Visual Kei stores in Japan

Have you ever wondered where to buy Visual Kei goods in Japan or even Visual Kei adjacent places to go to? After some time I had finally put together a list of places I've often heard of or frequently shopped at that I highly recommend ψ(｀∇´)ψ

Music stores:

Little Hearts:
Tokyo - Due to Studio Alta closing down Little Hearts have moved to a new location!
Osaka

Like an Edison
Tokyo
Osaka

Pure Sound
Tokyo
Osaka

Bunken Rock Sound - located near Jimbocho Station
Cross Cat - located (somewhat) near Kameari Station
Tower Records - TR is a chain so I included their list of stores in Japan
Five Stars - Located near Osu Kannon Station in Nagoya 

Restaurants/bars

Rock Bar Midian - Owned by Fu-ki from Blood
Vampire Cafe - Owned by Vampire Rose 
Vegeneko - Owned by Seth from Moi Dix Mois
Bar Fukuro - Owned by Yoshiatsu from Fukuro
Shot Bar Mao - Not sure if this is owned by any particular bandmen but it features a lot of VK goods

Instrument stores

ESP Museum
BIG BOSS

There's a lot more affiliated stores but these are the most popular, I regularly add to my google maps to readily find places, I've also found plenty of CDs at Book Off, Wonder Goo (all the way in Gunma lol), Mandarake and even Surugaya so keep an eye out in second hand stores!

What should I wear to a VK live?

 This has been a frequent topic lately, and for some reason there seems to be a misconception amongst newer fans that you need to wear "VK clothing" to be considered a fan, while many VK fans tend to be alternative it has never been required to dress a certain way. Years ago it was pretty common for bangya to wear gyaru or heavier styles, especially if you browsed Tokyo Fashion's blog, cosplaying bandmen was also pretty common at specific lives but not done as much lately, nowadays many fans wear a variety of styles, even kimono or yukata for winter/summer lives!

Besides the larger lives I went to such as DEZERT and Kizu, majority of the fans at smaller lives were all women who wore a mix of jirai/ryousangata, tour shirts of the band and any other items they sell, even some oldschool lolitas I follow dressed up casually but it's honestly up to you and how comfortable you feel standing out (and standing for 2+ hours) if you want to dress up, but you should also consider the feelings and safety of other people, you don't want to wear something that takes up a lot of space such as lolita and you also don't want to wear platforms/heels that are too high with the risk of injuring yourself or someone else in case of an emergency.

Personally I'm a little extra and enjoy wearing alternative fashion so here are some of my favourite brands I regularly wear:

Sex Pot Revenge 
Travas Tokyo 
ACDC RAG
Listen Flavor 
NieR
KRY

Also consider reading my other post on what to bring to a VK live!

What should I bring to a Visual Kei live?

I'm unfortunately notorious in being unorganised and I often see new fans ask what they should take with them to a live so I thought I'd put together a list of things I regularly took with me! (✿◡‿◡)


- hand bag, tote bag
Many venues have restrictions on large bags but I've seen many bangya with various types of bags ranging from:
- small handbags and backpacks from jirai kei brands
- tote bags
- ita bags w your fave bandman

- portable charger/battery pack
I made the mistake of only taking one portable charger but I'd highly recommend having two so then you can alternate them, there's lives where the band doesn't do physical 2shot cheki so you'll need to make sure your phone is charged and not be like me hoping it doesn't die during the live rip

- wallet/coin purse 
If you haven't been to a live before, live houses require a 500~700yen drink fee upon entry so you'll need cash. I learnt the hard way it's better to have too much cash than not enough as most lives don't accept card for goods


-OPTIONAL ITEMS-

- cheki album
This isn't exactly necessary but if you end up buying a lot of cheki it's a much nicer way to organise them and keep safe rather than trying to stuff them all in your wallet or bag

- ticket file
like a cheki book this is also good if you get printed photo tickets and don't want them to get wrinkled but most can just fit inside your wallet, I prefer just having one anyway since my Kizu ticket was a lot bigger than others, another good item is an A4 file if you also want to get free flyers provided at live houses.

- ear plugs 
There were several lives where I got a nasty headache from how loud the set was, many venues are quite small so you should really protect your hearing

- Band goods
This is VERY optional but many bands sell live specific goods such as muffler towels, pen lights and fans for furitsuke, I ended up enjoying a lot of lives more than I expected and wished I had gotten some so if you have the extra money to spare I highly recommend getting something to join in with everyone else, they also make a nice memento to commemorate your time going to a VK live

- Cooling wipes or tissues
Live houses are small and cramped so you're bound to get hot and sweaty, especially if you participate in furitsuke. You can get these really cheap from any store throughout Japan and they're actually really helpful

- Makeup/makeup pouch
If you wear makeup, feel free to bring anything to freshen up especially if you want to look nice in 2shots

- slippers
It may sound weird but I noticed at majority of lives I went to that a lot of bangya switched from their regular shoes to slippers/crocs and I thought that was so smart considering you're standing for several hours

I have more posts coming up in the future on how to prepare for other events so be sure to keep an eye out! (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

New Post! Japan 24-25

Long time no see!

It's been such a long time since I've posted anything, and what actually made me come back to such an old blog was that after 5 years I had finally was able to go back to Japan! The first time I went to Japan in 2019 I was so unprepared that I only went to one live so I definitely made it my mission to be more organised by getting a Japanese sim card so I could make an account and buy tickets through eplus, but for some reason I didn't activate the sim card properly and had no data for 3 days so I missed out on several lives lol.

As a foreign Visual Kei fan one thing I really liked was reading about live reports as it really visualised what kind of things happened during lives that aren't often recorded, and it wasn't until recently when a friend posted about a live we attended it made me realise that I've hardly seen people write about them anymore, so it's something I thought would be fun after attending many during my month long trip, since I had to nagivate the process by myself this time I thought it'd probably help others who had questions on things I haven't really seen answers to.