Subculture
What does Visual kei mean?
A Japanese scene in which the band's look — makeup, hair, costume — is as central as the sound.
Definition
Visual kei (ヴィジュアル系) is a scene, a stamp that covers more than one genre. In the 1980s X (later X Japan), Buck-Tick and Dead End were already there. Glam, metal, goth and punk fit the same stage. Outside Japan the look mixes with goth and lolita.
Okeshō kei (お化粧系, makeup style) was the cheap label; the magazine wanted another. Malice Mizer, Luna Sea and Dir En Grey followed. Translating it as “visual style” wipes the circuit of venues, magazines and fans.
Origin
Japanese ヴィジュアル系. The slogan Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock is on the cover of X’s Blue Blood, released 21 April 1989 (CBS/Sony). Seiichi Hoshiko founded SHOXX in 1990, after seeing X at the Budokan that autumn, and pushed visual-shock kei against okeshō kei. In a 2018 interview he also credits hide with the shove.
History
From the 1980s underground the circuit reached Oricon and Tokyo Dome. X Japan stopped in 1997; hide died in 1998. In the 2000s neo visual kei — Dir En Grey and others — went abroad. Covers and cons still use the stamp, and fans shorten it to V-kei.
How it emerged
Japanese rock needed a name that was not only cheap makeup. Visual shock was already on the record; SHOXX shortened it to visual kei and fans to V-kei.
Usage examples
The Blue Blood slogan became the scene’s name.
Hide’s hair was the poster.
Translations
- pt visual kei / ヴィジュアル系
- en visual kei
- es visual kei / ヴィジュアル系
Synonyms
- X Japan
- SHOXX
- Malice Mizer
- okeshō kei