The George Mason Review
Exposing the Underground: The Japanese Subculture of Visual Kei Megan Pfeifle Major: Criminology, Law and Society
About the Work: From its inception, visual kei has been a wild music style built on the back of Western glam rock and the rebellion of Japanese youth. Much like other forms of Japanese entertainment such as animation or video games, visual kei has captured the attention of fans worldwide. However, unlike these other entertainment types, visual kei has not yet reached the attention of the general public and mainstream music listeners. Despite visual kei’s obscure nature and peculiar characteristics, very little research has been conducted about it. Many fans do not realize the difficulty involved in overseas music promotion and concert preparation, nor do they understand the true financial reality of most underground artists. Before my first visit to Japan eight years ago, I was like many Western fans and had preconceptions of the scene. Upon my visit and submersion into the scene, I was very surprised to find the reality of visual kei: tiny venues, the same fans at a variety of shows, and very few true resources to purchase the music. Since then, visual kei has been a big part of my life, and I owe a lot to it. Starting as a fan, I saw the scene grow and evolve, and I likewise did the same, moving from fan to press. This helped me to gain the perspective and knowledge that I am sharing in this paper, “Exposing the Underground.” I wrote this paper for the course “Japanese Culture in a Global World.” I conducted interviews of fans, press, event organizers, anime convention staff and the general population as well as compiled empirical data to determine how the scene looked from all sides of this diverse music style. With the assistance of a popular Japanese music website, I conducted a survey that reached the voices and opinions of 6,384 fans from 88 countries. It is my hope that these findings will help anyone who should stumble across the subject to gain a deeper understanding of visual kei than what can be perceived from outside the scene. This paper was written with the assistance of friends and visual kei enthusiasts worldwide. Without their help, this paper would have never come to fruition. Last year, the paper won the Center for Professional Exchange’s 2011 Japan Studies Award. Last June, it was heavily modified for a fan audience and was published as a weekly web series entitled “Globalizing Visual Kei,” which ran for thirteen weeks on the website, Japanese Music Entertainment. The web series garnered a tremendous amount of interest and encouraged me to pursue publication so that my work could educate others on the topic and be utilized as a peer reviewed piece.
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