When things get serious…

February 17, 2010 psychoballerina
Tags: bangyaru seikatsu, deluhi, Japanese music, Live concerts, merry, thoughts, visual kei

I’ve been a fan of visual kei music for a while now and I’d probably admit it was key in bringing me to live in Japan. In Europe, the fans are a pretty crazy bunch, well known for a devotion that has us hightailing across the continent after our bands or occasionally, to Japan for a ‘concert holiday’. I had always supposed our craziness was due to the lack of accessibility to our favourite bands; lives or tours were once in a blue moon, CDs were hard to come by and everyone thought we were crazy liking these effeminate men.  I had also supposed that in Japan, where for the fans of this genre it was easy to get to a concert, the crazy would die down akin to how British fans of British rock react.

Not so.

If anything, things are taken one step further. Meet the Jouren and together with it, concepts of Shikiri (lit: to partition/ to take control), Saizen (front row), Ensei (expedition) and Zentsuu (lit: full opening, means to attend a whole tour).In short, visual kei has its own language, regular terms that when applied to the genre take on a whole new meaning. For visual kei fans, watching a concert is called ‘going to war’ and sometimes, amidst the etiquette and obsessive behaviour of (largely) female fans, it does feel something like a battlefield.

‘Jouren’ or 常連 literally means ‘Regular customer’ or ‘Frequenter’. By regular, it means every single time, with the exception of extenuating circumstances like illness. One is not considered a jouren unless you appear at somewhere near 90% of a band’s concerts. For some girls, that means 90% as regards the whole of Japan, so fans who only attend concerts in Tokyo/ Kanto would not consider themselves, Jouren. For others, their attendance means they call themselves Kanto or Tokyo Jouren but they don’t travel for the band. To be a proper jouren however takes time and dedication and money, to be there every time, come rain or shine.

The jouren are easily noticeable at concerts, particularly if you go enough to recognise similar faces. One can even sometimes tell from the clothes they wear, which band they are there to support. For some bands, many of the jouren seem to have permanent places in the front row and so will wait near the back for the majority of the event only coming forwards for their band. Some may even leave once their band has played, as I have often seen some Awoi jouren do. The shikiri, the girl who manages the allocation of front row places is usually the most devoted jouren. She has most likely never missed a live in her life, whether that live be on a working day or weekend, in Tokyo or Sapporo. One has to wonder what the shikiri/ serious jouren do for jobs.

Once the live is over, the jouren are ones who give regular gifts to the band, the first buy polaroid pictures (cheki) or wait for the band to leave outside (demachi). Many are in good contact with the band, whether that be simply friendship or otherwise and are often party to privileged information such as tour dates before they are announced. These girls also tend to know the merchandise salesgirls and even the band management. When you go all the time, your face becomes recogniseable.

It seems crazy on the surface level. Why would anyone choose to follow a band so obsessively?

I wondered myself, before I became one for the bands, DELUHI and Merry.

Merry were my love before I came to Japan, having visited these Isles back in 2005 for their concert. I also consider my Merry jouren-status a little different. The atmosphere is less personal as they are a big band, nor was I there at the start. I am also a member of the fanclub and there isn’t that same feel as one gets attending an event of many small bands, of which one is yours. So I consider myself more as a jouren when it comes to DELUHI.

I can’t say I am a 100% devoted jouren but I attend as much as I can when illness does not prevent me. Within Tokyo my attendance last year was around the 90% mark and I even travelled around a bit for my bands. I have skived work for concerts, changed my schedule around, taken overnight buses… same as any fellow jouren might. What do I get out of it? Why bother becoming a serious fan? I calculated the cost of being a jouren: tickets, cheki, merchandise fanclub dues, and came up with a total nearing 120 000 yen for the year! Obviously this lifestyle is not friendly to the wallet but the enjoyment of being a jouren comes from the intangible things.

The most wonderful thing is feeling a connection with the band. They know their jouren, they smile most at their jouren who are always there occupying the first few rows. We get to know the music intimately, to witness firsthand the growth and development of a new band. There is a thrill, a pure adrenaline like thrill to watching musicians you love. The feeling of euphoria throughout as everyone is singing and dancing along is incomparable. When this is a serious thing, you start to miss them when there are long breaks between concerts like one would miss a friend. You could easily brush this off as addiction but rather it’s this feeling of connection.

The other thing is the community. Being a jouren means you meet other jouren, talk to other jouren and become friends. A small community forms around the hardcore fans. When in Europe one goes to a concert, it is anonymous. In Japan too unless you are a regular. Kind of like having a regular pub, when you go in a million smiles turn your way and greetings of either ‘hello’ or ‘long time no see’ if you have waited a while between concerts. At other times fellow jouren can easily become friends outside of the livehouse atmosphere. It is comforting to know that even though you are going alone, there are always friends there. The experience becomes more than just music.

Then finally there are the superficial things. The chance to learn the detailed dances, the furitsuke, properly or the chance to stand on the front row to being a bit giggly when poring over the polaroids of the bands you have bought. Once, during an event, there was a group of us DELUHI jouren buying cheki endlessly as we tried to get pictures of one member. It became something of a sport.

Before I came to Japan and indeed when I first arrived, I would have dismissed being a jouren as crazy obsessional behaviour. I admit to feeling a twinge of jealousy at lives when everyone around me knew each other but still, I thought the commitment required by the path of the jouren was too much. When I tell people I saw DELUHI around 28 times last year, people are predictably shocked but it is more than just a number. Now I wouldn’t change being a jouren for the world.

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