Tropes Media Browse Popular Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List Image Fixer New Edits New Articles Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Visual Kei

Go To

Visual Kei (trope)

Visual Kei, or Visual Style, is an artistic movement among Japanese musicians that is characterised by the use of make-up, elaborate hair styles and flamboyant costumes, often, but not always, coupled with androgynous aesthetics, in the style of David Bowie. It came about in the early 1980's, spearheaded by bands such as DEAD END, X Japan, and BUCK-TICK, and has existed in various forms ever since. (You can see more of the history over on the Useful Notes page, if you like.)

It is often considered a Sub-Genre of J-rock (a term referring to Japanese rock in general), with its roots in Glam Rock, Shock Rock, Punk, Heavy Metal, and Kabuki Theater, though its use outside of Japan is making this somewhat an outdated definition. As is usual amongst more theatrical musical genres, the aesthetics are supposed to be as strong as the music in order to complement and enhance it, and although there have been many trends over the years there is no defining sound.

In the current scene, for instance, the most commonly used genres are hard rock and Heavy Metal (except for within the Oshare subgenre, which favours pop-punk or pop rock, and Digital kei, which can span everything from Electronic Music to pop), but there is also horror punk, Power Metal, Gothic Metal, electronic, pop rock, nu-metal, Industrial, Metalcore and even Death Metal. Even some rare Rap Metal and straight-up rap can be found. Exactly which genres are used often depends on the time period: In the 80's rock and glam metal were popular; in the 90's a heavy goth influence came in and many bands developed a softer or more experimental sound, with the use of synth becoming common; and in the early 2000s Metalcore, Alternative Metal and Pop Punk have become the norm. As of The New '10s, Heavy Metal of various subgenres and Hard Rock are experiencing some renewed interest despite most said bands being unsigned or reunions of older HR/HM acts (or ongoing acts such as BUCK-TICK, Dir en grey, and The Gazette), and Electronic Music styles are gaining popularity among newer bands and solo artists, while the majority of label signings and promotion and publicity still tends to go to Pop Punk Oshare Kei artists.

Despite the highly feminine appearance of many VK musicians, the majority of band members, as with other rock genres, are male.

Visual Kei is often broken down into subgenres, the most common being:

  • Angura Kei: characterised by an emphasis on traditional Japanese culture, with band members often wearing kimonos, and occasionally Geisha style makeup. Heavy Metal and Hard Rock are the most favoured genres. Example bands of this style would be Kagrra, Wagakki Band, Onmyouza and Heisei Isshin. Miyavi went through a phase as this and still has some elements of it. The usually-Lolita-style Band-Maid released one EP as Band-Maiko, the band members playing the part of Geishas in training.
  • Kote Kei: arguably the oldest and most established form of VK after genres began to split off from Visual Shock, it is characterised by incredibly striking clothing and hair. A common theme is to have every member of the band dye their hair a different color. There are two main forms, 'Black Kote Kei', which is faster, harder and more aggressive, and 'White Kote Kei' which is more melodious and focuses more on musicianship. Example bands are pretty much too numerous to name any one individual band, though this is arguably what both Luna Sea and Dir en grey began as, though they would change to other styles... and this is what Versailles was said to be before it broke up, and its reformation as "Jupiter" seems to be similar.
  • Oshare Kei: Characterised by a more cheerful sound and brighter aesthetics, with softer colours and materials being favoured. Most bands play pop punk or soft rock, though there are a few who play straight-up Hardcore Punk. Some example bands would be An Cafe, LM.C or [SuG], some of the early works of Miyavi would qualify, though he was always on the fringes.
  • Lolita: As in the Lolita style of dress, not anything related to the infamous book or its subject material. This is harder to define, but the general consensus is that bands in this genre have a more goth-rock influenced sound, although Alternative Rock and Power Metal also feature in. Some bands may incorporate Symphonic Metal or, in very rare cases, Thrash Metal overtones. The visuals tend to focus on elegance and the costumes are often more OTT than in other subgenres. Also, Lolita musicians are far more likely to deliberately invoke Viewer Gender Confusion, going out of their way to be as feminine as they possibly can be. Anything connected to Mana (including Malice Mizer while he was in that band and Moi dix Mois) is a good example. Versailles takes some inspiration from this but isn't entirely it.
  • Eroguro Kei: Combines ero and guro together, in the veins of Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson; a lot of emphasis on both Hotter and Sexier and Bloodier and Gorier, combining fetishes with Gorn, Nausea Fuel and Nightmare Fuel. cali≠gari is considered to be the pioneer of eroguro kei. Other notable bands include MUCC, Merry, and Dir en grey was once this before they toned down their visuals (though it didn't take long before they returned to being eroguro with the release of UROBOROS). The Gazette is this all throughout their career.
  • Nagoya Kei: Is defined by a gloomy, dark or harsh sound, and usually grim visuals. Darker than Lolita and less in-your-face than Eroguro, black is very much a favoured colour, and growled or barked vocals are common. There tends to be less importance placed on visuals in this subgenre than in others. The term has become the subject of misuse, with ignorant fans often applying the label to any dark and heavy J-metal group regardless of origin or musical style, such as the case with Luna Sea and 9Goats Black Out, despite not being from Nagoya (though it is somewhat acceptable nowadays to use the label for any VK band that shows the archetypal attitude, sound and image of true Nagoya kei bands, regardless of origin.) Dir en grey also gets misclassified as this. True Nagoya kei bands, however, include acts such as Silver~Rose (also considered the forefather of Ngoya kei), Laputa, Kuroyume, Deathgaze and lynch..
  • Visual Shock (aka Veteran Kei): The arguable parent subgenre from which the others branched out, as pioneered by X Japan and the other Extasy Records bands, BUCK-TICK, DEAD END, and COLOR in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Thrash Metal band Sex Machineguns also belongs here. (It also includes SEIKIMA-II, though simply because SEIKIMA-II fits nowhere else). It contains and can use any and all elements from these subgenres and arguably gave birth to them all, but Viewer Gender Confusion is a near-constant as is '80s Hair. Few new bands would fall into this genre, though cover bands and the occasional new band that doesn't fit elsewhere may try.
    • Neo-Visual Shock is primarily an invention of the middle of the Turn of the Millennium into The New '10s by artists such as Miyavi and Kisaki. A few artists around 2006-2010 and onward began to take a renewed interest in the foundational musical and artistic stylings of Visual Kei and either play them straight or reconstruct them for a new era. Example artists would be Miyavi (who created the flagship song of Neo Visual Shock with Neo Vizualizm with its shoutouts to "X, Kuroyume, and Luna Sea"), Kisaki in both his personal style and his bands Megaromania and Lin, and the bands Vagu Project, DEZERT, TSP, BORN, and Gyze are all examples, featuring artists with long or impressively styled hair, more emphasis on makeup than Kote Kei, a strong, fast Heavy Metal sound and lyrics for most (that for DEZERT and TSP, is Thrash Metal). Along with Post-Visual and Oshare, it's one of the fastest-growing new genres.
  • Ex-Visual Kei/Post-Visual Kei: These are bands that started out as visual or tried to appeal to visual fans and then dissociated themselves from the genre/took on an unorthodox approach to the style, either as a form of aversion/subversion of its tropes or in an attempt to reach a wider audience. Good examples are L'Arc-en-Ciel (started out as Visual Shock, but referring to them as visual became a near Berserk Button for them), Dir en grey (started out as Black Kote Kei, became Eroguro, and is now Death Metal or deathcore) and Miyavi (started out as Visual Shock, but has also tried different styles and even went through a non-Visual phase). Post-Visual Kei straddles a fine line between VK and non-VK J-music, leading to many controversies surrounding post-Visual artists.
  • Digital Kei is an emergent Visual subgenre that has existed since the Alternative Metal and Industrial Metal boom of The '90s, initially pioneered by artists such as hide, T.M.Revolution and Imai Hisashi of BUCK-TICK, and now popularized by acts such as Blood Stain Child, I.N.A., Dazzle Vision, GACKT and post-Genre Shift The Gazette. Digital kei music and visuals are rooted in established Electronic Music and Japanese Pop Music styles. The subgenre is also notable for its emphasis on stage theatrics and interactive live shows (animations, holograms and even virtual band members are common) and for its saturation of solo artists, mostly DJ/sound manipulator-type artists.

There are always exceptions to this though. Many bands straddle genres and some don't really fit into any at all. Other bands start off visual and then leave the subgenre. Also, as there are no real rules to Visual Kei besides the fact that you have to put effort into a quirky appearance, there are often debates amongst fans as to which bands count as visual in the first place.

In recent years, Visual Kei has begun to be used by non-Japanese bands, especially bands in the underground metal scene. One such band is the Swedish Alternative Metal / Melodic Death Metal band Seremedy, which gained some mainstream success before disbanding in 2013 - and Kerbera, which is led by its former vocalist SEIKE. YOHIO, the former guitarist, has began a career as a solo guitarist and vocalist as well. Also notable are Bat A Ar, another Swedish example, and Salem's Lott, an American band with influences from 80s glam rock and later 2010-era Visual Kei.

    open/close all folders 

Labels and associated organizations:

    Labels and Associated Organziations 
  • 413Tracks (Tokyo Yankees, and a few other rock and neo-Visual bands)
  • Broken Rose Records (Independent label for international Visual Kei acts, does free omnibus releases for download and signed Jet Set Gypsies)
  • Extasy Records - Yoshiki's label, and probably the first specific Visual Kei label. Inactive (mostly) in recent years.
  • Free Will Records - Dynamite Tommy's label. The Rival to Extasy Records, and the rivalry has ranged from open fighting between artists (early on) to mostly friendly, since it is the only active of the two labels (currently).
    • Peace and Smile Company: Often shortened to PS Company, it is a sub-label of Free Will Records which heavily leans toward Oshare bands (with The Gazette being a notable and pretty much the only exception until they broke with the label) and has stricter rules.
    • FIREWALL DIV (Dir en grey's Japanese releases, a Toshi solo album from 2015)
    • sun-krad and Media Factory (Kyo solo projects)
  • J-GLAM (Miyavi's works that aren't licensed to Universal Music)
  • Key Party (now defunct)
  • Lemoned / Lemoned Plant: labels once ran by hide but which are now ran by Hiroshi and are mostly defunct as actual "labels" as Lemoned is more of a fashion and merchandising venture.
  • Sherow Artist Society: Began by Kamijo of Versailles for Versailles, Matenrou Opera, and associated artists, now only hosts Matenrou Opera
  • Under Code: Began as a sub-label of Free Will Records but became its own label, ran by Kisaki until it went bankrupt in 2012. Notable for being the only neo-Visual Shock label (though it also had White Kote Kei bands in its roster, and one Oshare band).

Artists:

    Artists 

Media inspired by or making major references to Visual Kei:

    Media Inspired by or Making Major Refrences to Visual Kei 
Anime & Manga
  • Detroit Metal City: The bands in it are arguably inspired in equal parts by X and SEIKIMA-II.
    • It is worth noting, however, that DMC itself is never explicitly referred to as Visual Kei, but their bassist, Jagi, joins a visual band as a side project in one story arc. The band, Karisuma, is portrayed quite differently from DMC, and appears to be based on more recent Visual Kei. Could well be an intentional comparison between Visual Shock and modern Visual Kei, in that everything from fan behavior to stagecraft has changed and morphed into a form almost unrecognizable from the beginning. note 
  • Excel♡Saga has Il Palazzo, leader of ACROSS, which has the dream of being a Visual Kei musician. Dream broken by his rival in ACROSS which is actually one: the guy called Key. Indeed, the chapter is named "Visual K."
  • The Legend of Black Heaven, the protagonist's band.
  • Love Lucky features a character, Tsunami-san, who was once in a Visual Kei band.
  • Otomen has characters that are part of a Visual Kei band called "fra-fra."
  • Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei has a teacher who is a fan of the Real Life Visual Kei band Nightmare.
  • Sket Dance features Kiyoshi Date, who is voiced by Visual Kei artist GACKT, and is a huge fan of Visual Kei as an Affectionate Parody.

Films

  • "Bus Stop," which featured a two guys at a bar scene... one of the guys being Yoshiki. Barely counts, since it was filmed during a time in his life when his style was more "cool rich guy" than specifically Visual Kei - yet he was recognizable on sight enough to make it count.
  • The live-action version of Detroit Metal City, see the anime and manga example above.
  • "Maebashi Visual-Kei!" A 2011 Japanese film about a young man that left his rural life to become a famous Visual Kei artist. Known best for its romanticization and sanitization of the realities of Visual Kei, as well as casting Johnnys Jimusho actors for everyone involved never mind that casting actual indies Visual Kei artists at least as extras could have easily been done.
  • Oresama, a semi-autobiographical fictional piece written by Miyavi and including him.
  • "Tokyo Pop," a 1980s film that is actually the first appearance on film both of X Japan (then known as X), and of Visual Kei in any media outside itself.
  • "We Are X," the autobiography of X Japan and specifically Yoshiki.

Video Games

  • Chrono Cross: One of the characters you can pick up in your character's journey (and one that is arguably fairly plot-important) is Nikki, a Visual Kei bandleader and guitarist who is equal parts shoutout to hide (he's a redhead with eye makeup very much like hide's, and plays a yellow heart guitar) and Nikki Sixx from Mötley Crüe. In the Japanese version he was named Slash instead of Nikki, which made him a shoutout to the Guns N' Roses guitarist and to hide.
  • In SaGa Frontier, Virgil is based on Atsushi Sakurai from BUCK-TICK.
  • A main character in Persona 2, Eikichi Mishina, is a leader of a rock band whose appearance and personality are based on visual kei.
  • Sergei from Asura's Wrath is reincarnated as a Visual Kei artist in The Stinger of DLC ep 22 part Iv: Nirvana.
  • In DRAMAtical Murder, Aoba (and to a lesser extent, Mizuki) is a big fan of the real-life Visual Kei band GOATBED (who produced the soundtrack for the games, see below). They even made a special appeareance as guest stars alongside the main cast in one of the Drama CD.

Productions for which Visual Kei or post-Visual Kei artists/bands have created music/soundtracks (please list in this section if the band existed before the anime or manga or film - if the band was created for the production, it belongs in one of the above categories)

Other Media

  • Vocaloid, arguably. Some Vocaloid characters are directly based on and voiced by actual Visual Kei artists, like Gackpo/Gakupo (designed after and voiced by GACKT) and Yohioloid.
    • Some Vocaloids who are based off real musicians may have VK-inspired character designs , even if their voice providers don't fit in the genre themselves. Notable examples are Lily (designed after and voiced by Yuri of m.o.v.e.) and Fukase (from Sekai no Owari).
    • V Flower's design (especially the V4 version) has clear Visual Kei influences and was designed to be androgynous, much like her voice.
    • Vanan'Ice (consisting of Gakupo, Len, and KAITO) is a fictional Visual Kei band created by SCL (Seven Color Light) Project.

The Visual Kei genre and scene provides examples of:

    #-D 
  • Accentuate the Negative: Visual Kei artists (especially Visual Shock era artists) are often seen as musical novelties at best, outside of their band fandoms and the general Visual Kei/Jrock fandom at large in the US. This often leads to US musical critics and US media ignoring them entirely, writing heavily insulting and patronizing pieces about them or their acts/refusing to recommend them when they recommend objectively artistically worse acts, and/or emphasizing their negative behaviors or attributes when they would not do the same to a similar white, American artist - and that's from people who are "professional" or "respectable." From the average US metal or mainstream Fan Dumb, they won't even be kind enough to ignore or damn with faint praise, and will usually pile on with a flurry of anti-Asian racial epithets and homophobic insults.
    • Within the fandom, various rivalries and hatedoms often lead to this - e.g. to the most rabid X fans, there is nothing good about COLOR or their music, to the most rabid Dir en grey fans, The Gazette stole their ideas and is a bunch of wannabe emo fanboys... if fans hate a rival band enough, nothing about them can be worthy of praise, even if it objectively is.
  • Acquired Situational Narcissism: A common reason for Visual Kei artists becoming the Attention Whore or Drama Queen, getting into scandals, or otherwise acting in ways that seem to be It's All About Me even after becoming famous (and no longer needing to be an Attention Whore or Shameless Self-Promoter as getting famous occasionally requires.) To name any specific artist would start a Flame War, because there's more than one.
  • Actually, I Am Him: This can happen due to artists often looking far different out of usual costume and makeup, especially if the artist is one that normally engages in Costume Porn onstage and dresses fairly normally off.
  • Addled Addict: There have been a few in the scene at various points, though being openly this is often highly detrimental to one's ongoing career - especially if it leads to an arrest or other public disgrace that the Lunatic Loophole doesn't cover. Most addicts within Visual Kei are the Functional Addict.
  • Agent Peacock: As quite a few people stupid enough to get into a Bar Brawl with Visual Kei artists quickly learned, looking effeminate does not make one a weakling or wimp.
  • The Alcoholic: Most people in Japanese Visual Kei drink at a level that could be considered to be alcohol abuse/alcohol misuse, and more than a few artists have become alcoholics, and people have died and gotten injured with alcohol as a factor. Alcoholism is the second most common addiction in the Visual Kei scene, only second to nicotine addiction.
  • Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: A common cause of everything from the Bar Brawl and arguments to the Noodle Incident to injuries and even deaths. It's arguable that the most famous death in Visual Kei, in fact, is a direct result of this trope.
  • All Part of the Show: During live performance, Visual Kei bands generally try to keep the show going at almost any cost, especially in Japan, because they must pay to play every show. This trope is often a result - a mistake or even an injurious accident is brushed off as intentional and part of the show.
  • Almost Kiss: Common as a form of fanservice, especially among straight male artists who don't want to really kiss.
  • Always Male: Pretty much, as in most rock genres, though there are a few exceptions: Fiction and Lucifer Luscious Violenoue from older VK, and the modern bands exist†trace, DESTROSE, and Danger Gang are all female, as is the YouTube X Japan cover band called SOX Japan. There are some individual artists too: the drummer Hina (who works now with the late Taiji Sawada's band which was and is otherwise all male) is one; Inugami Kyouko, the vocalist from Inugami Circus-dan, is another, Yui Itsuki of Yousei Teikoku is a rather famous example, and perhaps the most well-known outside the subculture is Kanon Wakeshima.
    • Inverted by the fans. It is not unusual for Visual Kei bands (even in the Hard Rock and Heavy Metal genres which are usually heavily male for non Visual Kei acts) to have more female fans than male fans on average, or an almost even split of fan gender.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Many Visual Kei artists, both because man on man fanservice is one of the most common types of fanservice, due to image, and because the scene does have a higher population of bisexual and gay men than average Japanese society.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Many Visual Kei artists have made this their "hat," as noted above, and some seem to have chosen it as their gender presentation onstage and offstage alike. A couple of examples would be hide from X Japan for old Visual Kei, and Hizaki from Versailles (and a whole lot of other bands) for new. Other notable artists who presented themselves in this manner are Mana of Malice Mizer and Moi Dix Mois, Kaya, Omi of exist†trace and Shinya of Dir en grey.
  • Amicable Exes: Not in the relationship sense, but in the ex-band member sense. While some bands and friendships break up due to intense drama and there are some artists who (or whose fans do, or both) intensely hate each other, many other people just drift apart for other reasons, bands break up for financial or label reasons or creative differences or a member being in legal trouble etcetera, and therefore they remain on friendly terms and will sometimes come back to work with each other. One example was Yoshiki and Taiji - while their split was a bit more acrimonious at the beginning, they reconciled, and before Taiji's death were actually somewhat close friends again.
  • Anger Born of Worry: A common cause of people being kicked from bands or disbandments.
  • Angrish: Quite a few songs are sung in this, and a few vocalists are famous for it, especially within the Eroguro subgenre.
  • Anyone Can Die: Due to many problems besetting the scene (including high rates of alcoholism and alcohol abuse, a high suicide rate, low access to quality health care for younger people or their simply not seeking health care out of a feeling of invincibility, yakuza involvement, and No OSHA Compliance) there have been quite a few sudden deaths of people in their twenties and thirties.
  • Appeal to Obscurity: Due to the amount of hurriedly disbanded bands in the scene, this is incredibly common - almost everyone knows a band or act that never made it even to the six-month mark, to the extent where it's often used as an argument against entering the scene as an artist at all.
  • Armored Closet Gay: Surprisingly enough, despite the Visual scene's reputation as a Gayborhood, this can occasionally merge with Transparent Closet: an artist who is obviously gay or bisexual will sometimes deny it, claiming to be fanservice only and himself to be 100 percent straight, honest! with a really hot girlfriend.
  • Art Evolution: Has happened in all of Visual Kei, though whether the changes brought by the evolution are good or not is very dependent upon the fan/the artist commenting. There's quite a few people, for example, who wish a specific subgenre had never developed (Oshare gets this a lot from metal fans, but so does Eroguro from people who find it a misogynistic, backward embarrassment), or that Post-Visual had never became a thing. On the other hand, there's a lot of fans and artists who are thankful that the scene has evolved and therefore survived at various points.
  • Artistic License – Gun Safety: Because firearms are banned by law to most people in Japan, and most artists posing with prop guns or other fake firearms as a shocking image have not had formal firearms training. For an almost hilarious example, count all of the gun safety mistakes made in GACKT's ''Another World'' PV, and Gackt allegedly does have firearms training.
  • Artistic Stimulation: Very much so. Alcohol could be argued to be almost the lifeblood of Visual Kei because almost all performances are at bars, many band events center around drinking and drinking parties, and the amount of artists who are or who are close to The Alcoholic or Off the Wagon or Functional Addict are too numerous to count. Most Visual Kei artists also smoke, although many have quit. While recreational drug use in general aside from alcohol and tobacco is VERY much frowned upon openly due to Japan's attitudes toward drugs in general, methamphetamine abuse is also an open secret among some artists and has figured in the burnouts and/or deaths of some.
  • Ascended Extra: Too many Visual musicians to count are first seen as roadies or promotional staff or even entourage, and even more will be seen at other musicians' shows, before they start/get into a successful band and become famous themselves.
  • Attention Whore: VERY common in Visual Kei, except most tend to be a relatively harmless Shameless Self-Promoter at worst, because from the beginning of the scene, artists had to try to stand out and get attention to even be noticed as Visual Kei. There may be some of the more pathological type, but most VK attention whoring is simply for artistic and artist promotion purposes due to attention bids being an effective way to get one's message out - getting on the news, for example, is nearly-free publicity that might introduce you to a Periphery Demographic who thinks you looked cool, or filming your PV in a busy public location without proper permits gives you both the chance to look natural and induce Enforced Method Acting.
  • Atomic F-Bomb: Common in some lyrics...
  • The Atoner: Many members of older bands will fall into this trope, becoming social activists or at the very least very nice people to make up for the excesses and sometimes even criminal acts of their early days.
  • Audience Participation Song: Visual Kei is a genre very dependent on audience participation. Most bands will have at least one image song like this, complete with specific "furi" (hand gestures or dance moves) to go along with it.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • Custom instruments, at least for beginning bands that can't do the customization themselves and that don't have a contract with a gear maker that will do the custom for them without being paid upfront. Expensive as hell, and occasionally more difficult to use than the standard guitars or drums.
    • Brand Elegant Gothic Lolita clothes - the reason many Lolita Kei bands don't survive unless the designer is part of the band or there's some other way they don't have to pay, because the cost of costuming is too high to maintain on often low incomes.
    • Playing a "big name" venue when the attendance or budget for it does not exist.
  • Ax-Crazy: Some bands (generally Eroguro or Visual Shock bands, but Nagoya Kei sometimes as well) give off an insane image, at least for specific members, and many songs go around people with the theme.
  • The various types of badass clothing. Badass Cape, Badass Longcoat... it will be worn by someone in some band somewhere.
  • Badass Biker: Visual Shock was a near-direct descendant of Bōsōzoku and yankii style and fashion of The '80s at many points. While Taiji of X Japan and Music/Loudness (among many others) was the most famous example, there were many, many others, although most of them either disappeared, disbanded, or went back to being more "ordinary" rock or metal artists by the middle of The '90s.
  • Bad Boss: A lot of label owners/producers tend toward this, though with producers, they're under pressure from their overhead as well.
  • Banned in China: The Chinese Visual Kei band Silver Ash was actually banned in its own country in a literal version of the trope. While most Visual Kei bands aren't banned in China itself (in fact, Chinese fans make up a very large portion of X Japan's fandom) they have ran the risk of being banned or restricted elsewhere, or having to tone down performances in places to avoid it (for example, Adams couldn't perform in Russia or the Islamic world due to its very band concept having been Ho Yay, and while Kaya has performed in Russia he faced similar issues)
  • Bar Brawl: Arguably somewhat less common now (though still engaged in by indies and unpopular bands and between fans, for various reasons), this was common for a while among Visual Shock bands in the 80s and early 90s.
  • Berserk Button: Almost anything that can be associated with Visual Kei can and would enrage someone somewhere in the fandom. From the usual, such as which bands, artists, or subgenres are better to more specific topics such as reasons for bands breaking up, members leaving/retiring from music/transferring to another band, or the deaths of famous artists.
    • Do not, ever claim to have slept with a bandperson or be dating them, even if you are or you have. This is a Berserk Button to many fans for a lot of reasons (everything from homophobia/transphobia to jealousy to their being convinced you're a liar, to anger over being invasive of privacy, to fear of the Gold Digger or Yoko Oh No). It is somewhat mitigated if you are a highly beautiful and conventionally attractive straight female and/or the artist himself or herself has announced the relationship first, but it's still very touchy for a lot of people.
    • Post-Visual Kei, in general, is the subject of much controversy. It is a major Berserk Button for many fan circles. mainly because artists associated with the label are known for leaving the scene/denying they were part of it, actively loathing Visual Kei and VK artists, or appearing "different" from the usual, leading to many accusations of artists "selling out" or "damaging the image of Visual Kei". L'Arc~en~Ciel has been the target of many VK purists for leaving the scene, then showing off visuals despite constantly denying that they are VK. A similar controversy exists within the fandom of Dir en grey.
    • Whenever a band goes Genre-Busting, plays songs in genres other than rock or metal, or outright changes their musical style, to some degree. As with the general rock/metal scene, Genre-Busting is usually seen as bizarre and untrue to the spirit of the subculture and therefore, is not tolerated by everyone in the scene (though the VK scene is more tolerant of such artists and bands). Bands like exist†trace and The Gazette gain fairly sizable Hatedoms for having changed their musical styles.
    • Oshare Kei. Bring it up on any Visual Kei or J-rock (or any rock/metal discussion for that matter), and hope to escape alive and unscathed.
    • As a general rule, never, ever confuse Visual Kei with Emo, Scene, or Hair Metal, or label VK bands as such.
    • Deaths in general are a topic for discussion in all rock subgenres, but in Visual Kei, deaths are a touchy, touchy subject; to avoid causing controversies, many bands never disclose the reasons for their bandmates' deaths (though this practice is an equally controversial move, since it would attract curious fans and cause rumors to pop out). hide's death, in particular, is probably not a good idea to discuss unless you're absolutely certain everyone around agrees with what you're going to say. The roles of alcohol and other substances, whether it was accident, intentional suicide, murder, or whatever else are all flashpoints, the roles of other people in his life even more so, and people are so used to trolls using discussions around it to start fights that saying anything even vaguely controversial, even if legitimate (e.g. mentioning his alcoholism) can start a roaring flamewar or get you called out as a rumormongering troll.
  • The Beautiful Elite: The most successful Visual bands and artists were considered these.
  • Best Known for the Fanservice: Some bands, and some individual artists. In the better cases, because they actually are skilled and talented musicians who just happen to be The Beautiful Elite and/or skilled at playing to the fetishes. In the worse, because the music itself is bad to horrible, but the artists doing it are very skilled at fanservice.
  • Pretty Boy: Almost all Visual Kei artists to some degree, at least onstage. Arguably an Enforced Trope in some underground circles.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Invoked by some bands and artists. Jasmine You of Versailles made this a joke, as did hide from X Japan, and being "alien demons" was the entire hat of SEIKIMA-II. Kaoru of Dir En Grey describes his band's concept as "Japanese Zombie Heroez", and Yui Itsuki's Yousei Teikoku is Exactly What It Says On The Tin (the band's name translates to "The Fairy Empire").
  • "Before" and "After" Pictures: Common, and the difference between an artist when he or she is fully kitted out in their style and when he/she is not is often so much as to make the person unrecognizable. Averted by "lifestyle" artists who are always dressed in some form of visual style, and by those whose style is one of the more "rockstar" varieties.
  • Blackmail: VERY common in the scene. Some of the more notorious forms involve leaking compromising photos (anything from nudes or sex photos to simply pictures of the artist out of costuming/makeup or looking ugly or sick), claiming to have been impregnated by an artist and/or having been forced into an abortion or to move overseas, claiming one was lied to about a marriage or exposed to an STD, claiming that one is a secret yakuza, or pretty much any other embarrassing or career-damaging allegation that can be made and either "proved" to some degree or just lied about convincingly enough.
  • Blame Game: When a band breaks up acrimoniously or a show was horrible, this often results. Sometimes it's between the fans only (and it's a fast way for an artist to become the target of a hatedom, or for Flame War to begin), and other times it's between the artists themselves, resulting in anything from major, public drama and fans taking sides, to the band itself breaking up/the artists hating each other or blacklisting each other to their friends, or even a Bar Brawl.
  • Bonus Material: Much of The Merch is this, for attending shows and the like, and often special CD or DVD releases have at least a little "present" of some sort, whether it be a special version of a song, pictures of the band, the liner notes, backstage interviews, outtakes... among many other options.
  • Both Sides Have a Point: Applies very much to almost anything argued over in the scene by anyone, and why making judgments even on violent or seemingly criminal actions can be harder than it may seem on the surface.
  • Broken Bridge: The Real Life version of this is why many bands disband or never attain much notice. Due to the lack of financial stability, anything from a band member suddenly taking ill and being unable to be replaced quickly enough to perform at the venues bought, a major gear theft or vehicle accident, a venue closing and not paying back the fees, the label that just signed them going under, anything can be a catastrophic end to a band at the very least going on as itself, and possibly the artist's career as such.
  • Broken Pedestal: Can happen when one works with or meets with an artist and finds them to be anything from a run of the mill jerkass to something far worse, especially if said artist's image is incredibly different from this revelation (e.g. the effect is far more pronounced with, say, an Oshare artist than an Eroguro one)
  • Busman's Holiday: Want to meet Visual musicians? Go to a show for any band in the scene - you will often find other artists and band people in the audience checking out their friends' shows, even if they aren't performing at the time.
  • Camera Abuse: A very common stylistic trick in Visual Kei PV or live video. One very expensive example involved hide taking a signature Burny Fernandes guitar to an expensive stage camera. Just from looking at the footage, an estimate of that stunt probably cost at least the equivalent of US $10,000.
  • Camp Gay: A very common stage image for the sake of fanservice to the Yaoi Fan, even for actually heterosexual or opposite-sex preferring bi artists offstage.
  • Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Oshare artists on very restrictive labels - there have been people kicked from bands or their label simply for having a known relationship, or for gaining weight or being photographed without permission.
  • Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': Once an artist is truly wealthy enough and/or has successfully invoked the Lunatic Loophole enough to enter The Tyson Zone, this applies.
  • Careful with That Axe: Some Visual Kei vocalists are absolutely famous for this. Kyo from Dir en grey is the most well known, though he learned from the late Ume from Tokyo Yankees.
  • Career-Building Blunder: There have been a few incidents that have seemed to be or were complete blunders, but that have actually made the artists or bands more popular.
  • Cash-Cow Franchise: While many Visual artists break out into the mainstream, there aren't a lot who gain popularity outside the music industry, but those who do become living, breathing, walking examples of this trope, spawning loads and loads of merchandise, as well as legions of imitators. Notable examples include GACKT, T.M.Revolution, Mana, and both Yoshiki and hide of X Japan (the last being a case of Dead Artists Are Better / Vindicated by History)
  • Cast Full of Gay: Can happen when every or almost every member of a specific band is gay or male-preferring bi. These bands, or bands that pretend to be them, tend to draw huge Slash Fic fandoms and a Groupie Brigade of Yaoi Fangirls and Yaoi Fanboys, for reasons that should be obvious.
  • Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Almost all Visual Kei bands, unless the band is made of women or has female members, or the band is really old and hasn't had good luck with genetics or money for plastic surgery and/or makeup, or the band has intentionally decided to avert the trope and be as ugly as possible in hopes of being more shocking.
  • Character Tics: Nearly every band member has one of these that makes him stand out. Funnily enough, for the ones that specifically don't, that itself becomes a character tic: for example, Pata of X Japan is so quiet and focused on his instrument that that IS predominant of his Character Tics.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Very common in Performance Video - the literal gun version alone exists in almost too many to count, but most famously including Another World by GACKT and THE FINAL by Dir en grey - if a gun appears in a Visual Kei PV, it will almost always be used. The non-literal variants are too many to name, to the point that Red Herring being invoked instead (with what seemed to be one being absolutely meaningless/forgotten about) is often a shocking surprise.
    • And a variant to the scene itself is an artist going solo. While there have been some exceptions, this is such a frequent direct or contributing cause of disbandments that one or more in a band developing (especially more popular) solo careers is when the countdown to the artist's band breaking up usually begins.
  • Child Prodigy: A few artists started out as them, and then chose to go into rock/Visual as they got older.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: The stage image and lyrical output of most of the more sexually-inclined Oshare work where it exists, and a fair amount of sexually-themed Visual Shock and Kote Kei, although there the lyrics can be a bit less of the "chivalrous" part than the stage image. Occasionally the stage image of someone at the softer end of Eroguro, though that's rare.
  • Clip Show: Most Visual Kei DVD are this - clips of performances, of tour events, sometimes interviews with the artists or other stuff. Many promotional videos and performance videos are also these, even when they claim to be live, they may be a pastiche of several lives. The latter is most notorious with anything related to hide, as all the official DVD for him are Clip Show rather than the film of one single complete live show.
  • Clone by Conversion: Accidental, perhaps, but one source of the Fountain of Expies for hide is that he is such an influential artist to the scene and that rightly or wrongly, many visual kei artists see doing tributes to him or looking like him as personally important for at least a while or to at least rake in a ton of cash from his fans. Therefore, the artists do this to themselves, accomplishing his physical looks and occasionally his mannerisms, for some, to the point of Unintentional Uncanny Valley.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Somewhat less common than the Atomic and Precision varieties, but a lyrical device used by bands that have Nu Metal or Metalcore influences.
  • Colbert Bump: Why getting on a bill with a more recognized artist (if you're not doing oneman lives yet), appearing with a more recognized artist as a guest or in a combined photoshoot, or even hanging out with one is a major step in establishing oneself. Getting on mainstream TV is another huge thing for Visual Kei artists - and this was heavily exploited in the beginning by X Japan and SEIKIMA-II among others.
  • Complaining About Complaining: Many Visual Kei-related flamewars revolve around this.
  • Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: The scene itself is one, when you consider the amount of people all trying to make money (often by less than ethical means), all the business deals and intricate yet concealed relationships (business, personal, and otherwise), and amount of criminal activity and drug use and similar that only occasionally get noticed. Which leads to the presence of the...
  • Conspiracy Theorist: Any visual kei band fandom will have at least one person spreading various rumors and various conspiracies/secrets/etcetera. The larger the fandom gets and/or the more the band keeps secret/the more things that happen to it or its members that could have more than one explanation, there will be more than one, and sometimes they will have a Flame War over who's right or wrong. If there's an unexplained or suspicious death, a sudden disbandment, or any other type of major incident, there's a strong possibility of a majority of the fandom becoming one, at least in regard to the incident. Sometimes, they can even be right.
  • Contractual Purity: Some labels and band leaders (generally Oshare ones, or those trying to market as available or alternately to Yaoi Fangirls) forbid band members to talk about their relationships. Almost every band and label (with a few exceptions) demands its members keep quiet about using drugs/substances other than alcohol and tobacco.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: VERY common in early Visual Kei Performance Video, promotional video, and even occasionally live performance. Visual Shock bands such as X Japan and BUCK-TICK loved pyro back then, and often the determinant for "should we set this on fire" was the Rule of Cool, not anything related to safety or sanity or even if it made sense in the video. When done in live performance or practice or otherwise, belief in the trope actually led to accidental fires and even to a few incidents of Man on Fire as mentioned below. When people began to get tired of taking said risks with actual pyro, CG became good enough to render semi-realistic fire, so the trope continued on in videos even as it somewhat died out in lives.
  • Conveniently Common Kink: BDSM and related fetish are fairly common at least as ways to invoke a shocking stage image/outward image, especially in Visual Shock (and the parts of Black Kote Kei and neo-Visual Shock that are its Spiritual Successor) and in Eroguro - while occasionally making appearances elsewhere. Some of the most famous photoshoots and stage performances and songs are themed around some idea of BDSM.
  • Cool Bike: These occasionally make appearances in videos or photoshoots - especially from the early days, when bosozoku and yankii and Visual Kei had a larger connection. Probably the most famous Badass Biker visual kei artist is Taiji Sawada, but there's many, many more especially from The '80s and early in The '90s.
  • The Corruption: Methamphetamine. There's two primary routes of entry into the Japanese v-kei scene - band members who happen to use the drug turning their bandmates onto it, and the very nice gentlemen who often supply people in labels and/or have dealers working the scene. Either way, it spreads virally - one artist using meth almost always ensures that at least some of his/her associates/friends/kankeisha/groupies/fellow artists/bandmates will, and then those people expose others to meth, and then those people do, and on it goes. Users first experience euphoria, the lack of need for sleep, weight loss to be thin enough for any standard, and increased sex drive - all good things for a Visual Kei artist in Japan... except the drug is slowly addicting them, depriving them of needed sleep and nutrition, and causing physical and mental illness, one horrifying example being amphetamine psychosis followed by, when the drug is quit due to the loss of touch with reality, a depressive crash that can last years and drive users back to the drug just to feel alive or normal, or be capable of work. Or it can just blow out someone's heart or brain with a heart attack or stroke instead. Quite a few deaths in the scene have resulted (though, due to the "shame" of using illegal drugs it's rarely mentioned even if the use was detected on a tox screen or the person was found with pills and/or needles.)
    • Its use is also cyclical due to this pattern of distribution with "speed booms" over certain years, becoming very virulent, and then the major users dying/being arrested/quitting the drug/quitting the scene, which puts it back to "background noise" while pot or diverted prescription drugs or something else becomes more popular - until the ravages of the last speed boom are forgotten and more speed users spread use and access in the scene - leading to the next speed boom.
  • Costume Porn: Defines some parts of the scene, specifically Angura and Lolita, and is very common in other subgenres and elsewhere.
  • Cover Version: Most Visual Kei bands start out by covering (or occasionally outright ripping off without credit) other Visual Kei bands. More established bands will also still do covers, usually as tributes, for cover albums, or as a belated form of credit for past plagiarism.
  • Crazy Enough to Work: When Visual Kei began, no one wanted to sign the first Visual Kei bands (which necessitated one of the founding bands of Visual's bandleader to create his own label for his and other bands), believing that there was no way anyone would want to see it, that it wasn't accessible or interesting or marketable. Yoshiki, hide, Imai, Atsushi, Demon Kogure, Rolly, and (D'erlanger)'s Kyo (and all the many, many other people who are far less famous) proved absolutely otherwise despite what was, until roughly 1988 when they all hit the Popularity Polynomial, an entire industry that thought they were too crazy when they were exactly this - by appealing to the incipient desire for freedom and change and as a way to express the frustration of not only the disaffected Japanese Delinquents that made up much of the scene but of a large chunk of "normal" society as well, and by making Hard Rock and Heavy Metal local to Japan rather than imports (and eventually by making it an export), Visual Kei worked.
  • Creator Breakdown: A very common event in Visual Kei as a result of the various financial and societal pressures on artists, as a result of many artists already being The Mentally Disturbed to some degree, and the amount of amphetamine-class stimulants funneled into the scene by the very nice gentlemen whom we shall not name for fear of getting whacked among other factors. Often a reason for disbandments or people leaving the scene entirely.
  • Cruel Twist Ending: Disbandments, usually, unless everyone really just wanted to go different directions and there's no hurt feelings. Band members becoming sick or dying, especially if the illness or death is sudden, unexplained or badly explained, or the result of criminal activity or negligence.
  • Crutch Character: A place where this occurs outside of Video Games. Many times, a member from a far more famous band will be brought in for name recognition purposes and/or will start a solo band, or members from other famous bands will form a supergroup. These bands rarely succeed at the time, and almost always collapse when the most famous member or, in the case of supergroups, anyone walks (though there are some exceptions). Some good examples of this are nearly every band featuring Taiji Sawada after Loudness, and any band featuring Kisaki, and the failures of S.K.I.N. and The Killing Red Addiction, two superbands. One example where it actually did work was Vamps.
  • Cultural Posturing: Pro-Japanese cultural posturing is Serious Business to the few artists in the scene that are hardcore right-wingers, and occasionally engaged in by fans if a "J-Rock vs. Korean Pop" Flame War begins. There's a little of it scattered everywhere around the scene, but generally it doesn't reach the level of hating on other countries than Japan outside of right-wingers and that flame war.
  • Cultural Rebel: The entire Visual Kei scene for both Japan and elsewhere in the world.
  • Cuteness Overload: Being "kawaii" is important in Oshare and in some parts of Lolita. This can often be the result.
  • Dance Party Ending: A common thing in Oshare PV is to film a dance party of some sort.
  • Darker and Edgier: Compared to pretty much all other output of the Japanese music industry. Averted by Oshare Kei (see Lighter and Softer below), which developed as a backlash to the domination of Heavy Metal and Goth in Visual Kei and a way to make the genre more "accessible."
  • Dead Artists Are Better: As with many forms of rock, it is generally agreed upon that dead artists (especially very popular or talented ones) are better than their living counterparts; consequently, many of them have achieved legendary status, even among non-rock fans. In Visual Kei, bands see their members as highly important that, should one of them (typically someone very popular or with exceptional talent) pass away, it would be nigh-impossible to find someone of equal skill or influence to take his place, resulting in many bands listing them as "eternal members" and/or carrying on as if they were still alive, with a substitute musician (preferably an expy) filling in for their absence. Often, the death of one member is a valid reason for a band to break up, go on hiatus, or change into darker styles. Famous examples include hide and Taiji of X Japan for old VK, and Jasmine You of Versailles for modern VK.
  • Dear Negative Reader: Sometimes, Visual Kei artists lash out at their hatedom rather than pretending it's not there. The results can be anything from Hilarity Ensues to a massive Flame War.
  • Demoted to Extra: Popular bands and artists don't always remain so - in fact, for a band to retain popularity and interest even after its breakup/disbandment/loss of certain members and keep gaining fans afterward is very unusual.
  • Determinator:
    • Almost anyone in a Long Runner band, because you have to be to keep a band together over 15 or 20 or more years.
    • Indies or broke artists who manage to stay in the scene and keep performing anyway, even if it's obvious their bands are too old/too weird/too something to get a major label signing.
    • Almost all the still-surviving founders of the scene from Yoshiki to Imai, with all they had deal with to get to where they are.
    • hide, because he suffered mental illnesses, financial issues, the breakup of his first band, and more things that would make most people quit music and still became one of the most influential figures in the scene, even though he's not still surviving.
  • Digital Piracy Is Evil: A VERY contentious debate within Visual Kei. Some people (many fans and including some artists such as Yoshiki) see piracy and bootlegging as a means of promotion, of making their art widespread and popular, and generally relatively harmless in the sense that many people who pirate couldn't afford to buy or wouldn't buy them unknown anyway, and therefore tolerate a certain level of piracy (usually from those who do buy some things to their ability, and of bands that either make relatively little money off of CD/DVD sales or are disbanded), subverting the trope. Played straight officially and by JASRAC and the record companies. Double Subverted by hide fans who insist on defunding Hiroshi Matsumoto by buying nothing official from him.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Often an Invoked Trope for bands whose appearance is far better than their actual musical skill or talent, with the idea that enough fanservice from hot men will make them popular anyway, and in some cases it has actually worked.
  • Doesn't Like Guns: While this trope does not apply to PV's or lyrics or fashion where (usually flash-paper non) guns make frequent appearances, it does apply in Real Life to the scene, which is partially why, despite all of the violence that was in the scene in The '80s, few people actually died as a result (and those who did were not usually shot) and why the homicide rate is still fairly low enough that outright murder in the scene is shocking and newsworthy when it does occur. Due to Japan's strict anti-firearm laws and the personal distaste for firearms most people in the scene have being a dual version of this trope, Visual Kei has managed to fairly successfully avoid major issues with Real Life gun violence.
  • Don't Look At Me: Some Visual Kei artists find being photographed out of costume/offstage very offensive, and some of the more restrictive bands, labels, and management will actually punish artists/kick them out for appearing in unflattering or just merely unauthorized images. Other artists will avert this even to the point of sharing their own photos at various points.
  • Don't Try This at Home: Generally, trying to teach oneself a skill or instrument off of the most extreme artists for it is not a good idea, because those artists generally have thrown safe technique and care for their own bodies to the wind, which is why they often get hurt and hurt badly from doing what they do. For example, using Kyo or pre-1991 Toshi as absolute technique models for your singing may very well give you the same vocal polyps they both had, or burst your own eardrum or break your vocal cords. Trying to drum exactly like Yoshiki pre-1995 may give you the same injuries and pain he now has to deal with, or if your neck snaps in a different place, just outright kill you.
  • Double Entendre: Common with the earlier works or "marketable" works of Visual Shock bands. Still in use by Oshare bands, for similar reasons of marketability. Averted by Eroguro bands, which generally are far more direct with sexual and violent imagery and lyrics.
    • Most bandmen will use forms of Double Entendre or other wordplay to communicate being gay/bi/trans or communicate drug use, if asked about such subjects in an interview or other context without actually saying it. This plays into Japanese culture, where admitting, say, that one finds one's own gender attractive would be seen as crass and outre - so to say one is "embarrassed" by their reaction to a man flirting with them, or to vaguely mention "taking pills" to refer to drug use or to refer to a mental breakdown as "nervous exhaustion," are ways to convey the meaning without being too public.
  • Drama Queen: The "diva" or "princess" type is fairly common in Visual Kei. Some that became notorious for it include Yoshiki, GACKT, Kisaki, Hizaki all fell into this at some point or another, among many others.
  • Dramatic Shattering: Fairly common way to do something "shocking." Pioneered primarily by X Japan whose band members liked to smash things onstage and in Performance Video (and pretty much elsewhere), and picked up by pretty much everyone.
    • As a matter of fact, one of the US-English sites covering Visual Kei is called "Shattered Tranquility," in a form of Lampshade Hanging.
  • Dresses the Same: Artists who are engaging in Follow the Leader or impersonating or paying tribute to other artists. Sometimes entire bands will do this as part of their style, or because it's cheaper to use the same clothing and makeup across the board.
  • Driven to Suicide: A very common theme in much Visual Kei work, to the extent that if you are easily triggered with themes of suicide it's probably a good idea to avoid many songs or bands, unless you find music/discussion of it helpful to your healing.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: As mentioned previously, alcoholism is the second most common addiction (outside of tobacco/nicotine) and the most common serious addiction within the Visual scene, especially in Japan.
  • Drugs Are Bad: Quite a few artists have become accidental examples of this as An Aesop, due to their irresponsible or addictive use of various legal and illegal drugs ruining their careers, making them sick, and sometimes even killing them.
  • Drugs Are Good: Many of the earlier versions of the Ode to Intoxication are exactly this. Some artists have gotten legitimate medical treatment for physical or mental health problems with drugs/medications that have helped them recover or survive. In very rare cases, artists have used cannabis or hallucinogens to good effects for physical or mental health when they are outside of Japan, though obviously this is kept very private and no names will be named.
  • Drunk Driver: The rate of alcoholism and alcohol abuse in Visual Kei has occasionally led to this - artists driving drunk and facing consequences from arrests for DUI to being involved in vehicle crashes.
  • Drunken Master: Quite a few people in Visual Kei are The Alcoholic but this doesn't seem to affect their stage performance or skill. Pata (and the late hide and Taiji of X Japan) are probably the best examples - all of them could perform at insanely skilled levels despite their level of intoxication.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Very, very common, and a frequent cause of Viewer Gender Confusion among fans. Occasionally inverted by female artists who will try to look male or masculine-androgynous.
  • Due to the Dead: The Visual scene very much remembers and respects its dead, to the point of frequent memorials, practically deifying them on occasion, and invoking Never Speak Ill of the Dead.
  • Dumbass Has a Point: Sometimes, trolls, rumormongerers, tabloid journalists, or people who are obsessed with Accentuate the Negative will actually have a good point or make an actual problem known - even if the way in which they do it is incredibly offensive and/or they've given Blatant Lies or incorrect information before that point.
  • Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend: A common reason for band drama or breakups, and why relationships between band members are actually often looked down upon: members who become closer friends or especially romantic partners are far more common to give their closer friends/romantic partners preferential treatment, to the degree of someone who's with the bandleader in such a way having Ultimate Job Security, even if it means the band implodes for it.
  • Dude, Not Funny!: Due to its Shock Rock and Heavy Metal roots, Visual Kei often happily deals in all of the subjects there, on a sliding scale of respect and intelligence to Crossing the Line Twice and Black Humor to just being pointlessly offensive for the sake of offense.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Many Visual Kei bands, due to having more than one member that is Off the Wagon, The Mentally Disturbed, financially or relationally unstable, or in some other way socially dysfunctional.

    E-J 
  • Epic Rocking: The bands that lean towards Power Metal or progressive rock/progressive metal usually have at least one song like this, although the crowning example that no one has so far dethroned is X Japan's "Art of Life." Versailles has come close with the full edition of The Revenant Choir, though. Also, almost all of the more metal leaning bands will have a long solo at one point or another (usually guitar, but sometimes drums, or even bass with an especially talented bassist).
  • Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Quite a few Visual Kei bands use French or pseudo-French in song titles, tour titles, and similar.
  • Everybody Smokes: Almost everyone, at least to a certain point in time anyway. This trope was in full effect in The '80s and The '90s. Some well-known artists began to quit smoking (or at least publicly claim to do so and conceal the habit as they continued on) as of the Turn of the Millennium and The New '10s.
  • Explicit Content: It's everywhere, at least if you know where to look and can find translations/can understand Japanese. From the very beginning - while X Japan may be better known for such ballads as Forever Love and Endless Rain now, a quite large amount of its work is Intercourse with You, including Stab Me In The Back, a song released in 1987 that was explicitly about the joys of male/male sex, and of course Orgasm, which is about Exactly What It Says On The Tin. BUCK-TICK is nigh-famous for it, as a short browse of its page will show. Serial Escalation and Once Original, Now Common means that Dir en grey and The Gazette have stuff that makes X and Buck-Tick look almost innocent in comparison. Almost the only part of Visual Kei that doesn't indulge (openly) are some Oshare bands, and even they have it, they just prefer to hide it behind a lot of innuendo, Lyrical Dissonance, or similar tricks.
  • Explosive Stupidity: Back when actual pyro was more of a thing and the bands using it were a bunch of young drunk and high guys... you could probably guess explosives and incendiaries handling wasn't the smartest, though the amount of people who actually died was surprisingly small, and somehow there weren't any venue incidents that killed everyone inside.
  • Expy: It is quite common for 1990s and late 2000s-era Visual bands to have members that resemble other Visual kei artists. Frequently imitated artists include T.M.Revolution, Reita of The Gazette and Dir en grey vocalist Kyo (who himself was an expy of not one, but three artists: T.M. Revolution, Ume of Tokyo Yankees and Kiyoharu of Kuroyume). Of notable mention is GACKT, who has inspired legions of imitators in terms of both musical ability and visual flair. There's also a thriving industry of hide clones...
    • An entire band of Mana expies in Moi Dix Mois, a band founded and produced by the original Mana, who is also a member. (Watch and see for yourself.)
    • Kisaki's Under Code Production label is particularly notable for having Dir en grey clones and imitators of Visual Shock-era bands, with the only seemingly original artists being Kisaki's own projects (Phantasmagoria and Lin) and Megaromania, bands that are well-known for reestablishing the Visual Shock image (though Megaromania slowly shifted to Kote Kei).
    • Early on, Visual Shock bands adopted 80's glam stylings, to the point that early Visual Kei looked more like a Stealth Parody of Hair Metal than a distinct style. Most of these bands have since established their own image (with the notable exception of SEIKIMA-II)
  • Eye Scream: Often used in promotional videos that want to invoke Nausea Fuel or Gasp! for it being one of the easier CG effects at first (all you needed was a closeup shot of an eye animated or real or a long view on someone "operating" on someone's face etc)
  • Fake-Out Make-Out: Because yaoi fanservice is a cheap way to distract fangirls from lack of musicianship or intelligent lyrics or... pretty much anything.
  • Family Versus Career: Why a lot of Visual Kei artists retire, go indies or on hiatus, or alternately keep performing but get divorced/insist on their partners having abortions or pay them off to go into hiding/similar. It is hard if not absolutely impossible to maintain a somewhat profitable touring and recording schedule as a label-signed artist and have a family with especially young or special needs children.
  • Fan Community Nicknames: Cafekkos, The Merciless Cult, Heresy, Descendants of the Rose, among many, many others...
  • Fan Disservice: Quite a few things in Visual Kei, sometimes intentionally, other times, because what is fanservice to one person (e.g. Ho Yay) is Fan Disservice to another.
  • Fanservice: Pretty much the stock in trade of Visual Kei. Started with the original Visual Shock bands (X Japan and BUCK-TICK are masters of fanservice of various forms, and Yoshiki Hayashi of X Japan was a worker in a host club at one point early in the band's indies days) and whatever form of fanservice you are looking for, it will generally be provided by some Visual Kei band or artist somewhere. Subverted, somewhat, by Lolita artists who do not like to be touched or touch fans, and by Eroguro artists who prefer Fan Disservice and/or serving up Gorn, Nightmare Fuel and Nausea Fuel in equal parts.
  • Female Gaze AND Male Gaze: Most Visual Kei bands to some extent. The most well-endowed men will generally tend to show off, providing lots of eye candy for women and gay/bi men alike...
  • Fighting Your Friend: Instrument "battles" such as guitar or drum battles. Most people who compete are friends, often in the same band or friendly bands.
  • Financial Abuse: As you can likely imagine in a scene with lots of money circulating but relatively little going to the artists themselves, this is incredibly prevalent. Everything from band/label contracts that wouldn't make it for a second before being thrown out in a fair court of law but enforced by the very nice gentlemen or rougher band members, to mitsu forcing bandmen into unwanted relationships, to religious "self-help" seminars and gurus recruiting people claiming to save them from the scene/from Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, it's all there and it can happen to anyone who loses control of their finances or who isn't a business and financial wizard.
  • First-Person Snapshooter: A Real Life one, for concert and rock magazine photographers. Some photographers are almost as famous as onstage performers, especially if they had the good luck to cover a band that succeeded, such as Hideo Canno, famous for his photography with X Japan and hide, among many others.
  • Flame War: There's one raging in pretty much any corner of Visual Kei at one time or another. Some fairly common causes are, but are not limited to:
    • Trolling of almost any form imaginable, ranging from the silly obvious attempt to get flamed to cruel cyberbullying, and a Flame War between the troll(s) and the people they are targeting/people defending that person or band
    • Sexual orientation or relationships of any given person
    • What band or artist is better, what band or artist is worse, what band or artist has "sold out" or "remained true"
    • Rumors, gossip, conspiracy theories, etcetera
    • What some song did or didn't mean
    • Is Visual Kei still alive or is it dead with Korean Pop being the better genre
    • Pretty much anything people can find to fight with each other over
  • Fluffy Fashion Feathers: A common part of some Visual Kei costuming.
  • Fountain of Memes: Visual Kei is one of these.
    • In Visual Kei, "meme" has two meanings. The first is the usual, the second is anonymous communities called "hate memes," which are basically the Western attempt at Tanuki, mentioned later.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: See Vampires Are Sex Gods below. Such a common Visual Kei trope that people mocking the scene have called it out on everyone being "gay vampires."
  • Friendly Rivalry: Most band rivalries, especially after The '80s, in that people tend to be fans of both bands/artists, they will perform together, etcetera.
  • Frivolous Lawsuit: A few of them have been filed, especially when Visual Kei interacts with American lawsuit-friendliness. Some of the more famous are:
    • X Japan being sued by the American punk band X over its name (which was at the time, also X)- forcing it to change its name and not perform in the West for several years
    • Extasy Records being sued by a hearing aid company, Ear Extasy, over its logo and name - forcing it to not use the name Extasy officially in the US
    • Dir en Grey being sued by a concerned mother, who took her 10 year old daughter to a concert in the US where the uncensored version of Obscure PV was on projector. The suit was settled by the venue.
    • Versailles being sued by an artist named Versailles - forcing it to change its name to Versailles Philharmonic Orchestra in the US before its disbandment.
  • Functional Addict: MOST alcoholics and drug addicts within Visual Kei, if only that most either learn to quickly conceal and excuse their addictions and get it together enough to not be arrested or kicked from bands sick of their issues or similar, or they enter The Tyson Zone and can use the Lunatic Loophole freely.
  • Gag Penis: Occasionally achieved by various tactics of pants-stuffing, done to often absurd Compensating for Something levels as per Arena Rock and Shock Rock stage trick standard, sometimes even lampshaded with the person wearing a codpiece, chastity belt, or similar attention-drawing costuming, for which Demon Kogure of SEIKIMA-II and Himawari of Sex Machineguns were famous. Some possibly aren't stuffing, but they will not be named for obvious reasons.
  • Gaia's Lament: Environmental themes and a Crapsack World via environmental destruction are common themes with some artists: Sugizo is probably the most famous for it, though everyone from Buck Tick to Dir en Grey has used such themes in PV or lyrics or both.
  • Gayborhood: Is, to some degree, in the same way theatre is in the West. The scene developed an almost immediate reputation for Ho Yay for several reasons (mostly from its inspiration from Glam Rock and Kabuki theatre, and that the percentage of at least to some degree bisexual men in the early scene was much higher than that of Japanese society in general, and that early on being openly and dramatically out was seen as a way of flipping normal Japanese society off as opposed to fanservice for Yaoi Fangirls). These factors, while not making it an entirely safe space for gay/male-preferring bi men, crossdressers, transwomen, made it far more accepting than the rest of Japan or the rest of the Japanese entertainment industry for much of The '80s / The '90s. (Lesbian and transman representation was and is still fairly limited in the Japanese scene because of the lower percentage of women or men with current/once externally female bodies being directly involved, but in non-Japanese Visual Kei both are also fairly heavily represented). Even in The New '10s, it's a Reconstruction: gay or male-preferring bi men who wish to remain closeted can pass as simply doing fanservice for Yaoi Fangirls, while those who wish to be out can be out with relatively few problems from anyone. While most men in Visual Kei are heterosexual or female-preferring bisexual men, despite what some of the more rabid Yaoi Fangirl would claim, it's undeniable that there is a far higher percentage of out gay/male-preferring bi men in Visual Kei than in a random sampling of the Japanese mainstream society.
    • That said, don't make the mistake that you can necessarily tell someone's sexuality by how androgynous they are. As an example, Kaya is out as gay and one of the most convincing crossdressers in Visual Kei, but Mana, another of the most convincing crossdressers, is straight. Also, in Japanese culture, androgyny and crossdressing are not as equated with same-sex attraction as they are in the Western world - whereas being overweight or heavily muscled and hypermasculine behavior are.
  • Creator's Oddball, Genre-Busting, Genre Roulette and Genre Shift: Fairly common, especially among the older bands that have lasted. Also a fairly common reason for bands breaking up or changing members.
    • Arguably makes sense due to some deep divisions in the scene, for example, a Black Kote band consisting mostly of hardcore metalheads is not going to be pleased if the singer suddenly decides he wants to go Oshare and claims Avril Lavigne as his greatest inspiration. This is why the bands that have survived Genre Roulette and Genre Shift usually either survive with different members, or when all of the band is in agreement about the change to some degree.
  • Going Native: Non-Japanese Visual Kei artists and the picking up of Visual Kei tropes and styles by underground metal artists outside Japan, and the creation of western Visual scenes, are such in a downplayed way. As in, they developed from admiration of the Japanese style and scene, but not all artists involved are Occidental Otaku (and being considered as such for the "music only" ones may be a Berserk Button) and have major differences from the Japanese scene (e.g. more women and/or men with female bodies involved, no rules on what one may or may not disclose - for just one example, in the US scene, there are even some Straight Edge v-kei people that even shun drinking and sexual activity - which in the Japanese scene would make them targets for at least some major ribbing if not outright laughingstocks)
  • Gossip Evolution: Tanuki, a splitoff from the Japanese 2Channel ImageBoard, originally created to discuss Visual Kei. It managed to become a discussion of Visual Kei and the hard rock / heavy metal artists that cross over with the community and each other by their groupies, mitsukano, assorted fantasists and haters, and eventually themselves and their competitors. Sadly, this means that much information that is not, to some degree, Blatant Lies or AstroTurf has at least undergone this to some degree. Others have launched via Memetic Mutation.
    • In the Western fandom, there are the (usually LiveJournal based, but they're possible anywhere that allows anonymous commenting on a post) "hate memes" which consist of anonymous commenters (many of whom are actually sockpuppets of each other) trashing people they hate. Unlike Tanuki, these tend to target fans and fandom people as much as they do active artists, and posts are often even more grudgy than Tanuki or the like, because even the pretense of the discussion being anything but a bash-fest is gone.
  • Gossipy Hens: See the above entry for Tanuki, the 2ch community for bangya, mitsukano, tsunagari, bandmen, fantasists, haters, and Trolls. Anonymous memes for the Visual Kei or jrock scene elsewhere attempt to approach its level of nuggets of truth mixed in a massive shitstorm of insane vitriol, but can barely compare.
  • Goth Rock and Gothic Metal: Lolita and Nagoya artists, and both X Japan and Luna Sea have gone in this direction on occasion.
  • Gratuitous English: Depends on the band. Some artists in the scene have incredible English (and other language) skills despite having accents: Demon Kogure from SEIKIMA-II, Yoshiki and later on (as of The New '10s) Toshi from X Japan and Yama-B ex Galneryus are among those few. Others have learned English very badly if at all, and the result shows up in their lyrics, stage patter, interviews, and nearly everywhere else.
  • Gratuitous Rape: Fairly common as a lyrical or art theme among Visual Shock bands and more so among Eroguro bands, owing to Shock Rock and Heavy Metal's "acceptance" of rape for shock value. Some examples can include the Old Shame that is X Japan's cover for Vanishing Vision, the entire band concepts and names of Gilles De Rais and Rapes, and Dir en grey's video for Obscure, Agitated Screams of Maggots, and Different Sense, among many other examples. What usually differs this from Rape as Drama (also used) is that there is no reason aside being shocking for the (usually graphic) rape imagery or use of the word "rape.''
  • Groupie Brigade: Visual Kei bands often have the organized version, their respective fan clubs. Outside of the fan club (and often including it) the front row/pit can become this, and if a band is popular enough, the Groupie Brigade tends to pop up anywhere the fans are.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Averted, to an extreme degree, in The '80s, in regard to what drinking establishment owners thought of blondes. Visual Kei artists were known for two things: huge, often blonde 80sHair and getting into lots and lots of Bar Brawl and similar trouble . The signs that didn't single out Yoshiki for being banned from a venue often said "No Blondes" to keep him and others out.
  • Hair Metal: Visual Kei is what happens when Hair Metal is taken to extremes, allowed to mature, and become experimental in nature, both musically and in terms of aesthetics. While some hate is directed towards the movement, due to it being the Spiritual Successor to its parent genre, many VK artists are accepted by purists as legitimate rock and metal artists.
  • Handicapped Badass: Yoshiki is probably the crowning example (his split neck and back vertebrae and wrist tendonitis, yet still capable of playing drums and piano almost at the same level as when he felt better, along with having suffered a combination of apparent unipolar depression, PTSD and complicated grief), but there's quite a few other Visual Kei artists who became very sick or very injured. For mental handicaps, there was hide (Bipolar 1, alcoholism, bulimia) and Jasmine You (major unipolar depression) and Taiji (dissociative disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy). For more physical, there is Kyo of Dir en grey who screamed his own eardrum out and had to have surgery on his vocal cords, and the late K from Pay Money To My Pain, who suffered from an apparent combination of heart and other issues and yet maintained a career as a singer before his untimely death.
  • Harsh Vocals: Some Visual Shock bands (Tokyo Yankees became famous for the late Ume's vocals). Became primarily the province of Angura, Eroguro, and Nagoya, with the best representative being ex-Eroguro Dir en grey vocal Kyo.
  • High Class Escort: Prostitution is rampant in Visual Kei. Many indie artists can't afford to finance their bands and due to the stigma of being in a Visual Kei band they often can't get a conventional job. The result is that many VK artists engage in "Mitsu" (dating or having sex with fans for money) or work in host clubs. Even some of the popular VK artists such as GACKT and Yoshiki have histories working as hosts.
  • Heavy Meta: Some songs are meta or snark on the scene itself, or even Take That! directed at other artists or styles or songs.
  • Ho Yay: One of the most common forms of onstage fanservice.
  • Idol Singer: Visual Kei has the gender-inverted version: young men that sparkle. More often than not, they are ex-band members or members of active bands who become breakout stars, either through recognition for their sheer musical prowess or being chosen for their handsome image and charismatic personality. Their careers are also more long-lived, lasting well over the typical 25-year age limit. Good examples would be GACKT, Atsushi Sakurai of BUCK-TICK and Takanori Nishikawa.
    • Part of the reason why Visual Kei experienced a renaissance in the 2000s is the increasing number of non-Visual Kei idol singers and solo artists adopting a Visual kei image and sound, to the point where, as of The New '10s, Visual Kei-influenced J-pop artists have become so common that even casual fans will have little to no trouble finding Visual Kei almost anywhere in the J-music scene.
  • Ignored Epiphany: Many people have these in regard to things that later lead to anything from disbandments to their own deaths. For a truly sad example, look at the text of Taiji Sawada's final communication to his apprentice bassist and friend, if you can find the posting of it. In short, he knew how much trouble he was likely in, but chose not to panic or ask for help from others - which he most certainly should have done.
    • One common reason for the invocation of this trope is that due to the various sources of paranoia in the scene, people often find it hard to tell if they are being Properly Paranoid, and a common reaction to detecting a potential issue both as overcorrecting for paranoia and Japanese Politeness is to pretend it doesn't exist.
  • I Hate Past Me: Why Post-Visual developed, and why many people who leave the scene entirely and retire to a more "normal" life or to performing in non-rock, non-metal genres tend to look down on the scene or their life in it. Sometimes this extends to being a Fan Hater or hating/having Condescending Compassion toward people still in it.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: One of the driving motivations of involvement in Visual Kei, and one of the main motivations for the Trope Makers of the trope and scene. Can lead to some major flamewars when it runs into the above, as well as even the ending of friendships or more - someone who espouses an I Hate Past Me attitude toward their life in the Visual scene and hating the idea of ever having had this view/seeing it as delusional encountering someone who still has it is rarely if ever going to end well.
  • IKEA Erotica: Some Intercourse with You songs fall very flat, due to poor language choices or translation, Unfortunate Implications, or feeling as if the band was ordered to make a song about sex when they didn't really want to. That doesn't even begin to describe the often execrable output of many fanfic writers.
  • Implausible Deniability: There's even a short dictionary to go with some of the more obvious forms!
    • "Creative Differences" = "We all hate each other, that's why our band broke up"
    • "Exhaustion/Nervous Exhaustion" = Sudden physical/mental breakdown, usually either from an episode of mental illness or amphetamine psychosis/amphetamine withdrawal crash.
    • "Our band is on temporary hiatus" = "We're breaking up" or "We're looking for different members so we don't break up" or "One of our members is really out of shape/ill/not good"
    • "Ongoing personal issues" = The band breakup or member departure is because someone got pregnant OR there was an inter-band relationship that went either very bad or very good, derailing everything related to the band itself
    • "A contract matter" = The bandleader or label didn't want to pay the guy who left what he deserved, so he walked
    • "Troubling conduct" = The guy that just got kicked out got popped for drugs or some other crime
    • "We are very sorry for troubling everyone" The bandleader just got popped for drugs or some other crime/the label and/or bandleader got popped for tax evasion or the like
  • Important Haircut: Haircuts and hairstyles are, obviously, a very big deal in Visual Kei, especially in Visual Shock, Neo-Visual Shock, and Kote Kei. They are often the most expensive part of the style (someone can expect to spend anywhere from US $100 to US $700+ on a professionally done haircut/style/color depending on its elaborateness, the stylist, the current condition of their hair, and more and around US $30-$50 a month to maintain it until it needs to be done again), they are often seen as the way of "presenting yourself" or "coming out" as a lifestyle Visual Kei artist, and most people only do dramatic changes to their cut or color when they start/leave bands, debut new albums/tours, or for a specific photoshoot or the like. Intentionally ruining someone's hair (or even touching it without permission in some cases) is a huge affront that can often lead to a fight.
  • Improbable Hairstyle: One of the things that defines some forms of Visual Kei, specifically Visual Shock and Kote Kei.
  • Inconsistent Coloring: For their eyes. The subversion of color contacts is very common, to the degree that people who naturally have odd-colored eyes (blue or blueish or violet or gray in Japan, odd shades of all eye colors elsewhere) are assumed to be wearing them.
  • Indecipherable Lyrics: Often found among Eroguro and Nagoya bands, and pretty much any band that heavily uses Gratuitous English or certain substances.
  • Ineffectual Death Threats: A very common lyrical theme, pioneered by none other than the very first Visual Shock record ever, X Japan's debut single... "I'll Kill You!."
  • Insufferable Genius: Some of the most talented and musically competent people in the scene are also some of the hardest to work with.
  • Interplay of Sex and Violence: Some bands. No more shall be said.
  • It's All About Me: VERY common in Visual Kei, and a very common reason for various drama or band breakups.
  • I Work Alone: Solo artists, who don't join a band or who are only the Guest-Star Party Member for a number of bands. Usually they tend to be singers or guitarists (or singers and guitarists) - solo drummers are even more vanishingly rare than drummers in general, and bassists tend to work in bands.
  • Junkie Prophet: If we can consider alcoholism, the scene boasts at least one, now dead - hide, who among other things described The New '10s culture alongside current Japanese culture in Oblaat and who told people he knew about a recurring nightmare of earthquake and nuclear disaster. If Loudness could be considered part of the scene, its late drummer Munetaka Higuchi also qualifies with his work on the lyrics of Pandemonium, the band's album that foretold The War on Terror and its outcome.
  • Just a Kid: There was a drummer called Riku who could drum on the same level as Yoshiki at 13 and debuted at that age. He was dismissed because of his age and because the band he was in was Toshi's formed while he was a member of his former religion, and once the band broke up, he faded into obscurity... then re-debuted at 17 in 2015 as a solo artist.
    • In general, performing as a Visual artist is very difficult for the under 20 crowd in Japan. School requirements often prohibit totally Visual costuming/style (and even hair dye still), and maintaining good grades and a successful music career is absolutely impossible until one reaches college level and is going to college in a related discipline. Most live houses are bars, and will refuse entry to underage band members - a band with underage member(s) is pretty much locked out of bars and live houses. There's also time restrictions - a band containing underage member(s) can be criminally charged for performing past 10 pm.

    K-O 
  • Kaleidoscope Hair: Richer artists or artists with hairdresser friends or who are hairdressers themselves will often tend toward this, as they are not constrained by finances or the like. hide was probably the crowning example of it, being both a hairdresser himself and with enough money for frequent changes. Imai of Buck-Tick also changed hair frequently as opposed to for reasons like a band style change or a new tour or the like.
  • Kayfabe: Visual Kei often has its own version and it is why you can never trust something you see onstage or that is otherwise for public show to be the truth. This includes Ho Yay, age, origin story, and almost anything else. Magazine and TV interviews are slightly more trustworthy sources of legitimate information, though some artists choose to maintain kayfabe even there, making the "truth" and "rumors" almost interchangeable.
  • Keet: A very common stage persona in Oshare Kei.
  • Language Barrier: One reason Visual Kei is often inaccessible to Westerners, despite the best efforts of some Japanese bands such as X Japan and the non-Japanese bands to avert it.
  • Last Note Nightmare: Very common in Visual Kei songs, as it is "shocking."
  • Less Disturbing in Context: Sometimes lyrics (and Real Life stories) from the scene can be far worse when pulled from their context.
    • A lyrical case involves Dir en grey's mazohyst Of decadence, which, ripped from its context of abortion being a primary method of birth control in Japan, seems like a right-wing anti-abortion rant and Victim-Blaming, when it's actually lashing out at a society that refuses to acknowledge the need for birth control and sex education and uses the most painful and traumatizing last-ditch procedure as a substitute for preventing pregnancy in the first place.
    • A Real Life story example is the rumor that Toshi "abused children" during his days in the religion he abandoned. Combined with a dash of Witch Hunt, this has created one of the scene's nastiest rumors possible - except that the abuse wasn't physical or sexual, it was overseeing them in working for the cult instead of being allowed to go to school. Which was bad (if he even did it, he was found not guilty), but which wasn't raping or savagely beating them.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Much of the Bar Brawl and similar in The '80s consisted of bands on the same labels or at least with the same general goals in the scene viciously fighting with each other, sometimes later becoming friends (for example, hide and Tomoyasu Hotei became friends soon after Hotei kicked Yoshiki's ass in a fight Yoshiki picked with him) or remaining enemies or in Teeth-Clenched Teamwork (for example, Yoshiki and Dynamite Tommy)
  • LGBT Fanbase: For reasons that are probably very obvious if you've been reading this far. It's probably one of the most Ho Yay filled genres/scenes of music there is with both real LGBTQ performers and Faux Yay and Ship Tease, quite a few bands themselves have a sizable LGBT Fanbase in Japan and in the West, and in general Visual tends to have one, especially outside of Japan.
  • Lighter and Softer: Oshare Kei. It's also The Scrappy of Visual Kei, as in it's the genre most likely to be hated/not taken seriously by other Visual Kei artists and by fans of any other genre.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Poorer Visual Kei artists. You can actually tell the financial status of an artist or a band on how limited it is: a very poor artist will have hair in a "drugstore dye" color (usually black or blonde) and simple style (straightened, curled), and maybe two or three outfits that have been rotated over the past four years. A poor artist will have better hair (e.g. they can afford a stylist visit every few months) but around the same outfit rotation give or take one or two outfits. Someone just outside of poverty will have maybe a ten outfit rotation with at least two new per year, and so on, all the way up to rich people who can have a different outfit every day and different hair every few weeks... or days if they like wigs.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Many, MANY Visual Kei artists early on. That said longer hair is out of modern fashion and is more likely to be seen now with non-Visual Kei heavy metal bands, post-Visual bands or with neo-Visual Shock bands.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: Often happens when vkei bands write songs for anime or video games.
  • Long-Runner Line-up: Very uncommon in the movement, as bands would often tend to break up due to Creative Differences. However, there are bands that last for years with the original lineup, with the longest-lived lineups spanning more than a decade.
    • Luna Sea's lineup remained the same from 1989 up until their dissolution in 2000. They have reunited in 2010 and resumed activities ever since.
    • BUCK-TICK is probably one of the longest running lineups in Visual Kei, if not the longest, if one is only counting consistently Visual Kei bands. They have had the same lineup since 1985, have only gone on long hiatus once (due to an external factor, the lead guitarist/co-founder's LSD arrest in 1989), have not broken up, no one has died or been hit with a career-ending or capability-limiting injury, and aside from that LSD arrest, they seem the beneficiaries of extreme good luck (for one example, Atsushi Sakurai surviving an illness with a 20 percent survival rate, and recovering quickly enough to perform again in less than six months). As well as, of course, flexibility, being able to work with each other, and general apparent avoidance of major drama.
    • The lineup of Dir en grey has not changed since their inception (if La:Sadie's isn't considered as part of the band's history). What's unusual is that nearly every other album (and to an extent, every other song) sounds like it's been done by a totally different band.
  • Loud of War: A common theme in Visual Kei Performance Video and promotional video.
  • Lovable Rogue / Lower-Class Lout: Quite a few early Visual Kei artists (and arguably the entire scene at its beginning) were these due to their being various forms of Japanese Delinquents like bosozoku and yankii and punks.
  • Loves My Alter Ego: Many fangirls/fanboys/groupies would hate artists they "love" if they knew anything beyond the stage image. Often causes Broken Pedestal when these don't realize the people on the stage are actually human beings off of it.
  • Lowest Common Denominator: Some bands and some styles (none of which will be mentioned here) are often accused of being sellouts to this, for varying reasons.
  • Machine Empathy: Instrument players can develop a form of this, as can programmers, light/sound techs, or photographers, due to knowing how what they use is supposed to work.
  • Made a Slave: Some labels which shall not be named have contracts very similar to indentured servitude, which is why being an indies artist often works out better for the truly talented who can promote themselves.
  • Made of Explodium: Obviously, pyro. Unfortunately, very sprayed up hairstyles and elaborate clothes and some stage props can be, while not made of explodium, very conducive to catching on fire.
  • Made Out to Be a Jerkass: False rumors, Accentuate the Negative, Never Live It Down and the like can lead to this.
  • Madonna-Whore Complex: Often invoked in regard to the perception of groupies and models etcetera vs. wives/fiancées, or for some bisexual men, men versus women (with "men are for sex and good times, women are for babies and settling down," or conversely, "women are to be used for sex, men are our soulmates")
  • Malicious Slander: There are some rumors and similar that exist only to hurt people or get people to hate them. Specifically, anything that claims someone is a pedophile, a rapist, a murderer or contributor to someone's death, in major financial trouble and only seeking a signing or relationship or whatever to get out of it, a direct active criminal member of the Yakuza, or that they have a uniquely dangerous/disgusting fetish they wish to force on other people is usually something to wait for collaboration from multiple sources or the artist themselves before believing or worse, sharing with others.
  • Man in a Kilt: Skirts are a common fashion item for Visual Kei bandmen.
  • Man on Fire: Visual Shock bands (and some modern bands) tend to use a lot of pyro. Combining pyro with the amounts of flammable hair products + costumes + props can occasionally result in this. One notorious incident in the 90s led to major burns on the side of hide's face during one of his solo performances, and a close brush with it occurred during X Japan's 2010 Yokohama show when a pyro went off too close to two band members, surrounding them with smoke and soot.
  • Mean Character, Nice Actor: Happens frequently, since especially for Eroguro and some metal bands, the kayfabe involves being angry or rageful or even downright evil.
  • Meaningful Name: Many band names and stage names, though often averted, subverted, or inverted.
  • Men Are Uncultured: Depends on the band. Many bands play this heavily straight offstage and onstage, others avert onstage and play straight offstage, and a rare few will avert it both places (usually when education or wealth or the combination of both are involved.)
  • The Merch: Merch is a very large portion of the Visual Kei experience. Every band has a fairly large (and sometimes strange) range of branded merch. Sometimes, the amount of merch can lead to a band being accused of "selling out."
  • Metal Scream: VERY common for the more metal-oriented bands, obviously.
  • Mind Screw: Visual Kei is prolific of seemingly bizarre artists and material, some crazier than others...
    • A great many songs come across as jarring and hard to appreciate for the uninitiated; it is not helped by the fact that most songs are written in Japanese or nigh-unintelligible Gratuitous English, and sound like a mix of different and disparate musical styles. Whether this is Mind Screw or not depends greatly on the listeners, but more often than not, the music comes across as bizarre and alien-sounding for most.
    • In some cases, the bands themselves are a source of Mind Screw, due to their bizarre appearance (relative to most Hard Rock/Heavy Metal acts anyway) and to an extent, their videos and live performances. Nagoya and Eroguro bands tend to invoke Mind Screw more than other bands, but in a particular case of an entire band being Mind Screw incarnate, there is the post-Visual Kei band Dir en grey, who use Nightmare Fuel and Surreal Horror in their songs, videos, and live performances. Another band, Kuroyume, approaches the same level of craziness - but whether they kickstarted the whole Mind Screw thing in Visual Kei or not is highly debatable
    • To some of the metal Fan Dumb, Visual Kei itself is Mind Screw.
  • Mighty Whitey: Double Subverted: The bands that inspired Visual Kei were American and Western bands mostly composed of white people, but there have been very few successful Western Visual Kei artists white or otherwise, and those that have been successes have been so not by rewriting the rules of the scene, telling the Japanese what to do, or similar.
  • Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow: Inverted intensely by the Visual Kei scene. You're far more likely to find white fangirls and the occasional gay or bi fanboys seeking out Asian men for their power and sexuality and status as rockstars and (rarely) rich and powerful (in the case of the label owners and older bandguys) there than almost anywhere else.
  • Military Brat: Some of the very earliest Western fandom (which is almost vanishingly rare as of The New '10s and the internet) consisted of these: US or other military brats checking out Dementia or Yokosuka Saber Tiger or X or Buck-Tick, being "this is actually really cool," and bringing cassettes back to their native country.
  • Misogyny Song: Unfortunately...Some bands have written songs with misogynistic lyrics.
  • Mistaken Age: Very, very easy to do, and most band members want their age mistaken for something younger, so they actively try to invoke the trope with makeup, plastic surgery, and lighting among other tricks.
  • Mistaken for Gay: Ho Yay Kayfabe often leads to this, as does bisexuality when people assume No Bisexuals is truth.
  • Mistaken for Junkie: Name anyone in the Visual Kei scene and they've probably been accused of using illegal drugs when they don't, using more serious illegal drugs than they do, or of being an actual drug addict. A very common mistake is assuming any injection scar = track marks from injecting drugs, when said marks can be from medical injections or intravenous lines (meaning anyone in recent medical treatment likely has them for that reason). Another is assuming using drug imagery in songs or art is encouraging it. And yet another is how all drugs are referred to under the Japanese law as "stimulant drugs" or "narcotics," a bit of horrific Artistic License – Pharmacology that, unless the actual drug is named, makes it too easy for rumors to get started that, say, someone caught with weed was actually caught with heroin, or someone caught with LSD or MDMA was caught with methamphetamine or cocaine.
  • Mistaken for Special Guest: How Toshi got one of Visual Kei's and X Japan's first interviews, in a now-deleted piece of video - a newscaster mistook him for someone "special" due to his Hair Metal + Hell-Bent for Leather look in The '80s. Which helped him on the way toward being exactly that.
  • Mock Millionaire: Labels and occasionally bands or individual artists occasionally boast far better financials than they actually have.
  • Motive Decay: Originally, Visual Kei was similar to Punk Rock and Thrash Metal as a movement of social and political protest via shockingly different appearances, lyrics that often referenced issues the Japanese (and occasionally Western) mainstream media didn't wish to touch, its embrace of delinquents and outsiders and such, and advocated extreme individual and social freedom - it could have been considered a combination anarcholibertarian and individually libertarian/politically left-wing libertarian to left-wing socialist movement. Very little of this strain is noticeable now - most artists wish to pander to mainstream wealth or power, or are entirely divorced from what goes on outside the scene itself. The scene itself, both in Japan and elsewhere, has also become about attaining the most fashionably chic looks and producing music for money.
  • Motor Mouth: Some artists, singing, in interviews, or elsewhere, sometimes as the result of certain substances.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Most Visual Kei artists, though there are a few Ms. Fanservice, and a few attempted total aversions (such as Pata post The New '10s).
  • Murder Ballad: A common subject for Visual Kei bands.
  • My Country, Right or Wrong: Occasionally happens when geopolitical issues regarding Japan vs. China or Korea or similar are brought up and the band members aren't educated about the issues or wise enough to defer: they will almost always become pro-Japanese nationalists, even if they aren't fascists normally or aren't politically active.
  • My Hair Came Out Green: Bad or unfortunate hairstyles happen on occasion, either due to poor band members self-styling or asking equally drunk/unskilled bandmates to style their hair or fix their current style, or stylists who really shouldn't be doing visual kei hair, or a variety of other reasons.
  • My Nayme Is: Stage Names often are odd spellings or character uses in otherwise "normal" names. hide (all lowercase) is one example, Tosh I another.
  • Nausea Fuel: Some of the imagery produced by Visual Shock, Kote Kei, and Nagoya Kei bands handily qualifies, especially depending on what Squicks you personally, but this has become the true expertise of Eroguro bands, whose express purpose is creating a mixture of this, fetishisation, and Nightmare Fuel - and which are not welcome for discussion here.
    • Unintentionally created by bands or artists glorifying Imperial Japanese or Nazi imagery or atrocities.
    • To a lesser degree, sometimes unintentionally created by Glamour Failure or Special Effects Failure. Good examples of this are when severely unflattering information about an artist's appearance, behavior, or fetishes leaks to fans, especially when photographs are involved.
    • To a breed of YouTube commenter who shares a combination of Western Misplaced Nationalism and homophobia, Visual Kei is itself Nausea Fuel, as well as Rage Fuel.
  • Never Accepted in His Hometown: A very common reason why the early Visual Kei bandmen converged on cities such as Tokyo/Yokohama, Osaka, Sendai, and Nagoya, creating scenes in each one that eventually somewhat united. Many bandmen came from rural areas or even the few Wretched Hive areas of Japan (US military towns like Yokosuka, where hide was from, or Okinawa, where Gackt spent some of his youth). If the bandmen make it (as in the case of hide and Gackt) the trope becomes soundly averted, as the hometown now has a hero with a lot of publicity and money from his fans coming to visit (which is especially good for the Wretched Hive areas especially - hide singlehandedly turned Yokosuka into a place of interest for more than sailors looking for trouble, and Gackt has drawn some attention to Okinawan issues at points)
  • Never Live It Down: Often a result of the Noodle Incident or something that becomes widely known or rumored or reported in the mass media.
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Because sometimes, Contractual Purity or Kayfabe requires someone to seem "cute" or "nice" or at the very least "not raging violent abusive meth-shooting wannabe rapist monster."
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Lyricists/producers for many bands, especially of the Eroguro persuasion. Some of the more famous would be hide and Kyo.
  • Nightmare Fuel: It exists in many, many forms. So much there's even a subpage for it here.
  • Nobody Loves the Bassist: Almost completely averted. Two of the most memorable figures in Visual Kei history are late bassists: Jasmine You of Versailles and Taiji Sawada (formerly of X Japan). Bassists tend to be highly noticed in general, if only that usually the person picked for bass tends to be one of the most attractive members of the band. And when he's musically capable too, as You and Sawada were, you have legends ready to be made.
  • Nobody Poops: Averted, obviously as the people involved are human beings, but some of the aversions have been a TMI cut above: Minoru Niihara once posted about his anal issues and hemorrhoidal difficulties on his blog, a now-retired artist, Juka/Shaura, became famous for a fecal fetish, and a famous artist who shall not be named because he didn't reveal it himself was once photographed next to a nurse dominatrix and enema equipment.
  • Nobody Thinks It Will Work: No one thought it would, until it did.
  • Noodle Incident: Almost every band has one somewhere in their history. Some more public than others.
  • No One Could Survive That!: Some artists have been examples of this, mostly due to sheer luck as opposed to anything else. Some good examples are pretty much all of Taiji Sawada's life until his death, Yoshiki, who survived sustaining a broken neck onstage without dying or being paralyzed and carried off by roadies with no idea of how to handle spinal cord injury, only because he was lucky enough that what broke wasn't essential to breathing or neural connections to most of his body, and Atsushi Sakurai of BUCK-TICK, who survived abdominal peritonitis from a burst appendix (which is nearly impossible to survive)
  • No OSHA Compliance: Obvious, since there's no OSHA in Japan, but even according to the Japanese equivalent of OSHA, there was very little worker protection in Visual Kei for a long while and there still isn't much. Pyro and its usages and proximity to things it shouldn't be close to were/are probably the biggest example, as is water/water effects being in way too close proximity to electrical equipment or electrified things, slip and fall hazards, improper technique, toxic hair dyes and other products and toxic makeup (including items that could permanently damage hair or skin), tobacco smoke exposure, vehicles and travel to and from gigs and other events, and many other things are or were major, unmitigated hazards for performers.
  • No Party Like a Donner Party: Cannibalism is an occasional theme in lyrics and PV by Eroguro bands and some Visual Shock acts.
  • No Periods, Period: Played straight by most bands and their activities with the predominantly male bent of performing acts. Averted by a few Visual Shock and some Eroguro bands who will depict menstruation, period sex, bloody childbirth, abortions, and the like in their lyrics and PV and stage imagery.
  • No Social Skills: There are quite a few Visual Kei artists who would qualify as having no or limited social skills, at least within mainstream society. As of The '80s and the early Nineties most were Japanese Delinquents or similar outcasts, and as of The '90s and beyond, many are otaku or even near-hikikomori offstage.
  • Nostalgia Filter: Why some fans like older bands, why the Long-Runners exist, and why Neo-Visual Shock and Black and White Kote Kei exist.
  • No Swastikas: Averted during the early days of Visual Shock and up until The New '10s, because Putting on the Reich and/or using actual swastikas and the Imperial Battle Flag were seen as "shocking." The Imperial Battle Flag is now generally no longer used by anyone who isn't a fascist (with the exception of Music/Loudness), and bands have become more educated/publicly shamed for Nazi-themed shock/have tours in countries that have No Swastikas as law, so this trope is now often played straight.
  • No-Tell Motel: Most mitsu activities and inter-band hookups tend to take place at love hotels, for the reason that it is far easier to evade media, curious fans, and other people who might begin rumors at them.
  • Ode to Intoxication: Almost every band has at least one of these songs, and it can be either played straight or the deconstruction that is actually an Ode to Sobriety.
  • Oh, Crap!: Often an Invoked Trope for some bands, but there have been some real Oh, Crap! moments in Visual Kei:
    • Deaths or serious injuries, especially out of the blue or when they seem like a bad joke.
    • When anyone collapses or falls onstage and doesn't immediately get up again/do something to show they are really okay or that it is part of the show. Similarly, the sound of a working microphone picking up breath or gasps but no voice from a vocalist.
    • Label closures, for bands on a label that's suddenly ran afoul of the tax authorities or that's really too broke to pay them, for example.
    • Arrests are pretty much always an Oh, Crap! moment for both fans and a band. Especially if the arrest is for something like attempted murder or rape as opposed to the more usual drugs/disorderly conduct.
    • For band people, being onstage and suddenly your instrument or microphone is not working.
    • Also for band people, the price of playing a major venue.
  • Ojou: In Lolita Kei there's quite a few people who play to this, Hizaki probably being the most noticeable. Yoshiki of X Japan during his "princess" phase was probably the premiere example who wasn't Lolita Kei but set the example for many who followed.
  • Older Than They Look: Almost everyone in Visual Kei, due to the interest in maintaining "ageless" appearances after early adulthood. For some, it almost reaches Unintentional Uncanny Valley levels.
  • Old Shame: There are a few examples, some specific and some more general.
    • A lot of bands have had a contemptible cover or other art (whether it be a poster or an entire PV) that they really want everyone to forget about. The worst is when an actually good or important production was overshadowed by the Old Shame of the awful art - as in the case with X Japan's Vanishing Vision, one of their first and best albums with some of their rarest work - but which has an infamous cover of drawn and photoshopped rape being depicted as erotic. The album will likely never be rereleased by the band, but its musical value ensures fans keep spreading it via piracy - which spreads the cover along with the music.
    • In the case of an entire band being an Old Shame, there is the 80s band Rosenfeld, which engaged in Putting on the Reich to the point where it was almost impossible to tell if they were just very skilled insulting Stealth Parody of Nazis or if they had actual Nazi sympathies. Had they just dropped or toned down the Nazi image, they would have been seen as one of the pioneers of Visual Kei (especially since there is some debate as to whether they or X Japan copied some of their hairstyles, their non-Nazi musical stylings, etcetera from each other). Instead, they faded into obscurity as anything but a flag for elitism or trolling when they pop up in a discussion of early Visual Kei.
  • One-Mario Limit: Yoshiki, Hide/hide, Gackt, Miyavi, Kiyoharu, and quite a few other Stage Names and real names are SO attached to the people who became famous for them that people who share the same name are advised to change or add something to the name (e.g. people named Hideto have gone with HYDE or hide-zou instead of hide) to avoid name confusion, lots of anger and drama from being seen as derivative off of fame, being assumed to be dead, or other undesirable outcomes.
    • Sometimes it even includes Signature Style: for example, pink or red hair will almost always be, especially if cut in some ways, seen as a hide tribute or hide clone attempt, even if it's not.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Probably one of the saddest examples is Yoshiki at hide's 1998 funeral. Wearing solid black, his normally bleached hair a stringy, askew mess with most of the dye out of it, no makeup, and simple black sunglasses, trying to maintain a calm, stoic exterior in order to stop the copycat suicides that had begun as he looked absolutely devastated, it was such a stark contrast to his usual overemotional displays and his usual concern with appearance that it made it quite obvious how seriously he was grieving and affected and at the same time, how concerned he was with stopping the copycat suicides and being strong for the fans.
  • Once Original, Now Common: A common reaction to '80s Visual Shock and Kote Kei by modern fans. Oshare Kei is slowly getting this as of The New '10s; almost everyone who is a fan of Visual Kei sees Oshare as exceedingly juvenile and cutesy host club music for Yaoi Fangirls. That being said, styles in Visual Kei seem to be a Cyclic Trope of sorts with the popularity of many styles being largely dependent on the Popularity Polynomial.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: At least one Visual Kei PV (X Japan's for Jade) had someone who's generally in character as a vampire as a werewolf.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: Zombies generally aren't a huge thing in Visual Kei, but some bands do a zombie aesthetic, most famously, Dir en grey.
  • Over-the-Shoulder Carry: A very common way to be carried onstage, or offstage if an artist is injured.

    P-Z 
  • Performance Video: Almost every band has at least one, and it's almost always best to check out a few of these (especially lives) before you decide whether you like a band or not, because some bands with admittedly lackluster recordings are great live performers or have incredible videos. Other times, the videos are crappy while the music is good, and other times it is all crappy...
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: Some of the very best vocalists are very short at least per Western standards, and even for Japanese standards. This has no bearing on their vocal ability. Toshi of X Japan is 5'5, for example, and Kyo of Dir en grey 5'3. Both are some of the best power vocalists in all of metal.
  • Police Are Useless: Zigzagged in the scene. Generally, an Exploited Trope back in The '80s in that police didn't tend to interfere much. Averted in Toshi's leaving Home of Heart as he thanked the police for their help. Played devastatingly straight with what happened to Taiji Sawada in Saipan as the uselessness and brutality of the local police was why he died.
  • Precision F-Strike: A common lyrical device for many bands, along with the aforementioned Atomic and Cluster varieties.
  • Promoted Fanboy: One of the reasons Visual Kei came into existence was the amount of KISS fanboys. X Japan and SEIKIMA-II were such bands. As the scene developed, many fanboys (and some fangirls) developed musical acts and bands of their own, and in some cases were actually signed or even took over for the artists they admired.
  • Putting on the Reich: Unfortunately common in early Visual Shock and in some other bands, though becoming less so over time as bands tour in countries where No Swastikas has the force of law, get negative feedback for Nazi-themed costuming from fans, and as some educate themselves. Some artists have been direct aversions of this: Sugizo in particular is known for his anti-fascism, left-leaning political views, and disgust with glorifying Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.
  • Racial Face Blindness: A major part of Japanese Visual from very early on was averting this. Many people realized that they all looked alike and so they relied on hair colors, makeup, contacts, clothes, different gear, and anything else they could think of (including plastic surgery or the like) to set themselves apart from each other.
  • Rape as Drama: Also a fairly common device used by Visual Shock, Neo-Visual Shock, and Eroguro artists. Differs from Gratuitous Rape but can also overlap with it (often in shades) but the general difference is that the lyrics/art takes it seriously to some degree, or the song is about rape or using rape symbolism with a reason other than trying to arouse the viewers or getting attention when something else would do, such as The Gazette's Taion which is a somewhat respectful treatment of the Real Life Junko Furuta case, or hide's Genkai Haretsu PV where the point is to show just how pathetic the Villain Protagonist is.
  • Rearrange the Song: Early on, most retakes/rearrangements/remixes/demos were released with the "studio version" or "primary version" as b-sides or "special presents" or similar. Remixes/rearrangements took on a life of their own as Visual Kei grew, and many artists and bands will release entire albums consisting solely of remixed and rearranged songs.
    • This is also the work of the rising amount of DJ type artists within the scene, although many are original artists as well - the idea of DJ/beatmaker as solely remixing and playing others' work is not much wanted in a scene heavily dependent on live shows, so DJ s and beatmakers and the like working within Visual Kei have to be capable of their own original electronic works and/or at least some form of truly unique appearance and style.
    • Dir en grey has rearranged songs being considerably harder than the originals (some even going as high as 10 or 11 in terms of hardness). They've also released THE UNRAVELING, an entire EP of rearranged songs, save for the title track.
    • X Japan has translated and rearranged several of their non-English songs into English. Some that were primarily Japanese with English lyrics at points were also flipped to be mostly English but with a few Japanese lines. Among them are Kurenai (which actually had a complete English version as early as 1987) and got a new retool as of 2009, Rusty Nail (2010, complete English version), Rose of Pain (2010, half the song was redone in English). Combined with Toshi's much improved English over 2008-2011, the effect is sometimes jarring for those used to the older songs, for good or for ill.
  • Refuge in Audacity: Visual Kei is an entire genre that lives off this trope.
  • Revolving Door Band: The Visual scene is just as notorious as Death Metal for the sheer number of breakups and lineup changes that have happened to bands throughout its history, to the point where the number of band members ditched is greater than the number of songs produced. These unstable lineups seem to be due to reasons similar to Western death metal, such as: a) Creative Differences between the members, b) musicians getting burned out or getting busted for drugs/criminal activity or dying or similar misfortunes, and c) a crippling shortage of professional musicians capable of performing and actually staying with bands, despite a massive surplus of talent left over from disbanded and unpopular acts. Some bands ditch members for no reason at all — Anti Feminism, a 90's Visual Shock band, had more than 50 different members joining it since its inception; its founder and only constant member, Kenzi, stated that the band has no official lineup.
  • Rock-Star Song: Most bands have at least one.
  • Romanticized Abuse: Unfortunately, this trope is sometimes depicted in Visual Kei lyrics and PV's and artwork like album covers and photoshoots (especially by Visual Shock, Neo-Visual Shock, and Eroguro bands), often paired up with Gratuitous Rape and/or the Misogyny Song to present rape and/or violence against women as "sexy." Sometimes the "violence against women" part is averted by the Romanticized Abuse happening between males in PV's (or by writers of Slash Fic) but then that invokes Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male.
  • Rule of Cool: Why Visual Kei exists and is popular...
  • Serial Escalation: Visual Kei in general is an example of this trope in nearly everything, but the Eroguro subgenre is probably the biggest example of it. Just take a look at lyrics from hide's X Japan and solo work and Kiyoharu of Kuroyume in The '90s - the co-founders of Eroguro - then at Dir en grey, Nega, or even The Gazette (which isn't technically Eroguro but is close) in The New '10s.
  • Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Technically, the drugs part is very much frowned upon in Japan and even marijuana possession is highly stigmatized to the point that all of a band's music and merch can be pulled from shelves and boycotted, and arrested users are often kicked out of bands or their bands go on hiatus. That said... it's definitely around to a huge degree, it's just not to be discussed except in lyrics.
    • Played straight by indies bands, bands not on labels associated with major record companies, or established overseas artists, some of whom have far less fear of such societal punishment (or might even take it as a badge of honor) - and can, therefore, somewhat openly support marijuana use and legalization - therefore playing this trope straight and averting the "no drugs, really, we swear it" rule...
  • Sick and Wrong: You will react this way at something in Visual Kei at some point or another. In fact, that's the point of much Visual Shock and Eroguro - to make you have exactly this reaction or "It's sick and wrong but I'm turned on."
  • Slash Fic: Quite a lot of Slash Fic is written about Visual Kei artists and bands, due to the Ho Yay everywhere in the scene: it's like a gigantic signal for Yaoi Fangirls and other gay romance/gay erotica writers. Much could be considered yaoi, but there's also quite a lot of stuff that is closer to ordinary slash than "yaoi," and there's even some Bara Genre thanks to the presence of some older and more masculine/normal weight/muscular artists.
  • Spiritual Successor: To Hair Metal and shock rock, as well as being a fusion of the two. It should be noted, however, that Visual Kei doesn't sound exactly like its parent genres...
  • Stealth Parody: Some artists, especially bands that worship/imitate other bands and a few post-Visual Kei acts. SEIKIMA-II and Maria Cross are implied to be this, as seen in their visual styles and manner of performance (the former being a band of KISS imitators while the latter being an Oshare kei noisegrind Street Musician).
  • Suicide: The Japanese Visual Kei scene has a huge problem with it, partially as an outgrowth of Japanese society's own massive suicide epidemic/problem, and partially due to the conditions in modern Visual Kei (limited finances, oppressive working conditions for label signed bands, societal othering, and more). Then there are the possible times murder or involuntary manslaughter is written off to suicide...
    • Yoshiki is probably one of the most opposed to suicide musicians in the scene having been a survivor in both senses of the word (of his father's intentional suicide, his closest and best friend's accidental suicide, and at least one attempt of his own), but his lyrical explorations of his grief and feelings could be a trigger to some (and were one to his own vocalist which he didn't know until Toshi left to join the religious cult in the hopes of it healing his mind) as much as they've been possibly lifesaving to others (what with the nature of the beast - the very thing that helps one person back from the edge can shove another over it)
  • Too Much Information: Some artists will happily share text or photos or other content that would qualify as TMI.
  • The Tyson Zone: Almost everyone within Visual Kei and the genre itself qualifies (and this was what, for a very long time, enabled Visual artists to avoid arrests, public shaming, and other issues), but there's some artists that are uniquely famous for it. Specifically, almost everyone in X Japan except for Heath and Sugizo (especially Yoshiki and hide), everyone in Dir en grey, Gackt, Hyde, Kisaki, and Miyavi (until he got married and settled down somewhat) all are in the zone.
  • The Unintelligible: Unfortunately common in many metal-oriented bands, especially those that use Harsh Vocals. Often a result of atrocious English skills.
  • Vampires Are Sex Gods: A very, very, VERY common idea in Visual Kei, enough to make "vampire" a competitive field featuring Yoshiki, HYDE, Atsushi Sakurai of BUCK-TICK, GACKT and Kamijo ex- Versailles, among others.
  • Values Dissonance: Incredibly so between the West and even mainstream Japan, and almost everywhere, and the scene and artists in it often glory in it, making it an Invoked Trope. Androgyny and open acceptance/embrace of male/male sexuality is often a huge issue here, along with displays/imagery/lyrics that are Nausea Fuel / Nightmare Fuel / NSFW / any and all of the above, as are the approaches toward religion and religious symbolism taken by many artists... among just a few of the things that Visual Kei artists and fans like or see nothing wrong or bothersome with, but which enrage mainstream societies, Moral Guardians, politicians, Internet or Real Life bigots, and more...
  • Verbal Tic: Common among singers and non-singers who interview a lot alike. GACKT's "daikishimete" is a fandom meme when he sings, as is Yoshiki's Motor Mouth and use of the Precision F-Strike and Cluster F-Bomb when interviewed or speaking publicly.
  • Villain Protagonist: Very common in lyrics and PV, and sometimes the stage image of artists (two examples being Dir en grey's Kyo and SEIKIMA-II's Demon Kogure).
  • Villain Song: Sometimes combined with Villain Protagonist, for obvious reasons, to create the atmosphere of an evil/villainous protagonist singing a terrifying song.
  • Walk and Talk: Or the walk and sing variant, both are very common in Visual Kei PV.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Many artists like to show off. Some of the more famous are Yoshiki and Kyo, enough to create a joke that both are allergic to shirts.
  • Wangst: VERY common in Visual Kei lyrics and attitude. Kawaii type Oshare artists avert it strongly by promoting as positive and cute, but nearly everyone else indulges at least at some point.
  • Wardrobe Malfunction: Happens onstage frequently, both in the accidental and intentional variants.
  • Warts and All: Why some people like/love artists even when there is public bad conduct, negative rumors, or other things that some people would believe should lead to the artist being hated by all or disgraced, and why fans of bands that aren't super popular or in the currently popular style or even necessarily "incredible" stick around and support those bands/artists.
  • We Really DO Care!: The return of Toshi to his once-band and to the scene. The amount of support that rallied around him went well beyond just Yoshiki (where it started) to fans, to other artists and other bands (including some that actively dislike X Japan as a whole for various reasons)
  • What Could Have Been: The scene and individual bands in it have so much that it could be its own page.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Some works that seem political or politicized at first glance are likely not. This goes double for any use of Putting on the Reich or other Reichstropen, as, until The New '10s, Nazi imagery was seen as a way to shock people and a fashion statement as opposed to a pro- or anti- fascist statement. The Imperial Battle Flag is almost always political and a statement of rightist belief as of The New '10s but wasn't as much of one before that.
  • White-Dwarf Starlet: Some Visual Kei artists become the Spear Counterpart of this, whether for short periods or for the rest of their lives. Probably the best example of such an artist (at least for some years of his life) was Taiji Sawada, a bass virtuoso in his younger years who spent most of his 30s as a mentally disturbed homeless alcoholic and addict before pulling together his life and making a short comeback before his death.
  • White Shirt of Death: Often used in older PV and in stage performances using blood squibs or red paint because it made a far better contrast for the camera and the less believable fake blood/red paint of the time look a little more believable. It's gone mostly out of fashion with improved photographic and video capabilities in The New '10s - the preferred look is bare chested to make the imagery more believable.
  • Wings Do Nothing: Wings are a common costume/fashion item, and some artists have tattoos of wings (usually inspired by HYDE's back tattoos). Obviously, they are incapable of doing anything actual wings do.
  • Word Salad Title: Often the result of bad English skills, trying to sound "artistic," or simply being uninspired for something else.
  • Working Title: Often done with songs, lives, albums, and even sometimes bands, as the inspiration changes as the project moves along or gains/loses members or goes through different stages of production (e.g. the original title wasn't marketable, so it's changed in post to something better)
  • World of Badass: As well as a World of Ham, at least onstage and in PV's. To some degree, even offstage, with what the people involved have had to go through to make it or even to stick around alive if they didn't make it, especially older artists who survived the scene when it involved actual violence and threats of it.
  • World of No Grandparents: Technically, Visual Kei offstage was and still pretty much one, while the oldest artists were late forties, only beginning to enter the years where they would be grandparents, and most of them became fathers late in their lives once their careers were established, if they had known and acknowledged children at all. This may be changing with some artists entering their fifties and sixties and the children they had in their 30s beginning to be old enough to have their own kids, but for the most part, it's still a world of youth even for the middle-aged, for a few more years anyway.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top