Hello everyone.
i've had more PM's and seen more bulletins asking ''is this visual kei?" or "can we count this as visual kei?"

In reality, what most dont seem to know, visual kei (ヴィジュアル系) is way broader than people imagine. Visual kei came up in the 80s in japan. meaning it is almost 50 years old!
So, of course, visual kei has left is marks on many western media. (japan is western, by the way!)
To answer your questions.... here is my thread! (more extensive info on the wikipedia)
I would like to add: please please PLEASE add some of your own favorite hobbies you did or didn't know are related to visual kei.

Terms

The term "visual kei" was derived from one of X Japan's slogans, "Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock", seen on the cover of their second studio album Blue Blood (1989). This derivation is credited as being coined by Seiichi Hoshiko, the founding editor of Shoxx magazine, which was founded in 1990 as the first publication devoted to the subject.

However, he explained in a 2018 interview with JRock News that visual kei was technically coined, or at least inspired by, X Japan's lead guitarist hide. Hoshiko also said that at the time they were called 'Okeshou Kei' (お化粧系, Okeshō Kei, "Makeup Style")
"but it simply felt... too cheap... Even though X Japan was a big band
and people used the term 'Okeshou kei' to describe them, the term was
still lacking substance, I didn't like the term at all!
(this is hide)

Because of this,
I tried to remind all the writers to not use this term as 'They are not
okeshou kei, they are visual-shock kei'. From there, it went from
'Visual-shock kei' to 'Visual-kei' to 'V-kei'.

Music

Koji Dejima of Bounce
wrote that visual kei is not a specific sound, but rather it "revolves
around the creation of a band's unique worldview and/or stylistic beauty
through visual expressions in the form of makeup and fashion". While visual kei acts can be of any music genre, it originated with bands influenced by glam rock, heavy metal, punk rock and gothic rock.

So, one could argue that all alternative japanese music at this time could be some form of visual kei.

Visual kei was pioneered by groups such as X Japan, Dead End, Buck-Tick, D'erlanger, and Color, and gained further notoriety in the 1990s through the success of groups like Luna Sea, Glay, L'Arc-en-Ciel, and Malice Mizer. The movement's success continued through the 2000s with Gackt and more musically broad bands such as Dir En Grey, the Gazette, Alice Nine, Girugamesh, and Versailles, a period which some critics term "neo-visual kei" (ネオ・ヴィジュアル系).
Many acts tone-down their appearance upon achieving mainstream success,
calling into question whether they are still to be considered visual
kei.


(one of my favourite bands, buck-tick, is definitely guilty of this.)

Although the first international concert by a visual kei act was held in Taiwan
by Luna Sea in 1999, it was not until 2002 that many visual kei bands
started to perform worldwide (United States, in Europe from 2004), with
the initial interest coming from Japanese-themed conventions like A-Konwhere bands like Psycho le Cemu performed.

In 2021, visual kei journalist Chiaki Fujitani noted how newer acts were
combining visual kei with other elements to create originality. She
cited Nocturnal Bloodlust's muscular vocalist Hiro for defying the usual
delicate appearance of visual kei musicians, 0.1g no Gosan for
utilizing tropes of underground idols, such as playing tug of war with fans during concerts, Choke for their avant-garde form of rap metal, and former D'espairsRay drummer Tsukasa Mogamigawa for being the first visual kei enka singer. Mai Yajima's singing style has been referred to as "enka rock".

Style

Sources have variously referred to visual kei as a movement, scene, subculture, and music genre. It is not associated with any one musical style, as visual kei artists play a variety of genres including punk rock, heavy metal, pop, electronica, classical, and industrial.

Instead, it is defined by an act's emphasis on aesthetics, particularly their fashion and use of makeup, with a number of visual kei artists and critics describing it as a freedom of expression and experimental fashion. Koji Dejima of Bounce
wrote that visual kei "revolves around the creation of a band's unique
worldview and/or stylistic beauty through visual expressions in the form
of makeup and fashion". Sources have also noted that visual kei is a "uniquely Japanese" phenomenon. which now due to globalisation got it's chance to be shown overseas.

Visual kei musicians often have elaborate, dyed hair, extravagant
costumes, frequently with leather, PVC or lace, or based on traditional
Japanese clothing pieces, and excessive jewelry. Many musicians make use of androgynous and gender bending aesthetics, with some of its male musicians cross-dressing in a manner similar to traditional Japanese onnagata performers. This rose to prominence through the success of Malice Mizer, whose guitarist Mana performed dressed as a woman and singer Gackt was a "living specimen of bishōnen". Such aesthetics are reminiscent of those seen in shōjo manga. Different artists have taken aesthetic influence from various fashion styles including glam, metalhead, punk, goth and cyberpunk. Dejima generalized visual kei as being based on the androgynous sensibilities of the New Romantic
movement and Los Angeles metal scene, or the goth subculture, and
topped off with elements from "strange" and "taboo" interests such as Lolita, psychopathy, and the occult.Many subsects of visual kei exist to describe separate styles. Eroguro kei is one such subsect which is influenced by BDSM and horror imagery, while angura kei makes use of traditional Japanese clothing styles like kimonos.

Media

Because of the rise of the style becoming more well-known mainstream, many movies, videogames, manga, anime, and other subcultures take upon it.
Titles you can keep in mind are devilman crybaby (anime), black butler (anime and manga), tokyo ghoul (anime and manga), neo-gothic or mallgoth (a style), scene and emocore (a style), the final fantasy brand (games, movies, books), bayonetta (anime and game), pokemon (anime, game, cardgame), modern industrial gothic (a style) etc etc.

(final fantasy, one of my favourite franchises of all time!!!)

All sources you guys ask about, recent bands, movies, artists... its very likely they took upon this image. because its become a part of alternative music history, way more than you imagine.

Repost from my group!