Visual Kei 系
“Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock”
Popular worldwide, Japanese anime has found attention and drawn people to dress in character. What is less known is how this type of fashion trend began. Today, we will discuss Visual Kei and its roots.
Visual Kei actually began in the early 1980’s. Its roots were formed in the glam rock, punk, and metal scene of Japan’s music industry. In fact, the band X Japan coined the term in describing it as “Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock” in their 1989 album, Blue Blood. X Japan was a game changer in many ways. They were the first to start this scene, the first to give it a name, and they accomplished selling 30 million albums worldwide. In fact, American magazine Loudwire named them the best metal band from Japan, and Rollingstone Japan said that their album Blue Blood is no. 15 on their top 100 Japanese albums of all time.
Hayashi Yoshiki of X Japan coined this term in response to conservative norms in Japanese society. The androgynous style and shocking visuals truly caused what could be deemed a violent shock in a non-confrontational society. It offered a freedom of expression and enhanced the allure of their performances by youth who may have felt limited in their daily uniform attire.
So what is included in this new subculture of flamboyant display? Well, as we can see from the video above, extreme hair is definitely a requirement. Not just in color, but also in shape and height. In addition, the makeup is very dramatic and often inclusive of the white face makeup used by geisha and maiko in order to create extreme contrast with the other colors they include. This is also followed by fanastical clothing that looks like it came from fantasy more than from your local clothing store.
It wasn’t limited to your look, however. Nor was it limited to a style of music or dancing. It was a way of being. Everything must be shocking or contrast the non-confrontation norm of everyday Japanese society.
Hayashi Yoshiki has recently released his first clothing line. You can also learn more on his website.
Anime & Manga
Anime is actually much older than commonly believed. Its roots began in 1917 and took the global stage by the early 2000s. This was due in part to the inclusion of Visual Kei. Anime and manga produced in the 1990s and early 2000s often included music from many of the bands popular in the Visual Kei subculture. The anime themselves began to also include charaterics of Visual Kei in the stories’ characters. Today, we will find people from all parts of the world going to conventions where most are dressed in Visual Kei fashion.
Music
Although it found its roots in music, Visual Kei has created an entire subculture that embraces the aesthetic and overall concept of identity well outside of the realms of the music world. Interestingly, it hasn’t died in Japan the way that the hair bands in America’s glam rock did. You can still find Visual Kei bands in JPop and JRock. Although, some of the immitation has been tamed from its original roots, there are still groups that push the envelope of convention with their “Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock.”
Additional Resources
If you are interested in learning more about Visual Kei and various performance groups who embraced this subculture as part of their act, you can do further research by looking up some of the following groups:
ゼラ (the band in the video above)
A Little About Me
I’m a musician. I am also from one of the tiniest towns you can imagine in the state of Montana. I grew up with very limited access to the world and that included music. I was very well trained in my music education, but my access to the world was practically non-existent. Since that time, I have intentionally gone out of my way to learn as much as I can about as many countries and cultures as I can, and that includes their art and music.
For me, a Gen Xer, I wouldn’t have had access to the glam bands that were popular in my own generation if it hadn’t been for the creation of Colombia House. Our radio stations only offered two choices: country and 70’s music. So, Colombia House was my first introduction to “music from somewhere else.” In my childhood, if we ever had anyone from literally anywhere else come into our town, I was utterly fascinated. If they came from another country, I was obsessed. I wanted to learn as much as I could. Since that time, I have now traveled to 29 countries (and counting) and America now feels like that small town to me. Despite being full of the entire world, the country is weirdly blind to the world. So, I will continue to add more and more variety of topics that focus on the international view.
In fact, I only found out about X Japan because the band took to Twitter to address Elon Musk’s attempt to name Twitter X Japan in Japan. They spoke up and said, that name is already trademarked in our country. So, of course I had to investigate X Japan. This of course led to learning about Visual Kei.
I hope you enjoyed this article. I will continue to bring more and more variety to this category (music, art, and culture) in the future. If you like what you see, feel free to subscribe! I’ll be sure to keep bringing you interesting topics from a range of categories. This substack is a representation of the various aspects of who I am. I am a musician, a teacher, a traveler, and arts (nonprofit) administrator. I also really love books, food, and oddly spend a lot of time reading medical research studies. If you haven’t read my first book, “RootEd: How Trauma Impacts Learning and Society,” you can also find it on this substack.
Oh, and here’s one more fabulous song by X Japan to end your scroll.