thank yous bb

1) Name/nickname: Izzy or Mez but I prefer Mez online

2) Gender: Female

3) Star sign: Gemini (oh look Maiika, we both dem bipolar twins)

4) Height: 4′11′’ one more inch I’d technically be a dwarf

5) Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff? Never got into HP *dodges tomato*

6) Favourite animal: ALL OF THEM. But okay, dogs. 

7) Hours of sleep: 5-6. Uy. 

8) Dogs or cats: dogs (I like cats too tho)

9) Number of blankets: 1

10) Dream trip: Japan and New Zealand 

11) Dream Job: idk?? Just give me money

12) Time: 3:12 pm Central U.S. 

13) Birthday: May 23 

14) Favourite Bands: Hooo okay that’s a lot um Judas Priest, Eluveitie, Summoning, Windir, Agalloch, Dir en Grey, She Past Away, At the Gates, Týr , Epica, Malice Mizer (pre and post Gackt), Amon Amarth… just to name a few

15) Favourite Solo Artists:  Do composers count? If so: Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Adrian Von Zeigler, Nave Artificial. Oh, and Marc Anthony lmao (his Spanish-language stuff only)

16) Song Stuck In My Head: “Fear of the Dark” by Iron Maiden 

17) Last Movie I Watched: Tarzan (Disney)

18) Last Show I Watched: Poldark (with Aidan Turner, not the old one)

19) When Did I Create My Blog: Around February 2016

20) What Do I Post/Reblog: multi-fandom shit like DBZ, Rurouni Kenshin, Game of Thrones, Tolkien, Ranma ½, Pokemon, and anything I find cool, really. Also a lot of aesthetic stuff (witchy, gothy, nature and whimsical stuff) and music. 

21) Last Thing I Googled: dbz merch 

22) Other Blogs: @gokus-chichis where I praise GoChi and drool over Goku’s bara tiddies

23) Do I Get Asks: Like twice a month if I’m lucky 

24) Why I Choose My URL: Meztli, which is the name for moon/moon goddess in Nahuatl-Aztec, was already taken, so I added -iel, which in Tolkien Elvish, is a suffix meaning “maiden” or “daughter of” so it roughly translates to “Moon Maiden” or “Daughter of the Moon” which I think is beautiful 

25) Following: 572… I have no chill

26) Followers: 210 

27) Lucky Number: idk

28) Favourite Instrument: Violin but I can’t play anything. 

29) What Am I Wearing: batman tights, black shorts, combat boots, Pokemon pullover, Goku ssj jacket

30) Favorite Food: pizza??

31) Nationality: Amurikan

32) Favorite Song: That’s a nearly impossible question to answer for me. But okay, “Elembivos” by Eluveitie (even if you don’t like metal, I think anyone can enjoy this one. The link is in the title). I love how it sounds like a song you’d play going into battle but actually it’s a song about the Autumn harvest lmao. 

33) Last Book Read:  Vampire Hunter D: Tale of the Dead Town

34) Top Three Fictional Universes I’d Like To Join: Um. Not sure if I want to cuz they’re all pretty frightening tbh. Middle Earth, maybe. DBZ if it means I get to behold Goku even once with my eyes. 

I’m tagging: literally anyone who wants to do this. I'll add @cultofpokeshipping @mistycaribbeanflowers @xxrandomfan13xx

[cutiepotato123]

So I am gonna tell you a little story about little ole me and my favorite band in the entire universe, Kagrra. This all started in high school, I believe, whenever myspace was popping. Anyways, I was really into like j-pop and all that jazz... ok, that’s not being fair. w-inds was bae, Ryuichi was bae, they made my heart go dokidoki lol. But me being all into j-pop, I was able to look through other people’s pages and their j-pop playlists and what not and one day this page had a bunch of rock songs. so I was like, I haven’t listened to j-rock so let’s try it out. I clicked through the songs and liked some and others not. And then BAM! I hear this beautifully kinda grungey kinda traditional Japanese music and I was just like “This is what I like”. So I got the song and put it on my myspace page for the rest of the time myspace was relevant. So high school is going on and I have a lot of shit to do so I rarely logged into myspace and then it happened, I FORGOT THE GODDAMN PASSWORD. I panicked, you guys. I panicked and I tried to get the info back but it was not happening and I had to come to the realization that it was not going to happen. All I could think of were the songs and how I was never going to be able to listen to them because 1, I didn’t read Japanese, 2, there were only like 3 other people that liked them, and 3, I couldn’t even remember what albums or anything the songs were on. I gave up.

So high school is happening, I am exploring other bands. I got really into T-rax, Laraku, Gackt, Dir-en grey, Glay, etc. I still listen to Kgrra but I kind of lost interest a little because back then it was really friction hard trying to find music in other languages if you couldn’t read them. Then I started getting into Big Bang and all the other YG artists and hip-hop was my thing now and I started getting into kpop like text, super junior, lee hyori, etc. I still listened to my j-rock but not as much now. 

I graduate high school and my college has decent internet connection so I am just like, Yes I can download all the songs lol. So I do. I get a whole bunch of Kgrra songs, Laraku, Gackt, even Hirai Ken (Strawberry sex was my jam). And I am having a blast listening to my beloved Kagrra and stuff. BUT, I still could not find that one song that made me love them as much as I did. I looked through all their albums and listened to all their songs but I could not fucking find the goddamn song. I’m older no so it’s not as critical and I move on with my life, sort of. For the past few years, every year i would just make a little ritual where I would spend a day listening to all Kagrra songs just looking for that one and it had not panned out but I just liked spending the day listening to their songs so I did not mind. I was also the only one of my friends who even listened to Japanese music so they weren’t really any help. My college life is filled with all these new artists but it still bugged me that I could not find that song. I thought I was literally going crazy, and for a time I really thought it was just a hallucination because I knew how the music was arranged, when the guitar solo played, the rhythm of the singing, and everything but the words. I thought I made everything up. But, every year I still did the same thing, planned out a day where I would listen to the old songs and new songs and try to find it.

It was 2011, I was looking through akp and other sites and there was an article about Kagrra. THEY DISBANDED. Ya’ll I was so heartbroken and I felt like I was a disappointment and everything. But what made it even more heart wrenching was their reason for disbanding, people were listening to their music but no one was buying their albums. I got so sad. I was just like “I did this to them. I am the one who doesn’t buy their songs and support them. How can I even call myself a fan when I can’t even buy one single album?” I was just like I failed you guys. You made me feel good but I failed you. But 2011 was not done with me yet, Isshi, the lead singer, the voice I had looked up to of r all these years passes away a few months after they disbanded. I cried my heart out. Like literal tears like I had lost a member of my family like my uncle died. And I’m just sobbing and my friends don’t know why but I’m just wailing and crying and there’s  snot everywhere. 

I graduate 2 years after that, still doing my same yearly routine and looking through their songs now as a sort of tribute and I am still looking for the one song. 

It is January 26, 2017 and after about 12-13 years I finally found the fucking song. I feel at peace now. I still feel like a piece of shit because they are not making music together anymore but it’s like I can die in piece, a hole in my life has been filled, also I am not crazy lol.

Anyways, thanks for reading ( or not this shit was pretty long)

TL;DR: Girl finds song from favorite band after looking for it for 12-13 years. Is also happy she is not crazy lol