119-527: Tadashi Matsuura ( Japanese : 松浦忠史 , born March 10, 1976) , known exclusively by his stage name Kisaki ( きさき ) , is a Japanese musician, record producer and businessman, whose career in the visual kei scene spans more than 30 years. He is best known for having been the bassist of several bands, including La:Sadie's, Mirage, Syndrome, Kisaki Project, and Phantasmagoria . When Phantasmagoria disbanded in 2007, Kisaki announced his retirement as an active musician. However, in 2010, he ended his retirement and formed
238-399: A retro feel in their imagery (黄昏レストラン "Sunset restaurant", 薔薇と片隅のブルース "Blues of the rose and corner", 東京テレホン "Tokyo telephone" and R-246), once again attributed to the influence of Taisho era romanticism. Merry is most notably connected to the popular Dir en grey – the band's name never fails to appear in the "very special thanks" credits in every release. Before forming his own band, Gara
357-421: A band together, Phantasmagoria . It was announced to be Kisaki's final band, which the bassist said was to show how committed he was to it. Phantasmagoria included CDs in issues of Shoxx magazine and quickly rose to become one of the top three acts on Under Code. They paid close attention to concepts and costumes; Kisaki said the release of the 2006 trilogy – "Kousou Kyoku", "Kyousou Kyoku", and "Gensou Kyoku" –
476-402: A bass guitar in his first year of high school, that is when Kisaki started to practice seriously and quickly formed his first band. Inspired by the appearances of X Japan members Yoshiki and Hide , he grew his hair out and began wearing makeup as a visual kei artist. Kisaki would continue to do his own makeup until partway through Phantasmagoria 's career. Kisaki has credited the manager of
595-624: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
714-428: A desire to still perform, Kisaki formed Kisaki Project (also written as Kisaki Solo Project) with Vidoll vocalist Jui. The band was initially put together to contribute to an omnibus album in 2002, but there were many requests for them to perform so they began irregular activities the following year. The group's lineup often changes, with the bassist himself being the only permanent member. Kisaki writes and composes all of
833-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
952-425: A full spectrum of brand new tunes with the release of every anticipated album. The band's music and lyrical imagery are likely influenced by the liberal Taisho and early Shōwa era, a period of significant artistic and musical movement when Japan shifted further towards Western concepts. It was the time of avant-garde ; industrialisation saw the introduction of jazz and blues to Japanese culture , bringing about
1071-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
1190-479: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
1309-471: A local Wakayama live house for his music career. Before his band Levia (formed in 1993), even had their first performance, comments from this manager resulted in them writing their own original material that was distributed as a demo. The band then played at the venue about once a month, and, after being covered on the local news, ended up opening for Pink Sapphire in front of 1,000 people. Kisaki said that this early success caused him to be content and disregard
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#17329528306351428-488: A lot of concerts in order to carefully scout who they wanted to recruit. The two formed La:Sadie's together in 1996, with Kisaki later describing them as having been "the ideal band". However, despite having what he considered great live performances, Kisaki was told to leave the band after only a year. The four other members of La:Sadie's went on to form Dir En Grey . Kisaki later opined that he had failed to take care of them, "I thought doing lots of good live shows would please
1547-692: A new single titled "Heijitsu no Onna". On 5 May, the band performed at the Hibiya Yagai Ongakudo. During the encore, Tetsu performed without a neck brace or stand. Since this, Tetsu has begun to occasionally perform encores in the same way. They released a new studio album titled "M-ology" on 6 September. They also covered " So... " by D'erlanger for the D'erlanger Tribute Album ~Stairway to Heaven~ . Beginning on 3 September, MERRY commenced their 47-prefecture tour in support of "M-ology" titled "System M-ology". They also covered "Ieji" by MUCC for their tribute album. In May 2020, guitarist Kenichi left
1666-555: A number of secret live shows held in Tokyo and Nagoya . Regular "serious" activities only began in 2002. Following more live shows, the band created their own independent label Gekiyaku records and released their first maxi-single titled "Haikarasan ga tooru" in February. There were three versions of this single – gold, silver and bronze – each one limited to 1000 copies. Gold and bronze versions were only available through mail order through
1785-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
1904-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
2023-469: A sub-label created exclusively for the band Flesh for Flankenstein. Just as Under Code Production bands Vidoll, Phantasmagoria, and 12012 were to scheduled to sign to major record labels, Kisaki's 2006 arrest resulted in these plans being scrapped. On August 31, 2013, Under Code officially closed. Kisaki cited the frequency of members leaving and bands disbanding as the reason, "Three years of building something, and then with two members leaving, it's back to
2142-439: A way to get on stage. He remarked that Garden had some success finding an audience, but Stella Maria, which he was invited to join in 1994, had even more. Although he was not the band's leader, he was tasked with promotion and began to take on the role. Kyo , vocalist of a band that Stella Maria played opposite, impressed Kisaki to the point that he desired to form a band with the singer. The bassist explained that he and Kyo went to
2261-675: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
2380-421: Is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of
2499-401: Is a Japanese visual kei rock band formed in Tokyo in 2001. The current member lineup consists of Gara on vocals, Yuu on guitar, Tetsu on bass, and Nero on the drums. In late 2000, after the disbandment of their bands After effect and Shiver respectively, vocalist Gara and guitarist Yuu, only briefly acquainted through a few live events, contacted each other in hopes of a fresh beginning. In
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#17329528306352618-425: Is a tribute album celebrating the 60th birthday of The Stalin front man, Michiro Endo . Many prominent artists pay their tributes to the founder & front man of the influential 80s punk band, including Buck-Tick , Group Tamashii , Dir En Grey , Jun Togawa , Wagdug Futuristic Unity , Yuki etc. Merry covered Dir En Grey's song "Schwein no Isu" for the compilation Crush! -90's V-Rock Best Hit Cover Songs- ,
2737-445: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
2856-519: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
2975-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
3094-684: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
3213-462: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
3332-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
3451-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
3570-722: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
3689-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
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3808-489: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
3927-646: Is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as
4046-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
4165-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
4284-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
4403-603: The Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered
4522-455: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
4641-464: The Osaka branch of the larger visual kei label Soleil, which was founded the previous year by former Rouage bassist Kaiki. Kisaki was inspired to start his own label like Yoshiki had done with Extasy Records . Without knowing how to do anything, he rented a "run-down" apartment and installed a telephone line and fax machine. He personally answered phone calls, told customers the live schedules, and handled
4760-504: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
4879-716: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
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4998-794: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
5117-535: The "first chapter" of Lin ended. Every member changed, except for Kisaki, and the second chapter of the band started as an independent act. Feeling no need to stay in Osaka anymore, Kisaki moved to Tokyo, but struggled. They participated in a tribute album for Kuroyume and played a festival in Taiwan to an audience of 8,000 people, but it was far from his ideal. "The band wasn't bad, but I disbanded it when I turned 40 in 2016, for
5236-518: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
5355-577: The 10th spot on the Oricon daily album chart a day before its official release. Concert footage of the Hibiya live was later released on a DVD entitled Sci-fi Nu Chemical Rhetoric ~First Cut~ , which similarly made it to the top of the charts. A pair of DVDs documenting the "Last Indies Tour" were released at the beginning of 2006. Nu Chemical Rhetoric was then released all over Europe, specifically Germany, Austria, Switzerland , France, Scandinavia and Italy . In
5474-461: The 40th anniversary of Rock-May-Kan, a Meguro, Tokyo live house that was important to the 1990s visual kei scene. Featuring 50 different bands from the era, all proceeds from the 4-disc album went to the music venue at a time when concerts were prohibited during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan . While working with Akira on a separate project, Kisaki and the vocalist realized that Mirage's 25th anniversary
5593-664: The Gallery~", a brand new maxi-single and DVD on reverse sides of single disc – it was to be one of Japan's first titles on the new DualDisc formAt. First press was sold out at pre-order, and the release itself quickly made it to the 2nd spot on the Oricon indies chart. The sold-out and highly successful one-man live at Shibuya Koukaidou on 31 March saw the long-awaited announcement of the band's major contract with JVC's Victor Entertainment – home to artists such as Buck-Tick , Boøwy , Cali Gari , The Back Horn and Love Psychedelico – much to
5712-482: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
5831-724: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
5950-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
6069-520: The Under Code label as a whole. Thus, Kisaki conducted thorough meetings with all the bands, "Having once dissolved a label, I prioritized the opinions of the members in all our decisions." Although its focus was visual kei bands, Under Code Production also produced several non-visual artists, including Anti-Kranke, Cious pi Cious, and Oto-oni. The label also established sub-labels: Road Awake, for hardcore bands Harvest and Vagerke, and Haunted House Records,
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#17329528306356188-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
6307-614: The album was released on 26 January 2011 and features current visual kei bands covering songs from bands that were important to the '90s visual kei movement. Their 7th album "Beautiful Freaks" was released on 27 July 2011. They covered Buck-Tick's " Aku no Hana " for Parade II -Respective Tracks of Buck-Tick- , released on 4 July 2012. The band went on hiatus in February 2013 due to vocalist Gara's need for hernia treatment. The band resumed activities in August. However, in October bassist Tetsu
6426-571: The band Lin -The End of Corruption World-. Kisaki also works as a record producer, including for his two former visual kei record labels, Matina and Under Code Production. These labels launched the careers of many bands, including Vidoll , The Gazette and 12012 . In 2023, Matenrou Opera vocalist Sono stated that the visual kei scene would not be what it is today without Kisaki. As a child in Wakayama Prefecture , Kisaki actively played soccer and went fishing. He first touched an instrument at
6545-456: The band launched "Lamb Fest", a two-day festival hosted by MERRY. As VerdamMnis Magazine stated in live report article, "the two-day festival was an opportunity for the Japanese quintet to celebrate its 14th anniversary ". On 7 February 2016, MERRY performed the final show of their tour in support of "NOnsenSe MARkeT". The show marked Tetsu's return as full-time bassist, albeit still using a stand and neck brace. On 27 January 2017, MERRY released
6664-417: The band released their first full album Gendai Stoic on Kiyoharu 's (leader and singer of Kuroyume and Sads ) Fullface records, selling over 10,000 copies on the day of its release. In June Merry opened for Sadd at Zepp Tokyo, and in August released a third press of "Haikarasan ga Tooru" entitled "Haikarasan ga Toorisugita Ato...", which contained re-recordings of the original songs and a secret track. In
6783-408: The band suddenly announced their disbandment, and had their last live on November 18, 2002. Vocalist Asagi and guitarists Sin and Ruiza formed D together, while drummer Shion formed Tinc . With Matina becoming successful, Kisaki explained that the increased workload is what led to all his bands being short-lived, "There was a growing gap between me and the members." The bassist later explained that he
6902-500: The band went into a brief hiatus, working on their second full album. Modern Garde was finally released on 30 June, accompanied by a live tour "New Standard Renaissance." In September Merry participated in a large-scale event, "Kingdom Rock Show 2004", held at the Nippon Budokan , performing beside major bands like Psycho le Cému , Janne Da Arc and Sex Machineguns . March 2005 saw the release of "Sakashima End Roll ~The Phantom of
7021-444: The band's return to an independent label. Merry have participated on two tribute albums which are scheduled for release on 10 November & 1 December 2010. The first being Pierrot to Suika to Yayauke Rider Subete wa World Peace no Tame ni – Saikyo Senshi-tachi ga Koko ni Shuketsu - which is a tribute to Atsushi Inoue, vocalist of punk rock band New Rote'ka. The second is Romantist – The Stalin, Michiro Endo Tribute Album - which
7140-420: The band's songs, which consist primarily of soft rock and pop ballads. When fronted by Jui, it is credited as Kisaki Project feat. Jui ( KISAKI PROJECT feat.樹威 ) . In 2004, they traveled to Europe and released an album there. Also in 2003, Kisaki formed the side project Kisaki & Kansai Kizoku ( 妃&関西貴族 ) with Vidoll bassist Rame on vocals. Around this same time, guitarist Jun approached Kisaki to start
7259-403: The band. Merry mainly blend the genres of classical rock 'n' roll , hard rock , punk , alternative , blues and jazz fusion , occasionally experimenting with undertones of heavy metal , surf , techno , ballads and more. Though some may not find this entirely appealing, the result is undeniably "totally fresh", as former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman put it. Like many others,
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#17329528306357378-519: The concert will be released on DVD on 20 December. A nationwide one-man tour then took place in August and September. In late October, the band filmed the video for upcoming single "Calling" at Izu Ōshima , enduring stormy weather. At the same time Peep Show had a European release. At the start of December, Merry traveled to Europe to perform overseas for the first time in Munich and Paris on 1 and 3 December respectively. Their third major single "Calling"
7497-425: The double encore Tetsu made his first stage appearance since his accident. He joined the band for the song "Gunjou", playing whilst having his bass on a stand (as opposed to a strap) and wore a neck brace. This marked the beginning of Tetsu's gradual return to the band full-time. Throughout the year Tetsu would join the band for encores, gradually increasing the number of songs he performed with them. In November 2015,
7616-564: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
7735-588: The end of middle school, when a friend who started to play the drums invited him to play bass. "It wasn't about playing in a band; it was just playing for fun.", "I simply wanted to make loud noise (laughs)." Although he grew fond of music through the Hideaki Tokunaga songs that his mother listened to, he was not thinking about entering the music industry. But that changed when he saw X Japan ; "Their look combined both rebelliousness and beauty, and they were great musicians with cool songs". When his parents bought him
7854-461: The expected response, and the scene was changing. I felt that I couldn't guide bands unless I immersed myself back in the scene." In 2011, the bassist's solo project briefly returned under the name Kisaki Project feat. Satsuki ( KISAKI PROJECT feat.砂月 ) , after recruiting former Rentrer en Soi vocalist Satsuki . This lineup released two singles, "Shouei" and "Sou ~Twinkle Vitality~", and a mini-album, Kaishi ~An Ideal of Beauty Desperate~ . In 2013,
7973-628: The first live music club I played in my hometown, the Wakayama Prefectural Cultural Hall where I first saw Tokunaga Hideaki, and finally at the Osaka International Exchange Center, our base of operations. By having a disbandment live, Phantasmagoria became a legendary phantom band." Kisaki retired from performing to concentrate on managing Under Code Production, he studied management and produced various bands. Although, Phantasmagoria did reunite for special shows in
8092-508: The first time in the band's history, frontman Gara wrote all the lyrics before writing the music, as he confessed in an interview for VerdamMnis Magazine . As the name of the album suggests, the concept of the album is based on the criticism of Japan and more generally modern societies. Singer Gara discusses Japan's politics and societal issues with French reporter Mandah Frenot in an in-depth interview for VerdamMnis Magazine . On 2 January 2015, MERRY performed at Shibuya Kokaido, where during
8211-455: The flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure
8330-450: The following few years. On February 1, 2010, Kisaki announced that he was planning to end his retirement and form a new band. This was around the time his probation period ended. This band was revealed to be Lin -The End of Corruption World- ( 凛 -the end of corruption world- ) . Kisaki explained that the group came from having noticed that no new bands were emerging, "Bands that should have been able to reach greater heights weren't getting
8449-412: The following months of 2001, a series of meetings and discussions over the phone eventually led to the recruitment of the three other members, Tetsu, Nero and Kenichi in that order, and the five of them formed in October 2001 what was to be known as Merry today. Early activities as an obscure indies band included the distribution of 500 copies of a 2-track MD in indie CD stores nationwide, accompanied by
8568-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
8687-444: The idea of going to college. However, his bandmates were, and the group disbanded on the day of their high school graduation as Kisaki wanted to expand into Osaka . Promising his parents that he would find a normal job if he did not have success by the age of 25, Kisaki moved to Osaka alone and joined and left various bands. These included Laybial and Shëy≠dë (pronounced "shade"), which he said did not last long because they were simply
8806-482: The label seriously. I was only about 20 years old at the time." It featured a large number of bands, most of whom had few releases and were short lived. After its fifth anniversary, Matina closed in 2002. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Matina, two omnibus albums collecting and remastering demos by bands from the label, Prelude ~Anthology of Brilliance Vol: I~ and Prelude ~Anthology of Brilliance Vol: II~ , were released on November 16, 2022. Under Code Production
8925-430: The language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853,
9044-453: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
9163-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
9282-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
9401-514: The mail-order sales of demo tapes. With only two bands at the time, Mirage and Madeth Gray'll, Kisaki described the early years as "more like a club than a company". But these two bands gradually gained popularity and Matina expanded rapidly, and was soon managing about five acts. Michiru, musician and founder of the Tokyo-based Loop Ash Records, later said he and Kisaki wanted to do for visual kei what Extasy and Free-Will had done for
9520-456: The meantime, Merry filmed two promotional videos while working on their upcoming album; the first major single "Sayonara Rain" successfully made it to the 24th spot on the Oricon weekly top 30 singles chart (5 June) while the second one titled "Ringo to Uso", released a month later, was No. 25. Merry once again played at the Hibiya outdoors music hall on 30 July, following the release of their 2nd major album Peep Show on 19 July – footage of
9639-423: The members themselves were influenced by Japanese pioneer rock bands of the 80s and early 90s such as Buck-Tick , D'erlanger , Luna Sea , Kuroyume , The Blue Hearts and Boøwy . The main songwriters are the two guitarists Yuu and Kenichi, the former writing majority of the slower, groovier songs and the latter composing faster, catchier melodies. Not afraid to experiment with their musical ability, Merry delivers
9758-511: The members, but I was wrong. By not giving them time to rest and deciding on recording schedules in between, I must have put a lot of stress and burden on them." But Kisaki quickly rebounded and began a nationwide tour with his new band Mirage just two months later. They gave out 5,000 copies of the demo "Hyakka Ryoran" for free at their concerts. They had a song used as the ending theme of the television show Break Out . Although Mirage received an offer to sign to Warner Music Japan , Kisaki felt it
9877-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
9996-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
10115-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
10234-513: The previous generation of the movement. Matina became independent from Soleil in 1999, and eventually formed its own sub-labels (Eternal, its Kantō region branch, and Storm, its Hokkaido branch). Kisaki said Matina became exactly what he envisioned it would, holding events gathering all the labelmates on significant occasions such as Christmas and New Year's Eve, just like the Extasy Summits. "But it grew too big, and I realized I needed to manage
10353-477: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
10472-468: The rare "Violet Harenchi" video previously released only at a live show. Fool's Mate published a pair of history books documenting the band's appearances in the magazine, coupled with long interviews and a special CD and DVD. From July to August, Merry set out on their "Last Indies Tour", which finally culminated at the Hibiya outdoors music hall on 10 September – their first major one-man show. The band's major debut album, Nu Chemical Rhetoric , made it to
10591-576: The rise of music cafes, bars and clubs. Similarly Merry fuse these genres with modern rock music to create a whole new style – a "modern avant-garde", or rather "modern-garde" as their second album is named. Lyrics-wise, vocalist Gara writes on a broad variety of topics, ranging from themes of war & patriotism (Rest in peace, Japanese modernist, 愛国行進曲 "Patriot march"), politics & society (迷彩ノ紳士 "Gentlemen in disguise", ニセモノ天国 "Fake heaven", Lost generation) to those of dreams, life, love and hate (窓 "Window", 恋愛交差点 "Intersection of love"). Some of these carry
10710-865: The rock magazine Fool's Mate , while the silver version was available in stores. All were sold out at pre-order . In March, the band had their first one-man live at Meguro Rockmaykan. A second press of Haikarasan ga tooru , which included a new song "Tokyo Telephone", was then later released in May. In mid to late 2002, a pair of maxi-singles were released, "Koseiha Blend ~Tasogare-hen~" and "Koseiha Blend ~Junjou Jounetsu-hen~", containing three new tracks each and packaged in LP -sized sleeves illustrated by infamous EroGuro comic artist Suehiro Maruo . Both were limited to 3000 copies and were once again sold out at pre-order. The band also contributed to two omnibus compilations. These releases were accompanied by numerous live events. In March 2003
10829-443: The sake of my future life." Shortly after, Kisaki began receiving offers for session bands and Kisaki Project shows. He also wrote songs for pop idols, including Hikari Shiina , and realized he enjoys occasionally being in the spotlight while providing music for others. In 2018, Mirage temporarily reunited for their 20th anniversary. In 2020, Kisaki organized and produced the omnibus album Rock-May-Kan Densetsu ( 鹿鳴館伝説 ) to celebrate
10948-410: The same month the band were working on their first promotional video (PV) of "Violet Harenchi", which was then released on a DVD limited to the one-man live at Shibuya Koukaidou on 29 August. The closing months of 2003 saw a live tour and the band's participation in "Beautifool's Fest '03", a live event organized by Fool's Mate . 2004 began with the release of a pair of maxi-singles in February before
11067-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
11186-549: The single "Hakai" ended Kisaki's anniversary celebrations in December. The mini-album is composed of five songs that he could not fit on the trilogy and features Matenrou Opera vocalist Sono and Deathgaze vocalist Ai, while the single was excluded from Eternally because it has a completely different style. Matina was an independent record label that managed visual kei artists. It was formed in January 1997 by Kisaki as Matina Soleil,
11305-549: The span of three months (April, May, and June) to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his career in music. Among the numerous guest musicians, Providence features Defspiral vocalist Taka and Versailles guitarist Hizaki , Afterglow features Nogod 's Dancho and Galneryus 's Syu , and Preuve d'etre features Psycho le Cému vocalist Daishi and Mary's Blood guitarist Saki . On October 8, Kisaki Project had their first performance with Jui in 16 years at Umeda Trad as part of The Grand Paradox event. The mini-album Eternally and
11424-439: The speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
11543-765: The start. Watching these bands, I began to feel a conflict 'perhaps I was just rehashing the same approach'. Continuing like those things would not be good for me or the bands, so I decided to end Under Code Production. It was its 10th year, and I wanted to end on a high note rather than let it decline." As a result, many bands signed to the label split up, such as Nega, Megaromania, Dali, Vior Gloire. A handful of other acts remained active, such as Futurism Boyz, Lin, and Realies. Several musicians related to Under Code formed their own labels, such as Goeman Records formed by Realies' frontman Rayka, and King Zebra formed by Suzaku's vocalist Itsuki. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] )
11662-797: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
11781-476: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
11900-444: The tearful elation of loyal fans. It is also worth noting that the record company was the one to offer a proposal to the band first and not the reverse. The transition to a major label prompted the release of a best-of album – Koseiha Blend Classic ~Oldies Tracks~ – which contained re-recorded and remastered tracks off the older releases, together with two new songs; first press came with a new PV of "Tick-tock" and second press with
12019-583: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Merry (band) Merry ( メリー , Merī , stylized as MERRY )
12138-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
12257-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
12376-472: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
12495-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
12614-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
12733-552: Was Kisaki's second independent visual kei label, and a sub-label of Free-Will . It was formed in 2003 in the Kansai region . While hospitalized shortly after Matina's demise, Kisaki said the members of Vidoll would visit him weekly to express a strong desire to work with him, which led to Kisaki forming Under Code Production. After Vidoll quickly gained popularity, former members of Matina also came to Kisaki for guidance with their new bands. The label wanted each band to express its individuality while maintaining an identifiable style for
12852-543: Was a roadie for Dir en grey, forming a close bond with vocalist Kyo , whom he still considers his senior and mentor. Gara is also known to hold a lot of respect for Kiyoharu (solo artist and vocalist for Sads and Kuroyume ) Horror punk band Balzac has also been very supportive of Merry. In 2006 the two bands combined efforts in a reconstruction of one of Merry's songs "Hi no Ataranai Basho". They have also previously performed together at several live events. Merry are also closely related to Mucc , Kagerou and Craze,
12971-421: Was a turning point for the band. "We spent a lot of time discussing and creating these songs, which had their own color and depth. We paid great attention to the music videos too, as we didn't want to just perform live but also create something that would endure over time. We aimed to make each song stand out, not just as part of an album, but as something people would want to listen to individually." However, Kisaki
13090-418: Was arrested that year and convicted for tax evasion . The plans for Under Code Production bands Vidoll, Phantasmagoria, and 12012 to sign to major record labels were scrapped as a result. After receiving a suspended sentence and consulting a lawyer, Kisaki decided to stop performing and focus on running the label. Before disbanding in 2007, Phantasmagoria went on a final tour; "We toured the nation, including
13209-535: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
13328-543: Was coming up in 2022, and decided to create the band's first full-length album for the occasion. After reuniting with Yayoi, they recruited Jils guitarist Shun and Zo:diaek drummer Yomi as official members of the third generation of Mirage halfway through recording it. Biograph includes both new material and re-recordings of old songs, and was released on April 20, 2022. They also had original vocalist Tomo, who had since retired from music, participate on two songs. In 2023, Kisaki decided to release 30 songs, on three albums, over
13447-450: Was disheartened by his inability to maintain long-lasting bands and questioned his aptitude as a leader, so he decided to start from scratch. He was also hospitalized at this point, but the members of Vidoll expressed a strong desire to work with Kisaki, which led to him forming the label Under Code Production. Vidoll quickly gained popularity, and former members of Matina came to Kisaki and Under Code for guidance with their new bands. With
13566-718: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
13685-448: Was involved in an onstage accident with a stage diver that resulted in him receiving a severe neck injury. Tetsu would spend the next two and a half years out of the eyes of the public, focusing on rehabilitation. Initially the band performed with supporting bassists, but eventually settled on playing along to Tetsu's bass lines from the studio recordings. On 24 December 2014, MERRY released its new studio-album titled "NOnsenSe MARkeT". For
13804-465: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
13923-545: Was released on 6 December and featured collaborations with Balzac and The Mad Capsule Markets 's Takeshi Ueda . As a closing to 2006 and in commemoration of the band's 5th anniversary, a special countdown live was held at the Shibuya Koukaidou on New Year's Eve. In February 2007, Merry went on a joint tour with Balzac. Their 4th major single "Blind Romance/Saihate no Parade" was then released on 18 April. Promotional videos were filmed for both songs and "Saihate no Parade"
14042-452: Was too soon and also wanted to follow in the footsteps of Yoshiki by creating his own record label in 1997, Matina. Vocalist Tomo left in summer 1998, and was replaced by Akira. Mirage disbanded in January 2000, but Kisaki already had his next band ready, and Syndrome formed that same month. Guitarist Ken left in 2001 and formed Merry . Syndrome released the mini-album Core in April 2002. However,
14161-614: Was used as the ending theme for the Over Drive anime. In May, Merry went on the brief "Oriental Circus" tour, playing in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. On 26 May, Merry performed at the J-Rock Revolution Festival held in Los Angeles, America, alongside artists such as Mucc , Girugamesh and D'espairsRay . Another tour went through the late summer of 2007. MERRY released the single "Identity" on 7 November 2009. The release marked
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