Visu Navi

VisuNavi is a directory and proto-social networking service (that began even before Myspace in the US, which was generally considered the first true "social networking service") in Japan for Visual Kei musicians and bands to be listed, to promote themselves and their music, and to engage in some limited degree of interaction.

Mostly, it consists of advertising and promotional content for Visual Kei artists and their upcoming music releases or live shows, but it also serves as a bit of an archive of who's who in Japanese Visual Kei - the more promoted a band is on there, generally, the more popular they are, though this is not always the case.


 * Ambiguous Gender: Justified Trope, being that it is a directory of Visual Kei artists.
 * Archive Binge: If you can read Japanese, the site tends to be very welcoming toward these. Perhaps even if you can't, since the imagery is worth a look in and of itself.
 * Bishonen and Biseinen: Most of the artists.
 * Bifauxnen: Some of the female artists.
 * Female Gaze / Male Gaze: Why you're likely looking around, if you can't speak Japanese.
 * Flame War: Has likely hosted a few in the social networking services part, but moderation keeps these down a fair bit. It is not 2Ch Tanuki.
 * Flog: Arguably so in some places, and Justified Trope since the point of the site is artist promotion, with archiving and other purposes being a distant second.
 * Visual Kei: It's the first place to go if you want to see Japanese VK artists, at least from an artist promotional point of view.