My reasons

So, I'm currently waiting in SeaTac. I hate layovers almost as much as actually flying.

This post'll be a bit long a prolly a tad rambly. I've got time.

I'm listening to Dir en grey's Uroboros album, which I like a lot better than The Marrow of a Bone. Uroboros has a few tracks that remind me of Withering to death. Honestly, though, I can't take the English lyric versions of Dozing Green and Glass Skin seriously. Kyo-san, A for effort, but maybe you should do what Miyavi did and take a hardcore English class.

One of the first things I did when I got to Japan was join "a knot," aka the official Dir en grey fan club. For reasons unknown to me they have no international fan club.

Dir en grey, in a way, is pretty much the reason I started learning Japanese.

I mean, yeah, sure, I watched a few anime as a kid, and I always loved my Grandpa's stories about being stationed in Japan after he fought in the Korean Conflict. But the real, huge reason is music.

What had happened was, at some point in the sixth grade, I was on AIM talking to a girl whose name I can't recall, but I remember her awesome screen name: MajinSquee. She asked me if I listened to Dir en grey. Of course, being twelve and knowing next to nothing about Japan in general, I didn't. She file transferred me a picture (similar to this one, not that exact one, but the costumes/makeup were the same http://amis_lee.tripod.com/jrock/dir.jpg). I said "Oh! Pretty girls!" which probably made her laugh. Then she transferred me the song. The first Japanese rock song I'd ever heard: Cage. At the time, I had no idea what the hell Kyo was singing about at the time, but the music-box intro and bass solo, in addition to Kyo's weird and wonderful voice, had me hooked. It was then that I decided that someday, I would be able to know WTF that crazy bastard was singing about without having to lookup a translation/translate it myself (I still have yet to be able to do this, in between his wordplay, screaming, and general use of words they don't teach you in class).

I sought out more Dir en grey songs. During this search I found other Japanese rock bands: X Japan, Malice Mizer, Due le Quartz, Pierrot, Plastic Tree, Luna Sea, L'arc~en~ciel, Kuroyume, Janne da Arc, etc. I was upset occasionally, finding awesome music from an indies VK band that were no longer active (I have some songs on my iPod that I think never even made it to a full album *coughcough*DAS:VASSER*coughcough*), or when I found out that Malice's Kami and hide while solo had both passed away at the end of the '90s, years before I'd heard Cage.

Growing up, I'd heard oldschool rock, like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, '80s glam and metal, some country rock ish type stuff (Johnny Cash and whatnot) and of course whatever poprock the local radio station played.

I had never heard music like Japanese visual kei. I loved it. I longed to be pretty like them, to have the ridiculous hair and makeup and costumes. I had seen glam like Bowie, but these guys took it and ran with it. Amazing androgyny. The first time I ever watched Miyavi's Girls, be ambitious PV, I couldn't breathe. I wanted to be him because he was just so goddamn beautiful in that video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQH9vfDFjGk). Yes, I have gender identity issues, in case that wasn't obvious.

Of course, my horizons weren't only expanded with Japanese VK. This of course led me to other American and British rocks bands, because of comparisons (e.g. oh, this band was influenced by The Sex Pistols), and Korean music, because hey, Korea's right next to Japan (I like Jaurim =D Kim Yuna is awesome.)

For a long time, I was the only person I knew in Anchorage who liked Japanese visual kei (I'm sure the general Japanese populace here preferred their enka and pop music). Eventually though, as I entered high school, more and more anime otaku tards were making their presence known, and they knew of the more famous acts (like Gackt). At the time (actually I still do), I found most of this type of people extremely fucking annoying, and if this makes me sound like an asshole, oh well. You cannot truly learn about Japanese language/culture/etc by watching anime, cosplaying, and never bathing (yes, I am working off the stereotype, but I'm thinking of very specific names and faces as I type this). You can't learn it by listening to Japanese boys scream into microphones, either.

I started taking Japanese at my high school. Then it was actually okay for me to talk about my favorite music in class.

It was actually in high school, the first time I saw Dir en grey live. For either my birthday or Christmas (I can't remember), my dad had gotten me tickets to the concert in Tempe, Arizona at The Marquee in '07 (I'm actually wearing the shirt I bought from that show XD). My grandparents live in Tempe, so I stayed with them.

This concert showed me the reason I will never attend their concerts in the states ever again: American audiences at rock concerts are douchebags. (Also, fuck thrashers. Seriously. Die in a fire.)

Ignoring the audience, the band was amazing. Kyo fishhooked himself and at some point ripped off his shirt. Withering to death. had been released before this concert, but they started the opening to OBSCURE (off of Vulgar) and this screen dropped down behind the band, and the PV started playing! It was amazing.

They have a couple shows in and around Tokyo in October, I wanna go to at least one of them. Hopefully the Japanese audience is better (they tend to be, from the few other band shows I've been to).

Pretty much, if I'd never talked to MajinSquee, I might not be going to school in Tokyo. I might not even be here on this earth. Listening to music saved me from doing some really stupid shit, like drugs, drinking, and straight up suicide. Looking back, my life really wasn't that terrible at the time, but while I was living through all that bullshit, it seemed like my world was ending.

Anyways.

To sum up my long ramblyness: Dir en grey is my favorite band. Ever. Even though I hate Marrow of a Bone and wish they were still VK, and I do like other bands/musicians as well (Miyavi, VAMPS, Tripolysm, and LM.C all have shows after I get back to Tokyo!). Even though now they almost sound like a normal American metal band, I still <3 them lots.