While I work for vk.gy everyday, I started to think of “what is actually VISUAL KEI?”

Who created the word?
Who used it as first?

Was there a band or person who used the word already years before the tag “visual kei” was born?

Many say that Hide from X JAPAN used the word “VISUAL” already with his first band Saver Tiger.
Image

However, if you search deeper you notice that there was a band VISUAL SCANDAL which was born in 1980. a year before Hide even started Saver Tiger.

If you even look at the looks of VISUAL SCANDAL you don’t even only see “GLAM” but also a part of a more “feminine” look.
However their inspiration also comes from Kenji Sawada（沢田研二さわだけんじ）.  His music and how he dressed it was more “feminine” also for some of his looks he did wear make-up.

Also after asking a bit more it seems that the word “visual” already existed and was common used by a small group of people, yet it wasn’t linked to the term “visual kei” how we know it nowadays. Just the plain meaning of “visual”. Just the word “visual”.

After reading the interview with “Seiichi Hoshiko” you can discover that he was the person who made “visual kei” an official term, thanks to X JAPAN (hide) words “VISUAL  SHOCK“. He even stated that he actually started the SHOXX magazine thanks to X JAPAN. Because he wanted to write about “visual bands” since there wasn’t really a magazine who wrote “information” about that type of bands.
Still lot’s of bands didn’t liked to be tagged as a “visual kei”, others loved and others “used” visual kei, to be more popular.
However he also did mention that he is a fanboy for XJAPAN, so what would have been happened if he wasn’t a big fanboy of Japan? Maybe a different person would have been seen as the “grounder” of the word Visual Kei.
Yet, the first years of SHOXX magazine bands where called VISUAL SHOCK, but SHOCK was somehow too strong, so it turned into VISUAL KEI. KEI means Style.

Anyhow, many meanings are flowing around. Also we cannot ask HIDE anymore, why he started to use the word and were he saw it for the first time.

Beside that XJAPAN was big in Japan, HIDE was loved. But overseas they never got so much attention than the last 15 years. When I first started to listen to Visual Kei, XJAPAN or HIDE was almost never mentioned.
Also back then XJAPAN never made their WORLD DEBUT. So… something is off right?

So for that I also searched an answer….
Later on I discovered that SHAZNA actually was the KING of Visual Kei. SHAZNA? You often see his name randomly, but nobody is really talking about him, about his past. And even after he kind of returned back nobody really seemed to care?

But, when should we call a pre-band visual kei?
Should we call pre-vkei bands (who disbanded before visual kei became a term) also visual kei. Or.. shall we not?

Of course you could create one big category “VISUAL KEI” and put every band inside, whenever if a band agree(s)(d) with it or not.
But you you also can look individual to them.

If you cannot get a bands own opinion anymore; you might could ask yourself.

“If visual kei would have existed back then, would they made the choice to be a visual kei band??” 

Nowadays it’s of course really hard to judge that, but might there are things which “most glam-rock/metal heavy metal”  bands don’t do, or didn’t, or didn’t care about.
Also if there are “old video recordings” how did the band move around?

Still if there isn’t an official “statement” of the band that they would have been, I guess we need to be careful to put them in the category.  However maybe they accept it nowadays more fast than in the early days.

However after the SHOXX magazine was there was still a world outside of visual kei. terms such as glam-kei and metal-kei still did do exist. And in Japan bands such as LOUDNESS and THE YELLOW MONKEY were never labeled as visual kei. While THE YELLOW MONKEY is seen as a visual kei band overseas. LOUDNESS strangely enough not, but that’s maybe because they got HEAVY METAL attention around the world.

Also when visual kei was official born 3 big music label kind of were the visual kei “king” labels… which means if you got signed to them, you are 100% seen as a visual kei band.
Ecstasy record & Platinum Records
Free will
Danger Crue Records

However Platinum Records band “GLAY” never really liked to be a visual kei band, also as soon they gotten more popular, they continued as a normal “rock band”. Still they are seen as a visual kei band, and well surely their early area they are.

Maybe you can say, a band can graduate from visual kei. But once a band did step a feet inside the visual kei world, you cannot step out, you cannot lose that label. SEX MACHINE GUNS is a fun example for it. They still seen as a visual kei band. Still they went back to their origin genre but even today they fit well in the visual scene. Also they still do lot’s for the visual scene, but just not as a visual band perse. But are they still visual? That’s up to you, for some they might be for others they are not.

After all it stays difficult how to see those pre-bands. of course their wasn’t an official them yet, might we can call some of them “visual kei”. But I think we still need to respect a bands own opinion. It doesn’t mean that we cannot call a band “visual kei” if a band is “visual kei” in your eyes, But please accept it if they say “we are not”. Still for yourself you can enjoy them as “visual kei” or with those who share that opinion”

Glam-kei
Metal-kei
Visual-kei
Punk-kei
etc.
I see those genres all different. Still it’s hard to say what a band makes them “visual kei”, for myself it’s mainly a feeling. Maybe also a feeling of “can I reach that band easy” or how do they “think about various stuff”.  I’m a fan of visual kei for a long time, but for me visual kei bands are the most difficult to reach out. I feel much more “distance” than bands who aren’t into that system. But I’ve no clue if that was the same years years ago.  To me those bandman who play in “visual bands” are play much more “being big star” than those who don’t play in the system.

However I also think that there are bands who used the “visual” system just to be more popular. but that their heart would be far from the “visual fantasy world”.

And of course there are always bands who simply fits perfect in both worlds. But maybe that are also the bands who “don’t mind to be called visual kei” but still feel for themselves to be just “glam-rock or heavy-metal”. Because they move freely between the two worlds. Because after all also in the visual world, you have to do your best to be noticed.

And beside that, do visual kei bands don’t have some “magic” around their looks? don’t they feel a bit more shiny than just a regular glam band? Even looking back for me it even feels that XJAPAN went more shiny after HIDE joined and turned someone into a kind of magic feeling band. Visual Kei is surely not only a band looks but also the shiny feeling they give their look.

You can put on make-up, but that doesn’t make you visual straight away.
That’s what I think and feel.

Maybe some people agree with this, maybe some people disagree with this.
After all, there isn’t one real opinion.

The only fact is that “visual kei” started with 3 big labels and from that tree visual kei is born how we know it now. Before that time, there wasn’t visual kei. the word “visual” existed… but nobody used it for “visual kei” yet. But HIDE was surely not the first one.