Translated from the book "Watashi mo Visual Kei Datta Goro" , 2006.05.05
Original Text: Tetsushi Ishikawa.
[1]Janne Da Arc's 23rd single, released January 2005. Selling over 300,000 copies, it became Janne Da Arc's huge hit song in recent years—not just as a result of its being featured as a theme to the anime Black Jack.
[2] 2005.9.14; "Janne Da Arc 2005 Live JOKER".
[3] Poking fun at kiyo, the 'gourmand' who plays keyboard for the band.
[4]2005.03.27 Janne Da Arc Live 2005 "Dearly". To them, who are all from Hirakata, their first show at Osaka-jo Hall was their "Triumphant Return Live". Besides that, they performed keeping their "visual kei" roots in mind while embracing their new style and showing us their brand of "hard work" while having a good time. Typical men from Kansai.
[5] Unicorn: Begun by Tamio Okuda, this was Japan's preeminent alternative-pop band. For a visual kei band to begin with such work is very strange.
[6] KATSUMI: A personality in the early '90s who had her first hit with TVCF's "Camellia Diamond". Later, as a member of "Project DMM", she sang the theme song for the "Ultraman" series.
[7] winpan: A term for windbreaker pants. "We were a really tacky band, after all; wearing windbreaker pants with satin coats. Even looking at it now, we looked like complete fools. (Defeated laugh.)" For Janne to be able to look on their past and laugh at themselves this much is quite admirable.
[8] DEAD END: A legendary visual kei band. With a classic metal sound, their popularity exploded. Frightening. Frontlined by MORRIE.
[9] DER ZIBET: A legendary visual kei band. Arrived on the scene with a sound like Led Zepplin. How painfully nostalgic. Frontlined by ISSAY.
[10] Hirakata: Four of Janne Da Arc's members (ka-yu being the exception) graduated from Hirakata West High School. This became the overlying story for the film "HIRAKATA", released in 2004. The ending theme, "Furimukeba..." became their 25th single, released in February 2006.
[11] Indies Period Mini Albums: April 1998: "Dearly" → December 1998: "Resist" →March 1999: "CHAOS MODE". In March of 2006, these albums were remastered and re-released as the limited-edition 10th Anniversary "INDIES COMPLETE BOX". People have really liked these for a long while.
[12] Break Out!: Airing on Asahi TV starting in October of 1996, it was a program that featured a joint performance with several visual kei bands. I get the feeling that it was responsible for both encouraging the visual kei boom and bringing it back down.
[13] La'Chryma: La'Chryma Christi. A visual kei band that appeared on the scene with a very progressive style. Coincidentally, the band's name means "The Tears of Christ". Wow.
[14] Fanatic: FANATIC◊CRISIS. They were part of the "Nagoya Kei" bands that also included Kuroyume, Laputa, ROUAGE, and several others. They also appeared as part of a special project by Kiyoshi Mizukawa, "Cross Clover".
[15] SHAZNA: After being exposed as one who lied about his age, IZAM began bringing this band to the forefront, saying "I may be the age that I am, but that's the age that IZAM was born with, too."
[16] Malice: MALICE MIZER. As one who attended their last indies live in Shibuya, I remember clearly saying, "It's 8 o'clock, everyone get over here!". The band was formed by Gackt, "The man who dealt the finishing blow to visual kei", and Mana-sama, who later emerged as the designer for his own Gothic Lolita clothing label, Moi-Meme-Moitie.
[17] Break Out! Matsuri '98, August 25, 1998. Kirito, who also attended the event, said, "Though the boom is huge right now, the artists here are only ones who have the power to keep it going."
[18] May 1999's "RED ZONE". Coincidentally, "Right until before we released it, we should have debuted with another song!" Wow...
[19] September 1999's "Lunatic Gate".
[20] Hajime Okano: Formerly of PINK, he did a good job producing L'Arc~en~Ciel.
[21] January 2002's "GAIA".
[22] March 2000's "D.N.A.".
[23] "Janne Da Arc Second Album 2.28 Release": Really released on 2.28 "without incident", the album "Z-HARD".
[24] Released in February 2003.
[25] "A storybook of the same title": A book much like a fantasy RPG, in the format of a "walkthrough", or perhaps even a "transcript".
[26] "The anime fanatic with ambitions to become a manga artist": Until he graduated junior high, it appears that yasu had ambitions to be a manga artist, and wrote a game book called "Adventure". He especially liked drawing monsters, and continued working on it, up until writing music for it, in the spirit of "Dragon Quest". Coincidentally, at that time he used to always hang out in Animate (a store all over Japan that sells anime and manga related goods).
[27] The band was especially active in 2004, with the releases of the single "FREEDOM" on March 24, the single "Kiss Me" on April 7, the single "DOLLS" on May 19, the single "ROMANCE" on May 26, the single "BLACK JACK" on June 2, and the album "ARCADIA" on July 7. They also released the promotional video compilation DVD "ARCADIA CLIPS" on September 29, and the single "Love is Here" on November 17. Furthermore, they had a nine-venue live tour over the span of 20 days beginning in September. Wahaha. Sounds like I'd die.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translated from 「私もヴィジュアル系だった頃」[Watashi mo Visual Kei Datta Goro; "When I Was Visual Kei, Too"] by Tetsushi Ishikawa, pages 16-65. Originally published in May 2006, ISBN: 4-8124-2643-XC0076.
[Introduction//Interview Part 1//Interview Part 2]