panapp

@ psychopompe: do you work at the European Parliament? As a translator?
@ ThirdEye: exactly, you understood perfectly. In the visual, there is an artificiality derived from theater that is clearly evident. After all, theater is acting, image, and music together, right? This is visual kei.

@ psychopompe: yes, the visual is a sub-culture pop that encompasses many aspects, including the look and music, but not only. Regarding Gomarasca: I’ve read his books and writings and he never struck me as racist, but rather honest.

@ psychopompe again: yes, nipponico.com is a shitty site.

@ psychopompe: visual kei is not “a purely 80's phenomenon”: it refers back to the glam of the '70s, was born in the '80s, matured in the '90s (I'm talking about quality), and has reached its maximum expansion today (I'm talking about numbers). Anyway, I wasn't trying to get back at your comments, really! :D Maybe I didn't manage it well, but I was just trying to say that, aside from selected environments like Eastern language faculties and a few others, listening to "alien" stuff makes you alien, I swear. As for the idea that they wouldn't be listened to if they weren't Japanese and dressed like that: well, I don't know, probably many visual groups indeed have little else to offer besides their passport and their stylist; fortunately, Vidoll truly have enviable cross-over musical quality, so I would have listened to them even if they were from Kentucky, the Amazon rainforest, or Antarctica and dressed in burlap sacks. You may have noticed that I didn't talk about their look despite specifying that it's as important AS the sound: it was a mistake, but a mistake I knew I had to make because, simply put, this approach is still not known to the general public.

Congratulations on the review, the little letter is always appreciated. As for the group, I like everything about them, even "Storytelling," so you can understand that I consider this CD to be splendid.

Well-written review, as always! About the movie: I too, sigh, preferred the Western version. I'm sorry, the Eastern one is certainly more subtle and unsettling than the Western one, which is very scary but less disturbing (and vice versa for the Japanese one), but the Western version is not just a story of fear associated with death; it's an enormous, brilliantly executed spectacle that also incorporates elements foreign to the original film, like technology and family relationships. The Japanese "Ring" is a brilliantly crafted ghost horror, while the American "The Ring" is a supernatural horror with social elements. For example: have you ever noticed that Sadako is a ghost, while Samara is a ghost but also the personification of television (she never sleeps, generates images, sometimes speaks but nobody listens, doesn’t want to cause harm but does)? And this is just one example; the American film is less immediate and more studied. What I think, in conclusion, is that "Ring" is certainly a great film, but "The Ring" (not being a mere remake, but a reimagining entrusted to an intelligent director) surpasses it. About the VHS: the American one has truly unsettling ancestral images, but the Japanese one contains an image that will haunt me FOREVER in my nightmares; I’m referring to the man with the cloth on his head pointing at something off-screen (I get chills just writing about it). Help. ~ P.S.: the movie is NOT called "Ringu," but "Ring"!!! Otherwise, "Cure" should be called "Kyua" and "Loft" would be "Rofuto," right?

As always, the review is excellent. As for the film, I haven't seen it, but from the way it is described, it seems like a precise remake of Hitchcock's "The Birds": the killers murder for mysterious reasons, killings shown without warning, a realistic and not supernatural atmosphere, no soundtrack apart from real sounds, long takes, and extensive editing... it's "The Birds"! "In the face of the most insoluble mystery and the absence of motive, human certainties waver and sink, giving way to the most irrefutable chaos" is exactly the theme of Hitchcock's film. Perhaps Kurosawa wanted to pay homage to the English director, I imagine, because this description really seems to be a perfect match for the 1963 film.

XD Poor thing! Well, she doesn't look great in these photos, but she isn't beautiful; she has her own charm (a nice way to say she's not pretty, but with style).

Which address? There are 5 lines of codes that, as they are, are unusable.