31
Offtopic / Re: What is NEW about YOU?
« on: February 09, 2019, 11:00:08 PM »
Congratz on that raise and on the invitation to help on the research paper! Hope your pops recovers fast, fingers crossed!
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32
Violet UK / Re: Violet UK Coming In 2013!
« on: February 09, 2019, 10:48:22 PM »
Excuse me in advance, my reply is not going to be as optimistic as Yoshiki I'd like it to be.
I don't think this so-called project will ever see the light of day and maybe that's not a bad thing. If Violet UK is anything like what we've seen during the reunion concerts, I don't think this is the kind of album I would buy, but maybe that's because I'm just not into trip-hop, or whatever VUK is supposed to be. He aimed high with that "blending the boudaries of fashion, music" and whatnot. The concept was never properly explained and all I've seen of it was synths and keyboards with a rather flat background female voice and a bunch of standard models walking on stage wearing very standard fashion pieces. Nothing about it was groundbreaking and I've seen better on fashion week runways, both fashion and music-wise. Kathie Wathever and Nicole Scherzinger are great singers, but VUK definitely didn't bring out the best in them. The 'I'll be your love" performance from the early 2000s that's been floating around on Youtube ever since is mediocre both in terms of lyrics and key/vocals. Yoshiki's piano playing is good, but he's known to pull much better than that. The religion/sex/butterfly/blue/roses/love song themes have been done to death and don't accurately reflect Yoshiki's remarkable ability to take tacky themes like that and compose masterpieces (see Rose of Pain, Art of Life, Dahlia, etc.) I fancied Mandi Martyr, though, the crazy-looking punk bassist that was part of the project at some point, but she didn't deliver anything groundbreaking on stage either.
TL;DR: this is a pretty basic project whose only chance of becoming a thing was based solely on its association with a dude like Yoshiki. Exit Yoshiki, nobody will go around shouting VUK is their favourite thing ever. Musically and image-wise, it also made a lot more sense in the early 2000s but not anymore. He also seems to have dropped it in favour of his Yoshiki Classical project, which kept some of the same singers and concepts, yet it's clearly superior. VUK will never debut and the album will never see the light, fight me on this!
I don't think this so-called project will ever see the light of day and maybe that's not a bad thing. If Violet UK is anything like what we've seen during the reunion concerts, I don't think this is the kind of album I would buy, but maybe that's because I'm just not into trip-hop, or whatever VUK is supposed to be. He aimed high with that "blending the boudaries of fashion, music" and whatnot. The concept was never properly explained and all I've seen of it was synths and keyboards with a rather flat background female voice and a bunch of standard models walking on stage wearing very standard fashion pieces. Nothing about it was groundbreaking and I've seen better on fashion week runways, both fashion and music-wise. Kathie Wathever and Nicole Scherzinger are great singers, but VUK definitely didn't bring out the best in them. The 'I'll be your love" performance from the early 2000s that's been floating around on Youtube ever since is mediocre both in terms of lyrics and key/vocals. Yoshiki's piano playing is good, but he's known to pull much better than that. The religion/sex/butterfly/blue/roses/love song themes have been done to death and don't accurately reflect Yoshiki's remarkable ability to take tacky themes like that and compose masterpieces (see Rose of Pain, Art of Life, Dahlia, etc.) I fancied Mandi Martyr, though, the crazy-looking punk bassist that was part of the project at some point, but she didn't deliver anything groundbreaking on stage either.
TL;DR: this is a pretty basic project whose only chance of becoming a thing was based solely on its association with a dude like Yoshiki. Exit Yoshiki, nobody will go around shouting VUK is their favourite thing ever. Musically and image-wise, it also made a lot more sense in the early 2000s but not anymore. He also seems to have dropped it in favour of his Yoshiki Classical project, which kept some of the same singers and concepts, yet it's clearly superior. VUK will never debut and the album will never see the light, fight me on this!
33
Taiji / Re: Report from Tomomi Akatsuka
« on: February 09, 2019, 10:10:41 PM »
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the incident is weird, whichever way you consider it. On the other hand, I could find no concrete evidence that foul play was a possibility. And add to this the well-known fact that next of kin are usually in a state of shock when a loved one passes and doubting the official version is a normal reaction, especially when the victim supposedly died of suicide.
I know very little about Taiji's life during or post-X, but from what I could gather, he was a rowdy free spirit and his life kind of went downhill after he left X, despite the great opportunity we was handed when they asked him to join Loudness. Things can easily go downhill very fast when you're young, rose to fame fast, made bad decisions with your money, etc. According to Yoshiki, Taiji's hit a rough patch shirtly after he left X. In his book, he mentions him having lost all his teeth and his unrecognisable looks, compared to his glam stage image when he was part of X. I have no evidence to back this one up, but I reckon that he might have been on some heavy ass drugs. If this portrait is accurate, a mental breakdown while under pressure is definitely not off the table. Fun fact: there are SO MANY suicides in detention cells they won't even let you keep your shoe laces. Being locked up in a cell with no support can do that to your brain.
TL;DR: I lean towards the suicide thesis, but maybe the authorities fucked up the investigation or maybe they handled his arrest the wrong way from the start (i.e. He hung himself with a bedsheet. They're not supposed to put fabric bedsheets in a detention cell. A blanket or paper sheets but not bedsheets that can be used as a slipknot). His fiancée and next of kin are devastated and questioning the official version is their way of coping with it.
I know very little about Taiji's life during or post-X, but from what I could gather, he was a rowdy free spirit and his life kind of went downhill after he left X, despite the great opportunity we was handed when they asked him to join Loudness. Things can easily go downhill very fast when you're young, rose to fame fast, made bad decisions with your money, etc. According to Yoshiki, Taiji's hit a rough patch shirtly after he left X. In his book, he mentions him having lost all his teeth and his unrecognisable looks, compared to his glam stage image when he was part of X. I have no evidence to back this one up, but I reckon that he might have been on some heavy ass drugs. If this portrait is accurate, a mental breakdown while under pressure is definitely not off the table. Fun fact: there are SO MANY suicides in detention cells they won't even let you keep your shoe laces. Being locked up in a cell with no support can do that to your brain.
TL;DR: I lean towards the suicide thesis, but maybe the authorities fucked up the investigation or maybe they handled his arrest the wrong way from the start (i.e. He hung himself with a bedsheet. They're not supposed to put fabric bedsheets in a detention cell. A blanket or paper sheets but not bedsheets that can be used as a slipknot). His fiancée and next of kin are devastated and questioning the official version is their way of coping with it.
34
Offtopic / Re: Favourite song lines
« on: February 09, 2019, 09:44:00 PM »Quote
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner
Roger Waters in Shine on you crazy diamond, motherfucking Pink Floyd is my favourite band ever
Quote
Little by little the night turns around
Counting the leaves which tremble at dawn
Lotuses lean on each other in yearning
Under the eaves the swallow is resting
Roger Waters in Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun, did I mention that Pink Floyd is the best thing ever, btw?
Quote
There's room at the top they're telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
John Lennon in Working Class Hero, this one hits close to home
Quote
I wish that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
On a sailor's suit and cap
Leonard Cohen in Heroin, because omfg The Velvet Underground!
Quote
Breathe deep the gathering gloom,
Watch lights fade from every room.
Bedsitter people look back and lament,
Another day's useless energy spent.
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one,
Lonely man cries for love and has none.
Graeme Edge in Late Lament by the Moody Blues
And don't get me started on freaking Bob Dylan. I'm getting carried away here. I love this thread
35
Other Bands / Re: HYDE
« on: February 09, 2019, 09:15:02 PM »
I confess that I hadn't properly listened to Zipang yet. A few thoughts on it:
1) Hyde's voice really is incredible. I think he's hands down one of the best singers in the current Jrock scene. There's something really powerful and enthralling about his voice and this single brought me back to my teens and reminded me of what drove me to listen to L'arc~en~ciel in the first place, considering I'm usually more into metal.
2) Yoshiki's presence in the song and videoclip adds depth to it and for once he didn't make it all about himself, which was nice to listen to and watch. The piano bit is really good.
3) I have mixed feelings about the videoclip. It has some really ineteresting scenes, but I think Hyde's bodhisattva (?) styling looked kind of cheap and is overall of rather bad taste. Not entirely sure why, though.
4) Overall a really interesting song. I definitely prefer this one over Red Swan. I couldn't find a translation of the lyrics, but I'd love to know what it is about.
1) Hyde's voice really is incredible. I think he's hands down one of the best singers in the current Jrock scene. There's something really powerful and enthralling about his voice and this single brought me back to my teens and reminded me of what drove me to listen to L'arc~en~ciel in the first place, considering I'm usually more into metal.
2) Yoshiki's presence in the song and videoclip adds depth to it and for once he didn't make it all about himself, which was nice to listen to and watch. The piano bit is really good.
3) I have mixed feelings about the videoclip. It has some really ineteresting scenes, but I think Hyde's bodhisattva (?) styling looked kind of cheap and is overall of rather bad taste. Not entirely sure why, though.
4) Overall a really interesting song. I definitely prefer this one over Red Swan. I couldn't find a translation of the lyrics, but I'd love to know what it is about.
36
Pata / Re: Pata Translation
« on: January 31, 2019, 09:08:45 AM »"This is a phonecall from a guy who stutters"
Thank you for the correction.
Not a correction at all, your version was totally correct, just stressing how funny this part is
37
Yoshiki / Re: Yoshiki talks (181004)
« on: January 31, 2019, 09:07:58 AM »
That's what I understood, he's at a hotel but the leather bed is his.
38
Pata / Re: Pata Translation
« on: January 29, 2019, 07:28:03 PM »
"This is a phonecall from a guy who stutters"
39
Yoshiki / Re: Yoshiki talks (181004)
« on: January 29, 2019, 07:26:07 PM »
This is great! Thank you so luch for this translation, Lakeisle!
Pfffffffffft Is he not allowed to reveal that it's his bed? Oh, and "I can't talk about it in detail".
'ts okay, man. We grok that you party hard. Also, the poor guy who has to carry his bed around wherever he goes.
Yoshiki : That is my bed.
MC : Ah!
Yoshiki : Am I not allowed to reveal it? That's my bed.
MC : I thought it was a hotel.
Yoshiki : I can't talk about it in detail, but that is my bed. That's all my personal belonging. Even if it's a hotel, that's my bed, a leather bed. Since those are my futon and my bed... I'm the only one who can scold.
Pfffffffffft
Is he not allowed to reveal that it's his bed? Oh, and "I can't talk about it in detail". 'ts okay, man. We grok that you party hard. Also, the poor guy who has to carry his bed around wherever he goes.
40
Offtopic / Re: X JAPAN minus the X: a review
« on: January 28, 2019, 10:21:33 AM »
Thanks guys, glad you enjoyed it!
Geez, don't take this seriously, though. I visited lots of amazing places that were NOT massive freak hubs (nope, not everyone in Japan is a total perv obsessed with AKB48 and stuffed cats). I picked the weird bits for the sake of lolz.
Need to work on that concert review though. It's gonna be a fun one too.
Geez, don't take this seriously, though. I visited lots of amazing places that were NOT massive freak hubs (nope, not everyone in Japan is a total perv obsessed with AKB48 and stuffed cats). I picked the weird bits for the sake of lolz.
Need to work on that concert review though. It's gonna be a fun one too.
41
Offtopic / X JAPAN minus the X: a review
« on: January 25, 2019, 04:30:36 PM »
Last December I took the leap and finally decided to visit Japan. And I had a lot of thoughts about it, so here’s 10 things that might be funny, odd, unusual, uncanny or just plain weird about the empire of the rising sun. Enjoy the read!
1. Porn is everywhere!
Say, you can’t sleep and you desperately need a rice ball at 4 in the morning. No worries, my bud, Japan has your back. Many convenience stores in Japan are open 24/7 and their mild-mannered, excessively courteous employees are more than happy to satisfy your fuck o’clock delicatessen cravings. So off you go to the 7-Eleven across the street, but the last thing you expect to find at 4 am on a weekday is a little crowd (3 is a crowd, right?) lurking by the magazine shelves. Do the Japanese have the compulsion to check the next day’s news in the wee hours of the morning and is it strong enough to make them leave their warm, cozy futons? Nope, they’re there for the porn. A whole, 3 shelf-wide selection of porn magazines with something for everyone’s taste.
A nice stash of kinky stuff at 7-Eleven. Tied shut with ribbon so they make sure you buy them before you take a peek at the good stuff.
Image source: Wikipedia
Airbrushed asian models wearing circle contacts to make them look like creepy child-like dolls? Check. Boobs the size of ripe watermelons? Check. Animated characters with furry tails and cat ears? Check. Porn is super popular in Japan. Way more popular than rice balls and Pokemon. You can’t walk two blocks in any popular Tokyo district without being hit in the face by something flagrantly and unequivocally sexual. Hentai, maid cafés, scantily clad action figures, adult movie theaters, love hotels, you name it.
The perfect Japanese wife.
Image Source: Aliexpress
But if sexuality is as ubiquitous as it seems, then are birth rates in Japan so low the government even decided to have employees go home an hour earlier just so they could… well, do the deed more often? The answer is far from simple. Sexuality is a multi-million yen industry in Japan, but it remains a male-oriented industry and in certain ways a fantasy as inaccessible as your dreams of dating an AKB48 member. Japanese men spend scandalous amounts of yen to feed their own fantasies of screwing a big-bosomed animated character, except animated characters only exist in the ether. They gang up with co-workers and go sit at overpriced maid cafés all evening, except you can’t touch the maids. They lurk around the local 7-Eleven buying cheeky magazines, but if a legitimately hot and available Japanese beauty was to walk by, they might not even raise their eyes.
Hentai books in Akihabara.
Image source: Postcards & Places
Does this sound sad to you? It might not be that bad if you’re a guy with some spare cash. Japan cannot comfort your lonely soul nor can it help you deal with your crippling social anxiety, but it has deployed everything in existence to make you forget about it. The Japanese have even coined a term for that: grass-eater men (草食(系)男子), or dudes who are far too busy absorbing virtual sex to even be interested in actual sex at all. But what if you’re a woman? Which brings us to the next point.
2. Boys and Girls Don’t Mix
Can men and women be friends? Armchair philosophers love to ask themselves this age-old question. Gender segregation in school is still a thing in some parts of Europe, but if you walk past any teenage hotspot in the Old Continent (but hey, why would you, old fart?), you’ll notice that boys and girls mingle naturally and that most Westerners tend to have specimens of both genders in equal numbers on their friends lists. Not in Japan, though. If you’re a woman, you hang out with your girlfriends at the nearest shopping centre or bubble tea café. You spend your hard-earned yen on circle contacts to make your eyes look weird, or on odd devices to stretch your face muscles. If you’re extra daring, you go to a cool music hub like Tower Records and ask for a bento with your favourite #prettyboi idol’s face carved on your bento (which will set you back about $50, but whatever makes you happy). Do Japanese girls even put their doe eyes and cherry-chapped lips to good use? Not much. A whooping 59% of women in the 16-19 age range stated that they had no interested in having sex with real-life guys, according to a 2011 poll.
The face of a popular musician carved on seaweed on a bento.
Image source: q.j_mom on Instagram
3. The Arcade Phenomenon or the Boys Playground
My hotel happened to be just down the road from Akihabara. For the non-initiated, Akihabara is otaku heaven. Manga! Anime! Figurines! Maid cafés! Cosplay! Sega arcades! Endless towers hiding humongous shopping centers where you can buy the most useless crap this planet has to offer! Neverending lines of people waiting to meet their favourite AKB48 member! If you want to live in a virtual universe full of servile beauties with soft voices and gravity-defying curves, or if you feel like you could totally waste your life away playing video games and munching on strawberry-flavoured Kit-Kats, then welcome home. Walking through Akihabara is a little bit like entering a parallel universe where millions of little men in white shirts spend their days furiously tugging at joysticks and PlayStation controllers while their avatars fight, dance, screw, play the guitar or simply live their lives while their unsuspecting players miss out on theirs. And as we pointed out, the blokes who hit the arcade with the same kind of enthusiasm an alcoholic Irish grandpa hits the local Irish pub are lowkey allergic to the XX chromosome. I bet you get a free Pocky if you spot more than three women in the entire 8-floor building during the testosterone peak hours. The chicks on the AKB48 posters don’t count. Which brings us to…
Japanese dudes doing a great job at protecting their virginity.
Source: Flickr
4. What the hell is AKB48?
Not to be confused with AK-69, Toshi’s rapper friend. Can you even explain modern Japan without first explaining AKB48? You can’t. AKB48 is the elephant in the room. Long story short - one day in the early 2000s a Yakuza dude thought: how can I make a shitload of money off of young, sexless and horny Japanese folks who still believe in unicorns? He soon had a genius idea. He recruited a ton of young, pretty, docile and submissive girls, clad them in schoolgirl outfits, made them sing, dance and entertain. A magic recipe that has stood the test of time. So what’s so unusual about just another idol group that sells imaginary sex? The guy recruited so many of them, there’s always some AKB48 available to greet the average otaku at Japan’s most average otaku hotspots. And don’t worry, when there’s no more AKB48 left, they recruit some MOAR AKB48! And just a side note: AKB48 are not allowed to date, smoke, drink, go clubbing, have social media accounts, get tattoos, sun tans, new haircuts or develop a personality at all. When they hit 30, they “graduate”, a funny metaphor for getting the sack. And if they cross the line, that counts as “graduation” too. Example, that one kid who got the sack because someone leaked a purikura of her and her boyfriend. And that one other who shaved her head and filmed a tearful Youtube video apologising for the fact that tabloids reported that she had a boyfriend (omg! capital sin! behead her!).
In Japan, dating is bad thing.
Image source: Google
Oh, and fun fact? AKB48 are mostly underage girls who sing bubbly, light-hearted songs about school, love and their friends. You’d expect their fans to be somewhere in their age range. But wrong you are, you rookie Padawan. I walked by their theatre during their evening show on a weekday and I swear a good bunch of fans were well into their fifties, if not sixties. And judging by the way they anxiously elbowed each other when the doors opened, they were not there with their kids. Another fun fact? AKB48 are not allowed to have boyfriends or lovers but their photoshoots are frequently featured on the Weekly Playboy (a Japanese porn mag not affiliated with Hugh Heffner’s Playboy). It’s a strange world, huh.
AKB48 selling sexy to to sexless guys while being sexless in the land of sexlessness.
Image source: AKB48
5. Maid Cafés and Host Cafés are a thing
I skipped the maid café thing altogether because I’m too cool for mainstream stuff they’re so ubiquitous. There sure are high-profile maid cafés worth the detour, but since I didn’t want to break the bank, I chose the maid café’s aspiring third cousin, the host club. A host club is supposedly just that - a bar where cute guys serve their female clientele with pomp and pageantry. Except it’s not just that. Host cafés are all about delusions, competition and milking uncommitted, slightly cyprian ladies of as many yen bills as they possibly can. And they’re willing to go great lengths for that.
A host accessing how many yen bills he’ll make you spend.
Image source: Tokyo Creative
For starters, you’ve got a ranking of the hosts outside - the café I picked in Shibuya had 10 waiters, ranked #1 to #10. Number 1 is the guy who’s better at making ladies order far more cocktails and delicatessen that they can stomach. As I walked in I was informed that I was allowed to buy the hosts drinks if I wanted to chat with them longer and that I would have to pay an extra fee to be served exclusively by my favourite host. Fine, I picked one randomly and went to sit at the back with a guy whose hair was so fried from bad dye jobs and straightening irons it made him look like a your average aspiring visual kei it-boy. The guy informed me, using a mix of broken English and sign language, that if I also ordered a side dish, he would give me a hand massage. Wait. What. You read that right. Side dish = free hand massage. What happens if I ordered everything on the menu? Bad luck, I’m too poor to find out.
Monthly ranking of hosts outside a host club for the world to see.
Source: SCMP.com
The hand massage was nice and it was fun to watch my host pretend to sip his wine - hosts are not allowed to get drunk - but otherwise the experience was quite uneventful. But hey, since we’re here, let me tell you another odd thing. The host café business is actually so huge they have celebrity hosts. Japan’s most famous host is a guy called Roland, a.k.a the guy who milks the most ladies of the most yen bills. Roland is, for a lack of a better description, an amalgamation of a really jacked body with the head of an animated character with spaghetti hair. I don’t know why Jap chicks dig that either, but he makes six figures and gets editorial spreads in every single fashion magazine, every week. Guess we should all learn business from Roland.
Roland, Japan’s no. 1 host
Source: a shit-ton of Photoshop
6. Your backside has never been this clean
But hey, Japan is not just an alien, sexless country. They have some awesome stuff too. So why don’t we start with the one thing that all of us a humans have in common: POOP! According to a Japanese study conducted in 2018, 100% of humans poop and 90% of those who poop would rather poop on a really clean throne. So what did the Japanese do? They invented smart toilets, y’all! It’s not just a urban legend - 90% of all Japanese toilets come with that awesome seat-heating and butt-rinsing function. Note that this applies even to railway stations in the deepest of rural Japan. Now, why is this such a big deal for me? Ever been to a public toilet in France? Good luck, mate.
It rinses your butt! Dries your butt! Warms your entire butt! Plays music while you poop!
Image source: China Daily
7. EVERYONE, GET NAKED!!!11!!!!
So by now we’ve had our sense flooded by porn, we’ve hung out at XY-chromosome-only arcades, flipped through Hentai magazines at 7-Eleven, watched Japan go crazy for a bunch of girls in schoolgirl outfits and won a free hand massage from a random dude. Can things get any weirder? Sure. How about going to the famous Hakone hot springs with a bunch of co-workers… naked?
"Let's talk about work, Hitomi?"
Image source: Teplis Travel
In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept of onsens, they’re bath houses with super steamy hot pools where people supposedly go to relax. Like in many saunas across the world, from Sweden to the Middle East, you’re supposed to go in naked. No bathing suit allowed. It took me a while to find a bath house in the Hakone area that accepted people with tattoos (note than in Japan tattoos are associated with the Yakuza and are generally considered “dirty” or a sign that you’re into some really fucked up shit). But don’t you fret, it was fairly easy to find and no one gave a damn about my awesome inkz. So eyeing the empty onsen, yours truly sheds the yukata and gets into the water praying no one will come in and judge her for having the body of a couch potato who lives on a diet of frozen pizza. Ten minutes later and just as I’m about to tick this one off my bucket list, a group of about ten women walk into the room and settle together at the far end of the pool. My Japanese being very basic, all I could understand was that the said ladies were co-workers on some sort of company trip and they were sitting there talking about...work. Naked. Thumbs up if you dream of chilling with Bob the IT guy, Rob the accountant and Slob the sales rep in an onsen... naked. Yeah man, that’s weird.
(In)famous musician Gackt at an onsen with friends… naked.
Image source: Gackt’s Instagram
8. The rule of kawaii
You know why Japan is dealing with a huge economic crisis? Because the Japanese spend all their cash on useless crap. And just to be clear, I mean useless kawaii crap. Stuffed animals! Scented stationery! Lolita outfits! Stickers! Bunnies! Unicorns! Alpacas! Yey! There goes your paycheck, but if you have to starve anyway, better starve under a pile of kawaii crap, right? Eugh, wrong. I guess no one can deny that the Japanese have a peculiar penchant, not to say a full-blown weird fetish, for juvenile paraphernalia. Grown-ass women spend a good portion of their waking hours practising their babytalk and naive allure in the mirror. This includes frantically buying all kinds of odd devices to stretch your face muscles, blur out imperfections and make the eyes look bigger and more baby-like. If in the West women are supposed to be forever 21, in Japan they’re supposed to be forever 6. And to be frank both standards are equally disturbing, but the Japs take the cake here. You can’t walk one yard in Shinjuku, Akihabara or Shibuya without headbutting into some sort of purikura photo booth, plushie vending machine, bystander in lolita attire or cartoon-like candy shop. I might not be entirely off the mark if I say that the kawaii industry clearly outperforms the car and tech industries over there. Everybody. is. wasting. money. on. stuffed. freaking. cats.
Women in Akihabara spending their hard-earned yen on stuff originally designed for six year olds.
Image source: Airbnb
9. Sleeping on public transport is a thing
No, by sleeping I don’t mean closing your eyes for a few minutes while you convey satisfyingly vivid images of your boss rotting in hell. By sleeping, I mean slumping on your seat and going into full-on REM-action. Who cares if you snore, drool and end up leaning on whoever’s sitting next to you - they’re probably asleep too! And that’s how it happens in Japan. I was very amused and mildly shocked when I saw a young lady fast asleep on the metro from Shibuya to Ueno. She sat by a window, leaned back against it and began to snooze without a care in the world. If you did this in Paris, by the time you woke up your phone would be gone and there would be a creepy guy hovering over you trying to stick random body parts of his into random orifices of yours. But not in Japan. In Japan not only it is normal to snooze on the go, you’re even allowed to fall asleep on whoever’s sitting next to you. I think I never saw so many people falling asleep on unsuspecting strangers (who might also be asleep themselves). Two people fell asleep on me on separate occasions. Both fell sideways into my shoulder, snored, then roused and got up without a word. Hey… hope you enjoyed your gaijin cushion?
“I think I’m just gonna take a quick nap, Kiyoshi, that 7pm meeting totally wrecked me”.
Image source: presumably Kiyoshi, employee of the month
10. I’m not ready, honey, I want to wait untilmarriage beer
They’re incredibly polite, they work long hours, they don’t hang out with the opposite sex, their only passions are arcade games and AKB48 and they’re into some hardcore zen buddhism mind-numbing chill pills. So do the Japs ever get rowdy? Like, really loud and boisterous and inappropriate and whatnot? Yes, they do. But it takes some liquid courage. Veer off the most scenic routes and off the beaten track, search for the hidden basement clubs and offbeat bars in Mitaka, on the last floor of a nondescript high tower in Taito, dare to enter the shady pubs on a gloomy Yokosuka street and you’ll find them. And it’s a little bit like seeing the ugly face of Japanese society without the skin blurring filter, the kawaii fluff, the lolita ruffles and the gleeful solicitude. These are the guys who work 16+ hours a day, the guys who fall asleep on public transport because they don’t sleep at night, the guys who desperately want to succeed and hang themselves when they fail, the guys who spent so much time learning maths they forgot to learn how to interact with other humans and so they resort to maid cafés and cuddle cafés to get a taste of the intimacy they crave but can’t get and so on and so on.
Drunk dude. Good luck riding that hungover.
Image source: Lee Chapman
You can only bottle up so much before cracks begin to show in your steely composure. Or until you feel like getting shitfaced is the only way to dodge The System and the robotic grip it has on you. And so you hit the saké bottle like there’s no tomorrow. Give those uptight businessmen some shochu and their subservient female counterparts some tequila and you’ll see what happens. They get loud. They tell jokes. They shriek hysterically. They shout random stuff in English across the bar to the casual gaijin bystander. But is Japan still worth it? Yes, definitely. 10/10. Will do it again.
----
Coming up next: I went to a concert in Japan and it was weird so I wrote some stuff about it.
1. Porn is everywhere!
Say, you can’t sleep and you desperately need a rice ball at 4 in the morning. No worries, my bud, Japan has your back. Many convenience stores in Japan are open 24/7 and their mild-mannered, excessively courteous employees are more than happy to satisfy your fuck o’clock delicatessen cravings. So off you go to the 7-Eleven across the street, but the last thing you expect to find at 4 am on a weekday is a little crowd (3 is a crowd, right?) lurking by the magazine shelves. Do the Japanese have the compulsion to check the next day’s news in the wee hours of the morning and is it strong enough to make them leave their warm, cozy futons? Nope, they’re there for the porn. A whole, 3 shelf-wide selection of porn magazines with something for everyone’s taste.
A nice stash of kinky stuff at 7-Eleven. Tied shut with ribbon so they make sure you buy them before you take a peek at the good stuff.
Image source: Wikipedia
Airbrushed asian models wearing circle contacts to make them look like creepy child-like dolls? Check. Boobs the size of ripe watermelons? Check. Animated characters with furry tails and cat ears? Check. Porn is super popular in Japan. Way more popular than rice balls and Pokemon. You can’t walk two blocks in any popular Tokyo district without being hit in the face by something flagrantly and unequivocally sexual. Hentai, maid cafés, scantily clad action figures, adult movie theaters, love hotels, you name it.
The perfect Japanese wife.
Image Source: Aliexpress
But if sexuality is as ubiquitous as it seems, then are birth rates in Japan so low the government even decided to have employees go home an hour earlier just so they could… well, do the deed more often? The answer is far from simple. Sexuality is a multi-million yen industry in Japan, but it remains a male-oriented industry and in certain ways a fantasy as inaccessible as your dreams of dating an AKB48 member. Japanese men spend scandalous amounts of yen to feed their own fantasies of screwing a big-bosomed animated character, except animated characters only exist in the ether. They gang up with co-workers and go sit at overpriced maid cafés all evening, except you can’t touch the maids. They lurk around the local 7-Eleven buying cheeky magazines, but if a legitimately hot and available Japanese beauty was to walk by, they might not even raise their eyes.
Hentai books in Akihabara.
Image source: Postcards & Places
Does this sound sad to you? It might not be that bad if you’re a guy with some spare cash. Japan cannot comfort your lonely soul nor can it help you deal with your crippling social anxiety, but it has deployed everything in existence to make you forget about it. The Japanese have even coined a term for that: grass-eater men (草食(系)男子), or dudes who are far too busy absorbing virtual sex to even be interested in actual sex at all. But what if you’re a woman? Which brings us to the next point.
2. Boys and Girls Don’t Mix
Can men and women be friends? Armchair philosophers love to ask themselves this age-old question. Gender segregation in school is still a thing in some parts of Europe, but if you walk past any teenage hotspot in the Old Continent (but hey, why would you, old fart?), you’ll notice that boys and girls mingle naturally and that most Westerners tend to have specimens of both genders in equal numbers on their friends lists. Not in Japan, though. If you’re a woman, you hang out with your girlfriends at the nearest shopping centre or bubble tea café. You spend your hard-earned yen on circle contacts to make your eyes look weird, or on odd devices to stretch your face muscles. If you’re extra daring, you go to a cool music hub like Tower Records and ask for a bento with your favourite #prettyboi idol’s face carved on your bento (which will set you back about $50, but whatever makes you happy). Do Japanese girls even put their doe eyes and cherry-chapped lips to good use? Not much. A whooping 59% of women in the 16-19 age range stated that they had no interested in having sex with real-life guys, according to a 2011 poll.
The face of a popular musician carved on seaweed on a bento.
Image source: q.j_mom on Instagram
3. The Arcade Phenomenon or the Boys Playground
My hotel happened to be just down the road from Akihabara. For the non-initiated, Akihabara is otaku heaven. Manga! Anime! Figurines! Maid cafés! Cosplay! Sega arcades! Endless towers hiding humongous shopping centers where you can buy the most useless crap this planet has to offer! Neverending lines of people waiting to meet their favourite AKB48 member! If you want to live in a virtual universe full of servile beauties with soft voices and gravity-defying curves, or if you feel like you could totally waste your life away playing video games and munching on strawberry-flavoured Kit-Kats, then welcome home. Walking through Akihabara is a little bit like entering a parallel universe where millions of little men in white shirts spend their days furiously tugging at joysticks and PlayStation controllers while their avatars fight, dance, screw, play the guitar or simply live their lives while their unsuspecting players miss out on theirs. And as we pointed out, the blokes who hit the arcade with the same kind of enthusiasm an alcoholic Irish grandpa hits the local Irish pub are lowkey allergic to the XX chromosome. I bet you get a free Pocky if you spot more than three women in the entire 8-floor building during the testosterone peak hours. The chicks on the AKB48 posters don’t count. Which brings us to…
Japanese dudes doing a great job at protecting their virginity.
Source: Flickr
4. What the hell is AKB48?
Not to be confused with AK-69, Toshi’s rapper friend. Can you even explain modern Japan without first explaining AKB48? You can’t. AKB48 is the elephant in the room. Long story short - one day in the early 2000s a Yakuza dude thought: how can I make a shitload of money off of young, sexless and horny Japanese folks who still believe in unicorns? He soon had a genius idea. He recruited a ton of young, pretty, docile and submissive girls, clad them in schoolgirl outfits, made them sing, dance and entertain. A magic recipe that has stood the test of time. So what’s so unusual about just another idol group that sells imaginary sex? The guy recruited so many of them, there’s always some AKB48 available to greet the average otaku at Japan’s most average otaku hotspots. And don’t worry, when there’s no more AKB48 left, they recruit some MOAR AKB48! And just a side note: AKB48 are not allowed to date, smoke, drink, go clubbing, have social media accounts, get tattoos, sun tans, new haircuts or develop a personality at all. When they hit 30, they “graduate”, a funny metaphor for getting the sack. And if they cross the line, that counts as “graduation” too. Example, that one kid who got the sack because someone leaked a purikura of her and her boyfriend. And that one other who shaved her head and filmed a tearful Youtube video apologising for the fact that tabloids reported that she had a boyfriend (omg! capital sin! behead her!).
In Japan, dating is bad thing.
Image source: Google
Oh, and fun fact? AKB48 are mostly underage girls who sing bubbly, light-hearted songs about school, love and their friends. You’d expect their fans to be somewhere in their age range. But wrong you are, you rookie Padawan. I walked by their theatre during their evening show on a weekday and I swear a good bunch of fans were well into their fifties, if not sixties. And judging by the way they anxiously elbowed each other when the doors opened, they were not there with their kids. Another fun fact? AKB48 are not allowed to have boyfriends or lovers but their photoshoots are frequently featured on the Weekly Playboy (a Japanese porn mag not affiliated with Hugh Heffner’s Playboy). It’s a strange world, huh.
AKB48 selling sexy to to sexless guys while being sexless in the land of sexlessness.
Image source: AKB48
5. Maid Cafés and Host Cafés are a thing
I skipped the maid café thing altogether because
A host accessing how many yen bills he’ll make you spend.
Image source: Tokyo Creative
For starters, you’ve got a ranking of the hosts outside - the café I picked in Shibuya had 10 waiters, ranked #1 to #10. Number 1 is the guy who’s better at making ladies order far more cocktails and delicatessen that they can stomach. As I walked in I was informed that I was allowed to buy the hosts drinks if I wanted to chat with them longer and that I would have to pay an extra fee to be served exclusively by my favourite host. Fine, I picked one randomly and went to sit at the back with a guy whose hair was so fried from bad dye jobs and straightening irons it made him look like a your average aspiring visual kei it-boy. The guy informed me, using a mix of broken English and sign language, that if I also ordered a side dish, he would give me a hand massage. Wait. What. You read that right. Side dish = free hand massage. What happens if I ordered everything on the menu? Bad luck, I’m too poor to find out.
Monthly ranking of hosts outside a host club for the world to see.
Source: SCMP.com
The hand massage was nice and it was fun to watch my host pretend to sip his wine - hosts are not allowed to get drunk - but otherwise the experience was quite uneventful. But hey, since we’re here, let me tell you another odd thing. The host café business is actually so huge they have celebrity hosts. Japan’s most famous host is a guy called Roland, a.k.a the guy who milks the most ladies of the most yen bills. Roland is, for a lack of a better description, an amalgamation of a really jacked body with the head of an animated character with spaghetti hair. I don’t know why Jap chicks dig that either, but he makes six figures and gets editorial spreads in every single fashion magazine, every week. Guess we should all learn business from Roland.
Roland, Japan’s no. 1 host
Source: a shit-ton of Photoshop
6. Your backside has never been this clean
But hey, Japan is not just an alien, sexless country. They have some awesome stuff too. So why don’t we start with the one thing that all of us a humans have in common: POOP! According to a Japanese study conducted in 2018, 100% of humans poop and 90% of those who poop would rather poop on a really clean throne. So what did the Japanese do? They invented smart toilets, y’all! It’s not just a urban legend - 90% of all Japanese toilets come with that awesome seat-heating and butt-rinsing function. Note that this applies even to railway stations in the deepest of rural Japan. Now, why is this such a big deal for me? Ever been to a public toilet in France? Good luck, mate.
It rinses your butt! Dries your butt! Warms your entire butt! Plays music while you poop!
Image source: China Daily
7. EVERYONE, GET NAKED!!!11!!!!
So by now we’ve had our sense flooded by porn, we’ve hung out at XY-chromosome-only arcades, flipped through Hentai magazines at 7-Eleven, watched Japan go crazy for a bunch of girls in schoolgirl outfits and won a free hand massage from a random dude. Can things get any weirder? Sure. How about going to the famous Hakone hot springs with a bunch of co-workers… naked?
"Let's talk about work, Hitomi?"
Image source: Teplis Travel
In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept of onsens, they’re bath houses with super steamy hot pools where people supposedly go to relax. Like in many saunas across the world, from Sweden to the Middle East, you’re supposed to go in naked. No bathing suit allowed. It took me a while to find a bath house in the Hakone area that accepted people with tattoos (note than in Japan tattoos are associated with the Yakuza and are generally considered “dirty” or a sign that you’re into some really fucked up shit). But don’t you fret, it was fairly easy to find and no one gave a damn about my awesome inkz. So eyeing the empty onsen, yours truly sheds the yukata and gets into the water praying no one will come in and judge her for having the body of a couch potato who lives on a diet of frozen pizza. Ten minutes later and just as I’m about to tick this one off my bucket list, a group of about ten women walk into the room and settle together at the far end of the pool. My Japanese being very basic, all I could understand was that the said ladies were co-workers on some sort of company trip and they were sitting there talking about...work. Naked. Thumbs up if you dream of chilling with Bob the IT guy, Rob the accountant and Slob the sales rep in an onsen... naked. Yeah man, that’s weird.
(In)famous musician Gackt at an onsen with friends… naked.
Image source: Gackt’s Instagram
8. The rule of kawaii
You know why Japan is dealing with a huge economic crisis? Because the Japanese spend all their cash on useless crap. And just to be clear, I mean useless kawaii crap. Stuffed animals! Scented stationery! Lolita outfits! Stickers! Bunnies! Unicorns! Alpacas! Yey! There goes your paycheck, but if you have to starve anyway, better starve under a pile of kawaii crap, right? Eugh, wrong. I guess no one can deny that the Japanese have a peculiar penchant, not to say a full-blown weird fetish, for juvenile paraphernalia. Grown-ass women spend a good portion of their waking hours practising their babytalk and naive allure in the mirror. This includes frantically buying all kinds of odd devices to stretch your face muscles, blur out imperfections and make the eyes look bigger and more baby-like. If in the West women are supposed to be forever 21, in Japan they’re supposed to be forever 6. And to be frank both standards are equally disturbing, but the Japs take the cake here. You can’t walk one yard in Shinjuku, Akihabara or Shibuya without headbutting into some sort of purikura photo booth, plushie vending machine, bystander in lolita attire or cartoon-like candy shop. I might not be entirely off the mark if I say that the kawaii industry clearly outperforms the car and tech industries over there. Everybody. is. wasting. money. on. stuffed. freaking. cats.
Women in Akihabara spending their hard-earned yen on stuff originally designed for six year olds.
Image source: Airbnb
9. Sleeping on public transport is a thing
No, by sleeping I don’t mean closing your eyes for a few minutes while you convey satisfyingly vivid images of your boss rotting in hell. By sleeping, I mean slumping on your seat and going into full-on REM-action. Who cares if you snore, drool and end up leaning on whoever’s sitting next to you - they’re probably asleep too! And that’s how it happens in Japan. I was very amused and mildly shocked when I saw a young lady fast asleep on the metro from Shibuya to Ueno. She sat by a window, leaned back against it and began to snooze without a care in the world. If you did this in Paris, by the time you woke up your phone would be gone and there would be a creepy guy hovering over you trying to stick random body parts of his into random orifices of yours. But not in Japan. In Japan not only it is normal to snooze on the go, you’re even allowed to fall asleep on whoever’s sitting next to you. I think I never saw so many people falling asleep on unsuspecting strangers (who might also be asleep themselves). Two people fell asleep on me on separate occasions. Both fell sideways into my shoulder, snored, then roused and got up without a word. Hey… hope you enjoyed your gaijin cushion?
“I think I’m just gonna take a quick nap, Kiyoshi, that 7pm meeting totally wrecked me”.
Image source: presumably Kiyoshi, employee of the month
10. I’m not ready, honey, I want to wait until
They’re incredibly polite, they work long hours, they don’t hang out with the opposite sex, their only passions are arcade games and AKB48 and they’re into some hardcore zen buddhism mind-numbing chill pills. So do the Japs ever get rowdy? Like, really loud and boisterous and inappropriate and whatnot? Yes, they do. But it takes some liquid courage. Veer off the most scenic routes and off the beaten track, search for the hidden basement clubs and offbeat bars in Mitaka, on the last floor of a nondescript high tower in Taito, dare to enter the shady pubs on a gloomy Yokosuka street and you’ll find them. And it’s a little bit like seeing the ugly face of Japanese society without the skin blurring filter, the kawaii fluff, the lolita ruffles and the gleeful solicitude. These are the guys who work 16+ hours a day, the guys who fall asleep on public transport because they don’t sleep at night, the guys who desperately want to succeed and hang themselves when they fail, the guys who spent so much time learning maths they forgot to learn how to interact with other humans and so they resort to maid cafés and cuddle cafés to get a taste of the intimacy they crave but can’t get and so on and so on.
Drunk dude. Good luck riding that hungover.
Image source: Lee Chapman
You can only bottle up so much before cracks begin to show in your steely composure. Or until you feel like getting shitfaced is the only way to dodge The System and the robotic grip it has on you. And so you hit the saké bottle like there’s no tomorrow. Give those uptight businessmen some shochu and their subservient female counterparts some tequila and you’ll see what happens. They get loud. They tell jokes. They shriek hysterically. They shout random stuff in English across the bar to the casual gaijin bystander. But is Japan still worth it? Yes, definitely. 10/10. Will do it again.
----
Coming up next: I went to a concert in Japan and it was weird so I wrote some stuff about it.
42
General chat / Re: RIP X JAPAN
« on: January 22, 2019, 02:47:58 PM »
Returner, it was a friendly reminder for the entire community, but mostly for you indeed. The lines I mentioned above were copied from comments you made on the Forum and on the chatroom last week. I brought this to your attention by PM, but if I may, let me remind you again. Those are not nice things to say and they add nothing to the debate.
43
General chat / Re: RIP X JAPAN
« on: January 22, 2019, 01:38:27 PM »
Here's another friendly reminder that this Forum welcomes and encourages debating, conflicting opinions and all kinds of respectful fighting. Speak your minds, people. Vent. Digress. Disagree. Whatever makes you happy, folks. Just please avoid personal attacks on other users and blanket insults like "the X Freaks are all a bunch of (insert your favourite insult here)" or "(specific user), you are a b*tch". I have seen variations of both of these in the Forum and on the chatroom last week. Please avoid this sort of behaviour. It's not cool and adds nothing to the discussion. Cheers.
44
General chat / Re: RIP X JAPAN
« on: January 17, 2019, 09:25:01 AM »
Dear all, I LOVE to see the forum so active with so many interesting discussions, different opinions and even some new faces on board! Feel free to debate and to defend whichever opinion yours is, but remember to keep it civil and avoid personal attacks on other users just because you disagree or dislike them. That's all, folks. Happy thursday and happy (civil) debating.
45
General chat / Re: RIP X JAPAN
« on: January 15, 2019, 10:53:53 AM »
10-15 shows in each continent? Heh. I'd be happy if they did just one show in show in the US and one in Europe per year. Sounds even more doable.
46
General chat / Re: RIP X JAPAN
« on: January 14, 2019, 04:09:22 PM »@matsumoto: Sugizo is an amazing musician. The best song from the post-reunion era is Beneath the Skin, the only one composed by him. But he doesn't have the "authority" hide has.
Totally agree that Beneath the Skin is the best X thing I listened to since 1997.
47
General chat / Re: RIP X JAPAN
« on: January 12, 2019, 10:18:07 PM »
Feudal raised some fair points. Unfortunately I agree with some. But hey, for the sake of argument let me debunk a few of the others.
X Japan sucks at planning. They announce all their major stuff out of the blue and just a few months in advance. Last year they did Coachella and Makuhari Messe, both announced in 2018, IIRC. There's a good chance they'll still announce stuff for this year, I have hard time believing they won't do at least one big show overseas. < / wishful thinking >
It really is just a fan rumor. They've probably ran out of crap to argue about after 50 years dealing with each other.
True, but that's expected. Wouldn't expect him to be doing the exact same stuff since 1987. That would have been boring. Come to think of it, the Hyde thing is not such bad news. Hyde is a skilled artist and he's very active in the industry. I don't fancy the Red Swan thing but I guess there's potential in that duo. Hope they do more stuff.
We don't know enough about Hide's role within the old X to make that assumption, I guess. Would totally love to see him alive and well, but they've got a new guitarist that's just as excellent and an accomplished musician. Toshi himself is a creative powerhouse. If the two of them can't kick Yoshiki's ass, I'm not sure Hide could.
I don't expect Paul McCartney to pull some Beatles-grade stuff anymore either, but I'd still pay to see him live. There's a great chance the new X album will suck compared to their old stuff, but I'll still buy it. It'll still be better than Ed Sheeran or whatever kids are into these days. Or like we say on the internetz, it'll still be a better love story than Twilight.
- No promise of more tours/shows outside of Japan.
X Japan sucks at planning. They announce all their major stuff out of the blue and just a few months in advance. Last year they did Coachella and Makuhari Messe, both announced in 2018, IIRC. There's a good chance they'll still announce stuff for this year, I have hard time believing they won't do at least one big show overseas. < / wishful thinking >
- Rumors of difficulties between Yoshiki and Toshi.
It really is just a fan rumor. They've probably ran out of crap to argue about after 50 years dealing with each other.
- Yoshiki increasingly more interested in anything other than X Japan (Hyde, Sarah Brightman, his wine label...)
True, but that's expected. Wouldn't expect him to be doing the exact same stuff since 1987. That would have been boring. Come to think of it, the Hyde thing is not such bad news. Hyde is a skilled artist and he's very active in the industry. I don't fancy the Red Swan thing but I guess there's potential in that duo. Hope they do more stuff.
- Increasingly more obvious that Yoshiki cannot write good rock songs anymore without hide.
We don't know enough about Hide's role within the old X to make that assumption, I guess. Would totally love to see him alive and well, but they've got a new guitarist that's just as excellent and an accomplished musician. Toshi himself is a creative powerhouse. If the two of them can't kick Yoshiki's ass, I'm not sure Hide could.
I'll always remember this band for what they were and what they gave to me through their music but the future in my opinion is pretty grim for them.
I don't expect Paul McCartney to pull some Beatles-grade stuff anymore either, but I'd still pay to see him live. There's a great chance the new X album will suck compared to their old stuff, but I'll still buy it. It'll still be better than Ed Sheeran or whatever kids are into these days. Or like we say on the internetz, it'll still be a better love story than Twilight.
48
Offtopic / Re: What are your New Years resolutions?
« on: January 10, 2019, 09:05:52 PM »
You've got some great ones there, Hatsor!
I read the ones in bold. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favourite books ever. You'll roll on the floor laughing reading that one, it's super funny! I had to read Os Maias when I was in high school in Portugal and didn't like it. I find Eça de Queiroz kind of overrated. Fernando Pessoa (and his alter-egos) are amazing though.
YEY! Join the Moto (Guzzi) club!
- - Finish my current to read books, which includes War and Peace, LOTR 50th Year Anniversary Edition, Foundation Trilogy, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, Hyperion, The Slow Regard Of Silent Things, 'Os Maias' and 'O Livro Do Desassossego', along a few others.
I read the ones in bold. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favourite books ever. You'll roll on the floor laughing reading that one, it's super funny! I had to read Os Maias when I was in high school in Portugal and didn't like it. I find Eça de Queiroz kind of overrated. Fernando Pessoa (and his alter-egos) are amazing though.
- - Get a motorcycle license and then work towards car license.
YEY! Join the Moto (Guzzi) club!
49
Offtopic / Re: What are your New Years resolutions?
« on: January 09, 2019, 09:29:44 AM »Is it rude to say that they are searching for foreigner Hostesses a lot? Even in massage Parlours.
Maybe someday you'll serv Yoshiki
Hahaha nope, not rude at all. I'm serious when I say I wouldn't mind doing the maid café thing!
As for serving Yoshiki, nah man, you need to be a registered geriatric nurse to serve 50+ year olds, if you know what I mean
I also want to search for a job in Japan but first I want to improve my japanese and finish my masters. I want a job in engineering / data science because I know I'm unable to do anything else, in my sister's words: "You're only smart for engineering. You're stupid for every other areas of life"
Yey! Maybe one day we'll Toshi concerts together my kween!
50
Yoshiki / Re: Barks Interview with Yoshiki - Translation
« on: January 07, 2019, 10:09:34 AM »
Not that I particularly feel like white-knighting him, but upon reading the whole thing I came up with the two most likely possibilities:
1. He's lost his mind
2. There's label/legal/money/staff/band/whatever problems going on that we don't know about
If #1 applies, then honestly, I feel for him, but someone please hand the controls over to someone else already. He's still a great musician and performer, but can't be trusted with core decisions anymore. At first glance I'd say hand the leadership over to Sugizo, since Toshi is very busy with his own career.
If #2 applies, hppe they sort the thing out because seriously, what a waste of time, money and talent, and most importantly, what a waste of a loyal, devoted fanbase.
Option #3: Yoshiki really sucks at his bandleader job and he's just making bad decision after bad decision. Maybe. If that's the case, someone call all hands on deck and apply solution #1.
1. He's lost his mind
2. There's label/legal/money/staff/band/whatever problems going on that we don't know about
If #1 applies, then honestly, I feel for him, but someone please hand the controls over to someone else already. He's still a great musician and performer, but can't be trusted with core decisions anymore. At first glance I'd say hand the leadership over to Sugizo, since Toshi is very busy with his own career.
If #2 applies, hppe they sort the thing out because seriously, what a waste of time, money and talent, and most importantly, what a waste of a loyal, devoted fanbase.
Option #3: Yoshiki really sucks at his bandleader job and he's just making bad decision after bad decision. Maybe. If that's the case, someone call all hands on deck and apply solution #1.
51
Offtopic / Re: What are your New Years resolutions?
« on: January 04, 2019, 12:54:50 PM »
Oooooh? Really? Link plz!
52
Other Bands / Re: HYDE
« on: January 04, 2019, 09:39:28 AM »
So true! That feeling of bliss when one of the bands you like announces new singles, new albums, new tours, new concerts, new everything!
53
Offtopic / Re: What are your New Years resolutions?
« on: January 04, 2019, 09:36:22 AM »I had a cactus named cactus but he died, then I got another cactus named cactus, another one called Sue Jr and I forgot the name of the 3rd one. They actually survived for a couple of years but last year I forgot I even had cactus and somehow killed Cactus and Sue Jr. Unknown cactus still alive.
Oh noooooo, we're plant killers, this can't be good for our karma.
I almost cried when Bob the Bonsai died. He was getting drier and drier but I kept feeding it water and that special green bonsai fluid thingie but he wasn't getting any better so I took him to the bonsai shop. The guy looked at it and declared it dead on the spot. I felt like a disaster human being.
- Improve my japanese and take the N3 test (last month I took N5), since they only do it in December I might just skip to N3.
Kanpaaaaai! Aiming for N3 too by the end of the year. It seemed doable at first but now I'm really struggling to memorise the 50+ new words/week our teacher hands out. She's super fast-paced. How long have you been learning Japanese?
Okay! I got a goal now too! I wanna practice the piano every day. Even if sometimes just for a few minutes, but I wanna try to practice every day! No excuses.
Kasumi, play some X on the piano and post videos!
54
Offtopic / Re: What are your New Years resolutions?
« on: January 03, 2019, 04:14:00 PM »
A few of mine, in no particular order:
> Meet the X Freaks in person!
> Improve my photography skills (I bought two new lens for my DSLR in December, now I need to be less lazy and use them to take pictures of stuff that isn’t my houseplants).
> Get to advanced (B2 or C1) level in Russian - last year I decided to go from beginners to intermediate and I made it, so… За здоро́вье comrades!
> Get to intermediate level in Japanese - this one’s gonna hurt. But hey, KANPAI motherfuckers!
> My bonsai Bob passed away mysteriously in November. Get a new bonsai. Keep it alive. Don’t call it Bob.
> Work out at least once in 2018. I didn’t work out a single time in 2018 or 2017, so if I manage to drag my heavy derrière to the gym at least once in 2019 that can only be an improvement, right?
> Learn how to cook. Don’t burn the kitchen in the process. Living off frozen lasagna is probably not #healthylife goals.
> Try to find a job in Japan that isn’t at a cat or maid café because #career and #adulting and stuff. Actually no, screw that. Find a job at a cat café or a maid café or scraping feet at an onsen or whatever. It can’t be worse than writing press releases about military appliances.
> I’m stressed AF all the time. My coworker who shares an office with me says just looking at me gives him anxiety. You need to chill, matsumoto. Look into some meditation sh*t or something.
> Stop being an office rat. Overtime isn't paid and sitting at my desk at 9pm on a Friday is not gonna get me any further than this. Also, make some more friends outside of work.
> Stay alive. I’m prone to freak accidents. Having my name on Wikipedia’s list of unusual deaths sounds pretty badass, but let’s save that for later.
> Believe in unicorns*
*This includes X Japan's new album.
ETA: fold more origamis!
> Meet the X Freaks in person!
> Improve my photography skills (I bought two new lens for my DSLR in December, now I need to be less lazy and use them to take pictures of stuff that isn’t my houseplants).
> Get to advanced (B2 or C1) level in Russian - last year I decided to go from beginners to intermediate and I made it, so… За здоро́вье comrades!
> Get to intermediate level in Japanese - this one’s gonna hurt. But hey, KANPAI motherfuckers!
> My bonsai Bob passed away mysteriously in November. Get a new bonsai. Keep it alive. Don’t call it Bob.
> Work out at least once in 2018. I didn’t work out a single time in 2018 or 2017, so if I manage to drag my heavy derrière to the gym at least once in 2019 that can only be an improvement, right?
> Learn how to cook. Don’t burn the kitchen in the process. Living off frozen lasagna is probably not #healthylife goals.
> Try to find a job in Japan that isn’t at a cat or maid café because #career and #adulting and stuff. Actually no, screw that. Find a job at a cat café or a maid café or scraping feet at an onsen or whatever. It can’t be worse than writing press releases about military appliances.
> I’m stressed AF all the time. My coworker who shares an office with me says just looking at me gives him anxiety. You need to chill, matsumoto. Look into some meditation sh*t or something.
> Stop being an office rat. Overtime isn't paid and sitting at my desk at 9pm on a Friday is not gonna get me any further than this. Also, make some more friends outside of work.
> Stay alive. I’m prone to freak accidents. Having my name on Wikipedia’s list of unusual deaths sounds pretty badass, but let’s save that for later.
> Believe in unicorns*
*This includes X Japan's new album.
ETA: fold more origamis!
55
Offtopic / What are your New Years resolutions?
« on: January 03, 2019, 01:21:20 PM »
Share them here and cross them off as you go! I'll post mine this afternoon, still deciding on whether or not I want to lose those 5 pounds.
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General chat / Re: Do you think the new album will come out in 2019?
« on: January 03, 2019, 01:18:10 PM »
I voted yes because my main resolution for 2019 was "believe in unicorns".
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General chat / Do you think the new album will come out in 2019?
« on: January 02, 2019, 03:45:44 PM »
And aditionally, do you think 2019 would be a good year to release it? (let's help Yoshiki on this one)
Bonus question: what strange things do you predict will happen in 2019?
E.g.1: Yoshiki stars in a movie with Gackt.
E.g. 2: Hyde composes a song with J of Luna Sea and calls it L'arc~en~ciel feat. J
E.g. 3: Sugizo becomes an underwear model
Bonus question: what strange things do you predict will happen in 2019?
E.g.1: Yoshiki stars in a movie with Gackt.
E.g. 2: Hyde composes a song with J of Luna Sea and calls it L'arc~en~ciel feat. J
E.g. 3: Sugizo becomes an underwear model
58
Albums/Singles / Re: X JAPAN New Album(When??)
« on: January 02, 2019, 03:35:00 PM »
Should have hit CTRL+S before your computer crashed, Yoshiki.
59
Community / Re: X-FREAKS からのメリークリスマス
« on: December 27, 2018, 03:55:48 AM »
Your wish shall be granted senpai!
60
Community / Re: X-FREAKS からのメリークリスマス
« on: December 26, 2018, 12:11:32 PM »
Yup, I still have it! I'm loading my spare suitcase with chocolate, so prepare for the sugar coma you two!