DANGEROUS NUDE, SEX POT REVENGE MEN & WOMEN’S CLOTHES OSAKA. JAPANESE HEAVY METAL BANDS, BLOOD STAIN CHILD & GASTUNK.
My Los Angeles invasion with Seba is shaping up swimmingly — every day, there’s more good news. We’re on a roll, and grateful that you’re riding along with us!
LA friends, we hope you can party with us on Saturday, January 1st at Bar Sinister (here’s the info, and the Facebook RSVP is here). Oops, the event is actually 18+, not 21+… so we hope more of you can come.
What to wear? Anything Goth, alternative or indie works. Such as this Sex Pot Revenge dress… the zebra stripes are actually weapons!
Here are more Osaka store photos, continued from this post. A Shinsaibashi collection of electro-punk brands.
The Punk’s Not Dead sign is near-identical to the one in the Sex Pot Tokyo boutique. My Harajuku photos from 2008 are proof. (Yes, I’ve been at this for a while…)
Ever wish you could hide in a store and live there?
The interior has an underground sensibility that matches the labels.
Toxic Star tees always have bright, punky graphic designs.
I know many of you are fans of Swimmer, a slightly scary-cute accessories and stationery store. I took Laforet Harajuku Swimmer photos for this post from 2009.
Dangerous Nude is an indie brand inspired by burlesque and ero-Loli. Corsets and tutu skirts and top hats, all handmade. The designer is close with the Tokyo Decadance crew.
The shop has a Moulin Rouge atmosphere. What do you think of Dangerous Nude’s barely-there clothing?
Want to see more Osaka Gothic Lolita boutique photos? It’s all in my big fat Japan shopping guide.
And now, for a word from First Mate Naomi: “Long time Austin party organizers New Noir had their first foray into the LA Scene with “Tokyo Social Club” this October at the Royal/T Café and Art Space in Culver City. The event’s unexpected center piece was multiplayer ping-pong mayhem! Each guest was given a paddle and the chance to take a shot in a musical chairs style throw-down.
Organizer Anthony (DJ New Berlin) got the idea for the game from one of Berlin’s many social clubs that defined itself with group ping-pong escapades. Culver City’s Cake Divas matched the massive paddle-battle with their own intimidating creation: A rampaging Godzilla cake! All the yummy play time was set to New Noir’s smooth DJs Unconventional Science & FONIKS.
Want to experience New Noir’s slick LA party for yourself? They’ll be taking over the Royal/T again on Dec. 22nd for a Holiday Taco Party and Costume Contest.”
Last but not least, I wrote a CNNGo article about the Japanese heavy metal scene. I interviewed Blood Stain Child, Tatsu of Gastunk / Killing Red Addiction, and actor-headbanger Avery Fane. Please give it a gander and let me know what you think!
Are you familiar with Tokyo and Osaka metal bands? What do you think of Dangerous Nude’s burlesque circus girl fashion?
Japanese Word of the Day: Eikyou = Influence, effect
Song of the Day: Art Cube – Petal (Visual Kei taken to a girly extreme?)
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26 Comments
Absolutely love the interior shots of the shop “Dangerous Nude” that you have in this entry… looks like it’s a blast!
I’m completely in love with Dangerous Nude brand *_* what a nice post to my eyes *_*
I’ve been listening the last work of Blood Stain Child and I liked it a lot. I hope someday we can buy this kind of amazing music in Spain instead of internet…
About the article I liked it a lot and it’s just as you said, metal is always metal no matter what and I truly hope to see more japanese bands performing here but our j.rock scene is still poor but I’m positive it’ll grow up with the years.
I love burlesque aesthetics… :)
Love the clothing once again. I always thought about hiding out in a store when I was young, and still occasionally do when I find a place I just absolutely love haha.
The Dangerous Nude brand looks really neat actually – it has a pretty “dark” tone to it, giving it a more mysterious feel. Which certainly would give the wearer a more mysterious feel, especially with the hat haha.
Enjoyed reading the article. It’s great to see how people who knew X Japan in the past are the main pioneers in the metal movement and keeping metal alive in Japan. Though I don’t think metal will die out in Japan or anything like that – that would be very hard to believe.
Just 2 things though, some minor spell errors – I don’t think they were yours since they were in quotes. They’re near the end of the article.
“Sempai” – “Senpai” (or at least I’m pretty sure)
“Dir en Gray” – “Dir en Grey” ^_~
I’m not sure if they’re metal exactly but one band I used to listen to (they’ve broken up unfortunately) was Phantasmagoria from Osaka. Loved the melodies they had. Another one is Envy from Tokyo…or are they hardcore? Gosh…everyone gets a bit picky when it comes to labeling a band with genre.
But yea – both are awesome bands, you ought to check them out if you haven’t already!
But for now I’m listening to Bjork, I just can’t stop loving her voice d(^_^)b
It’s cool to hear how it’s a tight-knit scene. :) Nice to have a family feel in the subculture.
I’m a fan of Phantasmagoria!
SeX PoT ReVenGe <3
wud love to try some DN on!
Love it…So wish I could be in Osaka right now!
Sex Pot Revenge has such nice shirts. I like the fabric they use.
Awesome review of the metal scene in japan. Btw, you should definitely do a review of the band G∀LMET. They are a group of lolita dressed girls who play straight up swedish style death metal.(or as they call themselves “melodic moe death metal”) ^^
Ooo I must check them out!
I have to Thank-you too for such an excellent recommendation!! I enjoyed them very much, especially the Live Performance videos on YouTube.
If I may, to gel it one step further- generally, the difference between Visual Kei and J-metal is presentation. For westerners at least, if you watch them perform (PV or concert) and immediately sense “a girl might get into this”, then it’s most likely Visual Kei. J-metal usually doesn’t have the same esthetics- you look at them and say “ah, dudes.” You could easily see them repairing a motorcycle for fun if they actually get a day off. (consider Maximum the Hormone vs. The GazettE or Versailles for an extreme example) I checked out Blood Stain Child’s sound after reading your article earlier, and though not to my taste, they were solid and really interesting- their sound felt like it would really work as an intense soundtrack for a battle/warfare styled video game.
I like how they’re doing something very different and have big plans… a group to watch! :)
AH~ Even if I could get to LA, I wouldn’t e able to attend. curse age. ; ~;
AH~ Even if I could get to LA, I wouldn’t e able to attend. curse age. ; ~;
Looks awesome. c:
Are you familiar with Tokyo and Osaka metal bands?
Not a whole lot. Unless you aggressively pursue it, it is overlooked in the US as is the majority of World Music. Since you posted the 凛 (Rin/Lin) PV as your video of the day, I have been delving more into it and working on an article about them. I plan on following up on more band in this vein
What do you think of Dangerous Nude’s burlesque circus girl fashion?
It is nice to see that some of the less popular Fashion as an Art Form designers and clothiers still have a healthy following. I think they have definitely captured and reproduced the beauty and risqué of Burlesque with-out seeming as pale imitation or a parody.
Nice nice! I think you’ll like Blood Stain Child.
I think we’ll be seeing more burlesque fashion in Japan..
I try my best to be honest. I know what I know, like what I like and everything else I’m still learning and/or digesting.
I was impressed with Blood Stain Child’s Trance infused Melodic Death Metal and with G∀LMET (from the comments below) that they too found their way into the piece. It took me in a whole different direction.
Thanks for the inspiration, as always, and I actually finished an article for my personal blog for the first time in seven months. Enjoy or Point and laugh! :-D It’s all good.
http://memojuez.blogspot.com/2010/12/is-j-metal-primed-for-us-invasion.html
Ohh thank you for linking to me! Love the videos you included.
Nice nice! I think you’ll like Blood Stain Child.
I think we’ll be seeing more burlesque fashion in Japan..
Awesomeee!!
After reading your article on the Japanese “metal” scene on cnngo.com, I went looking for a place to comment on it and subsequently found this blog entry.
As someone who has followed Japanese music for well over a decade, I’m deeply disappointed in how little research seems to have gone into the article. You conflate the Japanese hard rock and heavy metal scene with the visual kei scene– true, many visual kei bands play what could be described as metal, and true, there are a handful of crossover bands, but generally speaking the Japanese metal and visual kei subcultures are near opposites.
Japanese hard rock and heavy metal– often called “Japameta” in Japan, or “J-metal” as an previous commentor mentioned– includes major-label bands such as Loudness, Bow Wow, and Anthem. It began in the late ’70s and especially early ’80s, inspired primarily by the ’70s British hard rock bands who were “big in Japan” when most of the first Japameta generation were teenagers. A number of Japameta bands were already releasing albums and touring overseas before most overseas visual kei fans were born.
Japameta never had a thing to do with punk, dresses, goth, or vampires. Still doesn’t, in fact. Ethnicity aside, Japanese hard rock and heavy metal musicians look indistinguishable from their Western counterparts: they wear jeans. They wear tshirts. They look like masculine, ordinary guys. These are not toned-down visual kei bands, a la Dir en grey or Kuroyume. These are bands who were never visual kei in the first place. Musically as well, like most hard rock scenes the world over, Japameta is more about tradition than innovation; hardly the “eclectic sounds” of the article title.
I realize that the real-life Japameta scene (as opposed to the far more flamboyant visual kei genre) isn’t what most of your readers would be interested in reading about, and that perhaps a Japan where masculine middle-aged men play standard-issue, testosterone-fuled metal is not the Japan that many of today’s pop culture enthusiasts would prefer to imagine. Do some visual kei artists cite Japameta bands as influences? Sure. Is visual kei an interesting and contrary spin-off of Japanese metal proper? Absolutely. But to confuse or equate the two would be at best poor research, and at worst a purposeful distortion of facts to better align them to a fantasy.
I love your blog! Check mine out! I’m a “panda”… it’s a Swedish pop-style of wearing black and white clothes (and some red) and back combing the hair into a big 60’s piece!
Polli, I love your site! I hadn’t heard of “panda” before but I have many Swedish friends… so cool. xoxo
http://mixcock.blogspot.com/