Japanese music

Lately I’ve been quite addicted to Japanese culture. Not that I haven’t always been, but it’s getting worse and worse.

My most recent discovery is Japanese music. I’d been listening to it for some months and then in October I decided to order a magazine about Visual Kei (a genre of Japanese music). Every time I looked in the magazine I got more and more fascinated - it was like a completely new world unfolding before my eyes. At that time, I was only keen on Miyavi and a couple other artists, so I started searching for the names in the magazine on the Internet.

At the moment, my biggest obsession is undeniably Gackt Camui. He’s a songwriter, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, actor, author, model and voice actor - all at the same time!

He made his big debut with the band Malice Mizer, but he then decided to go solo in 1999 due to unknown reasons. After he left the band, he became widely popular and he still is.

In 2003, he co-wrote and co-starred in the movie Moon Child, which made him even more popular. The movie is a bit peculiar, but it really gives you an idea about how Gackt thinks, which is great!

Nevertheless, I don’t like him just because of what he has achieved in his career - I also love his personality. Many people would most likely describe him as odd, and I guess they’re somewhat right.

He began to see himself as an outsider at age seven. One day while he was swimming off the coast of Okinawa, he nearly died. He has claimed that he actually drowned, but that’s a little hard to believe. After his near-death experience (or death experience as he states), he has had the ability to see the dead. His family didn’t believe him, though. When he was ten, however, he suddenly collapsed and was hospitalized at a hospital for extremely sick children. This was a very difficult time for him, and his friends in his ward died one after the other.

But even though he has been through so much hardship he has still been able to carry on, and that’s really a thing to admire.

He has also always been very competitive, and it’s certainly not enough for him to be next best - that’s why he’s so skilful at everything! He’s not only a terrific musician, but he’s also an athlete and very intelligent. He enjoys studying language and can speak about five languages fluently.

In his interviews and on TV-shows he always tells bizarre stuff about himself. He believes that he was born in year 1540 and is a vampire. He also thinks that electric light can injure his eyes and therefore he wears sunglasses most of the time. He was once asked in an interview, what he was going to say to a person, who was nearly drowning in the ocean, and he simply answered: ”The ocean is beautiful, isn’t it?”

Overall, he’s just a person you can nothing but idolize!

I don’t really know what got me into J-rock (term for most Japanese music, even though it’s not rock) in the first place, but I think I was attracted by the J-rockers’ weird appearances. Compared to European/American band they’re just so unique. It’s not just their music, but it’s their whole culture - everything from how they act in public to their marvellous scene shows.

One stage they usually wear striking make-up, unusual hairstyles and elaborate costumes. Most J-rockers are men, but they like dressing in female clothing. This is NOT because they’re gay nor transvestites, but because they like to please their fans.

In the J-rock world fans feel much attached to their favourite bands and to one another - especially in the west, where fans of J-rock are rare to come across. It’s important to work together to help J-rock gain more popularity in our end of the world, and one day we might get lucky enough to have our favourite band come to our country to throw a concert!