Your King is back.....
Well I decided to make this guide to visual kei subgenres.At first I had no idea about it's subgenres to be honest. But I do now and I want to share my knowledge with you. I hope you enjoy this post of mine.Let's start....
KUROFUKU KEI
Just black clothing.Black suits are popular in this subgenre.
KOTE KEI
The oldest and most popular form of visual kei. The point here is the dramatic hairstyle and clothing. There are two types of Kote kei. The "Black" type ( bands of this type have a darker image than the others) and the "White" type ( lighter and more melodic than the "Black" type). Sometimes you can see Kote kei written as kotekote (or kotekote kei ,kote ,kotekote visual kei) .Common themes in this subgenre seems to be blood .roses,crosses,decadence and aesthetics.
TANBI KEI
It seems that this is a sub-sub genre since it comes from Kote kei. Bands which belong to Tanbi kei will remind you of Renaissance Europe.You can see for example Victorian houses in their PV's and influences by classical music. Symphonic and melodic metal sounds along with elegance.
Soft visual kei
It's a"calmer" type of visual kei. As the name suggest it's basically a soft type of visual kei.Natural make up , not so over the top outfits with catchy songs. It used to be very popular during the Visual kei boom.
Oshare kei
You can translate this ( roughly to be honest) as "fashionably" or " stylish" . The first Oshare kei band was Baroque . After a while the term "osare" came up as a parody term. Those people think they are fashionable ( they think. In reality they are exactly the opposite. Sorry...) It's what I call "the bright and fun side of visual kei. Colorful with pop and techno influences. Oshare used to be popular but now we don't see many bands under the term oshare kei.
I think it would be the best to make this post in parts since I dont want to make you feel tired. I hope you liked the first part.
- King Vampire
