Japanese Visual Arts - Visual Kei & Oshare Kei
To put it simply, super hot guys that look like super hot girls playing music. A lot of them can make the straightest guy question his sexuality but… that’s not the point of why they look like they look. It’s all for the love of music (a lot like the other styles across the world). And, lets get this straight now…they ARE guys and a lot of them ARE straight.
An example – Bou from the band Antic Café.
Visual Kei
Visual Kei is what the darker style is called. It’s more of the creepy contacts and black or gothic clothing, often very flamboyant. Their style of music is heavy and would probably be considered metal of a sort sometimes with sickly groans and high pitch screams included. The lyrics when read in English are usually very dark as well being about death, rape, and other very wonderful things. Not all of the Visual Kei scene’s music is super heavy though, some is more about the rhythm, voice, and making more of a type of essence to the music, so singing slowly with slower guitar and less screams (but I’m not saying that the louder VK music does not do the same sometimes). From my experience the heavier stuff is not as flamboyant as the lighter stuff and sometimes ends up just looking normal once mainstream for a few years for the most part. Some examples of these Visual Kei bands are Dir en grey, D’espairs Ray, Malice Mizer, and Sadie.
Oshare Kei
Oshare Kei is the happier and more colorful side of Japans visual art rock. They usually have bright contacts (if any) like purple, super light blue, and well…you get the idea. They also wear brighter more feminine and layered clothes. The Oshare scene’s music is usually about things such as love and friendship as well, not death and dark things. The Oshare rockers also are more of the type to look just like females, until you notice the major lack of female parts from all of them, or hear their manly voices. A lot of the OK music is very upbeat and light, but at the same time some of it is faster pace and louder but still happy of course. A lot of the Oshare band’s videos are very girly and giddy, like jumping around a park or posing cute for the camera with a sign that as well says something cute and giddy. Some may be turned off by this ‘cuteness’ but please before you decide weather you like it or not, listen to a few bands. Some example bands are Antic Café (known as An Café also), Kra, and Alice Nine.
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