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Forum - View topicREVIEW: Visual Prison
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yeehaw
 Posts: 427 |
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this show is bonkers, I loved it. I didn't know Yamada Naoko was involved but that explains why the music videos were so cool I turned subtitles off just to get a really good look at them and then turned them back on only to be met with "I'll screw you". I don't know if that's camp but it sure is funny! The lyrics for Lost Eden's songs in general were pretty funny at times (Easy as pie! Darkness is cool!)
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Juno016
 Posts: 2394 |
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While "visual kei" refers more to the visual style of the bands' costumes and makeup, I feel like there was a general style of music within the culture that this show doesn't quite capture. If the essence of visual kei music was brooding emo metal, this show's music is like an anime boy band idol group appropriation of that. It gets close with its instrumentals and sometimes looks, but the lyrics and singing are... well, the show is clearly targeting mainstream idol fans moreso than visual kei fans. It's very toned down, sanitized for TV, and won't scar or traumatize your average audience member.
It was fun. I think the comparison to Hypnosis Mic is appropriate, though HM was so over the top, I could recommend it to my guy friends purely on the spectacle and absurdity that every episode would bring to the table. This show was absurd, but not hilariously so. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11396 |
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Eve was about the only character I really liked, in both style and voice, and they had the best personality of them all. Naked dude on the balcony was memorable too. But the most entertaining part to me was realizing that grrrr-mad Saga was voiced by the same seiyuu as IDOLiSH7's sweet, over-enunciating Nagi (though I7 did have an episode where Nagi got to show off his sharper side). That's some range right there
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MagicPolly
 Posts: 1582 |
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I didn't even know this show existed until the opening showed up on Spotify randomly and I gave the first episode a try. I think the "vampire Cats" comparison you made in the preview guide was very apt. It's not the best show I've seen but man was it fun and the music was good too
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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Not really.  Maybe toward the end, when it got popular for a hot moment with bands like Dir en grey that went mainstream while keeping their vkei image, as opposed to those dozens and dozens that mostly shed it after going major/mainstream, like L'Arc-en-Ciel or Luna Sea. But originally, and for a long time, there was a fair bit of variation in visual kei, music-wise, from brooding emo metal through punk and rock, to "dark pop" and just plain absurd/abstract. (Case in point, the aforementioned L'Arc-en-Ciel or Luna Sea weren't doing "brooding emo metal" in their vkei days either. Hell, Laruku got its breakout while still knee-deep in vkei, with this little tune*...) In looks as well, there were those who were basically punks and those who had a much softer, dreamy image (oh, Laruku).
*That is their official YT channel, don't hurt me mods. However...
...see, I wouldn't say that either. I haven't watched this show, but have seen clips from it, and frankly, the music is pretty on-point for what vkei ended up becoming, when it became more about the looks than the music. You got bands that were essentially cobbled together based on a watered-down version of vkei, designed to appeal to teen girls who were totally into the, well, visual aspects of it, and less the music. (I think it says a lot that a lot of the people I knew who at this point were still really into vkei, or got into it specifically at this time, ended up migrating to KPop boybands. ) In fact, with some anime in the past ten years I can't help feeling that a lot of producers/composers who grew up on JRock in the late '80s-'90s and early '00s are now writing music for anime.
That said, based on what I've seen from it and heard about it, this show is really just a variation on the idol genre, basically "idol franchise but with [insert non-idol genre here]" - like hip-hop, metal (yup, metal exists as well) and punk. It's just the same collect-them-all pretty boys just with a slightly different genre that nevertheless ends up sounding like most every other idol(ish) franchise because at the end of the day that sells and they share the same composers anyway.
By the way, if anyone is interested in a really fun story that pokes fun at visual kei but in a loving way, I really recommend the manga Tamiko to Visual Kei, it's hilarious. |
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Vitate
Posts: 1 |
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I've been following this show since they announced that they'd be announcing a new Agematsu anime, so I'm glad to see it getting a run on this site!
I think as a whole, the pieces fall together more smoothly when you know that it was created (and most of the music written) by the same guy who created Utapri, whose viskei claim to fame is that he was in an X-Japan cover band back when their name was still just X, so we're talking pre-1993ish. It's definitely a love letter to the parts of viskei that were more about flamboyance than the goth/emo-looking groups — Eclipse 1.0 have those 90s X-Japan looks (and Dimitri is clearly meant to be the Yoshiki type), while Eclipse 2.0 trend more towards the aristocratic vibes like Versailles etc etc. I don't think that the music had the edges sanded off so much as it's more based on the early years, when the songs trended more glam rock than power metal. Also the manga is very fun and fills in some of the little gaps in the story, like showing that Guil picked Ange up off the street in episode 1 because he actually saw that Ange was watching the Guilty Cross MV on his phone, which is delightful and also more than a little hilarious. |
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all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 606 |
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I actually had no idea L'Arc started as a visual kei band! Also, that music video just slingshotted me back through time and all of a sudden I was 13 again. |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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Indeed they did! Along with many many bands that were part of the Great JRock Wave in the mid-late '90s and early '00s. Laruku actually kept its visual kei image for a while after going major, albeit toning it down, more or less until their second major album (Heavenly). Then they shed it competely as they got more mainstream and evolved musically. But if you have some time give a listen to Laruku's first album, Dune (still the official YT channel!) originally released as an indie record. It's beautiful, probably my favorite album from them, and it's in a way quite a good representation of the vibe of the melancholy, extremely romantic, charmingly pretentious branch of visual kei that Laruku belonged to, down to the style of singing (which, in other bands, became more prominent and exaggerated). Even lyrically, it's very typical of the more abstract, often kind of philosophical lyrics that were in vogue at the time with this genre - and hyde being hyde, there's some really beautiful imagery in the lyrics that very few other lyricists have managed to match then or later. But really, visual kei was always more defined by the, well, visual aspect of it. I think musically it got more and more homogenous much later when people who grew up listening to Laruku's, Luna Sea's, etc. generation started doing music themselves, and in the late period, as the market grew, demand selected a popular strain. By the way, if anyone is curious of the Japanese music scene of the '80s I really really really recommend the manga TO-Y by Kamijou Atsushi. It focuses more on the pop scene, what with the story mainly focusing on the life and times of Fujii Tooi as the pop industry tries to gobble him up but he ends up being too spicy for it; but it also touches on punk, rock and vkei, although here it's still called just punk which is vkei's parent genre (with the fictional band Penicillin Shock that later ended up inspiring the real-life band Penicillin). There's an anime which is great in its own way, but the manga is amazing. |
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vanishingblood
Posts: 52 |
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Mana is a guitarist in Malice Mizer, not the singer. I kinda like that you made this mistake cause it shows you wrote this piece from your actual memory/experience/opinion, instead of just looking it up on Wikipedia like so many other "writers" do nowadays.
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Philville
 Posts: 158 |
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As others have pointed out, I’m not sure we can say that there was a single “general style of music” or “culture” for visual kei, but I am worried by your comment that the show’s music is like an “anime boy band idol group” (because I was excited about this show and planning on binge-watching it soon). The review also talks about idol group anime tropes, which really isn’t my cup of tea. Oh well.
Very true. In fact, this makes me think that, after its heyday, the visual kei scene (or rather, the behind-the-scenes of the scene) was actually much more like the teen idol phenomenon than I initially thought. From my (admittedly biased) JRock-oriented perspective, it seemed at some point like there was a plethora of soulless cookie-cutter bands that had “the look,” but little or no talent, and it feels like some of the bands were being designed for broad mainstream success by a board of executives or music label reps—which is basically also what happened to the 80s glam metal scene in the US. That’s actually a criticism that is still sometimes levelled at “gimmicky” JRock and metal bands, like Babymetal (unfairly, in my opinion, since the latter are actually immensely talented). As a metalhead myself, I’m actually happy that there has lately been an infusion of 80s/90s JRock music in anime thanks to people working in the industry who grew up on this kind of music. Out of curiosity, what series were you thinking of? I’m watching the new Bastard!!! adaptation right now, which is really scratching my itch for anime and metal (although that’s a reboot of a 90s show itself).
I’ve only watched the first episode, which does give me this impression, but all the talk of idol/anime boy band groups has me a little worried about the rest of the series. I’ve been a fan of Malice Mizer and X (Japan) for almost two decades now, and in recent years discovered Versailles, which is some of the best visual kei metal in that vein, mainly because the band has the looks and the chops—they nail both the “visual” and the virtuosic dimensions I associate with visual kei at its best. I was really hoping that the anime would include music of this type, too, not just the big hair and aristocratic cosplay as a façade for anime boy band idol group drama. Fingers crossed. |
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harminia
 Posts: 2004 Location: australia |
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I only watched a couple of episodes of this (though would like to watch more). It was certainly a strange experience. It's extremely cringe and feels vaguely embarrassing to watch, but it's also good fun.
The lyrics were ridiculous, I loved the "bro" line. Hypnosis Mic was cringe as well and I made it through that so I should stop being a coward and binge this one day too. I liked the music more in this than in hypmic anyway (as to be expected, I'm a fan of Elements Garden). Thank you Noriyasu Agematsu as always. I know I can rely on you for a good time. I never really listened to visual kei tbh so while I vaguely know the style I don't know heaps about it. Because of that, this thread is very interesting to read! |
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Jefcat
Posts: 104 Location: Palm Desert |
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I hope this EVENTUALLY goes to Crunchyroll. I turned off my Funimation account before I could watch this.
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