In October of 2018 I attended my first visual kei concert, called a live. By all appearances it seemed like it would be a normal live, indistinguishable from the American rock concerts I was used to, until the music started and I was immediately caught in a tangle of thrashing hair and flailing limbs as the audience around me headbanged and waved their hands about, entirely in unison to the music. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and when the live was over, I learned that the movements were a style of audience participation unique to visual kei lives, called furitsuke. For my ethnography project, I chose to research this phenomenon further. I postulate that furitsuke during visual kei lives is a ritual which serves to connect the audience members to each other and the band through music and movement. In this paper, I will explain what visual kei and furitsuke are, the methodology used to conduct my ethnography, the results of my study, and connect my data to a theory of ritual practices to complete my argument.
Visual kei, meaning ‘visual style,’ refers to any Japanese band with a heavy emphasis on shocking or extreme visuals or performance styles. It can not be defined as a musical genre, as the bands that can be called visual kei vary greatly in musical styles, from death metal to bubbly pop music. The style first came about in the 1980s, pioneered by bands such as X Japan and Buck-Tick. In the 1990s visual kei underwent a boom in popularity and a large shift in aesthetics due to the band Malice Mizer, leading to a large amount of new bands, each with separate distinct aesthetic and musical styles forming. However, the boom died out at the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s with the untimely death of X Japan’s guitarist Hide and the disbandment of the band Luna Sea.
Left: X Japan in 1987; Right: Malice Mizer in 1997
Around 2007 visual kei experienced a resurrection of sorts as bands such as An Cafe, The Gazette, and Versailles gained popularity. The new era of visual kei is referred to as neo-visual kei, as it is stylistically drastically different from the aesthetics of the 1980s and 1990s eras of visual kei (Johnson, 2019).
Furitsuke, literally meaning “choreography,” refers to any type of movement performed during a visual kei live. McLeod described furitsuke as “aggressive synchronized dancing and arm and hand waving in the audience,” which is accurate, but does not cover the full gamut of furitsuke movements (2013). Furitsuke includes headbanging, hand motions called tesensu (手扇子), moshing, dives, and more. Different tempos, styles of music, and even bands have their own separate, distinct furitsuke. For example, during a harder, fast-paced part of a song, the audience might do a movement called teban (手バン), which involves holding one’s hands on opposite sides of one’s head, palms facing forward, and moving one’s hands back and forth with the beat. During a particularly good guitar solo or when one’s favorite member is doing a solo, one might do a movement called saku (咲く), in which one holds their arms in a V-shape over their head in the direction of their favorite member. Different bands also usually have their own unique furitsuke, performed during their ‘signature song.’ For example, during lives of a neo-visual kei band called Zonbi (Zombie), audience members perform furitsuke in which they hold their hands out in front of them in a classic zombie pose (personal communication, April 13, 2019). Furitsuke are also often incorporated into lives in the form of lightsticks, dives, real flowers, the wall of death, and more. It is important to note that furitsuke also differs according to the era of visual kei the performing band is from. As furitsuke came about in the early 1990s, bands from the 1980s era don’t have furitsuke at their lives, although moshing and dives are common.
As I am obviously quite passionate about visual kei, naturally I wanted to study it. While searching for a topic for my ethnography project, I conducted some preliminary research on visual kei, and found that the amount of academic research on the subject was extremely scarce, moreover, that the research that had already been done was focused primarily on the more sensational aspects of visual kei, such as the crossdressing and unorthodox gender performance. Only one article I read mentioned furitsuke, and very briefly. Furitsuke is integral to visual kei lives, and yet has virtually no presence in the world of visual kei academic literature. Therefore, as I couldn’t learn about it from other sources, I decided to study it myself, and thus based my ethnography project around the topic of furitsuke.
For my research methodology, I took three different approaches. I attended lives as a participant observer, I conducted three interviews, and I also used four academic articles as sources of external research. The lives I attended varied in audience size, music genre, and audience demographics, but all of them included furitsuke, albeit many in different forms. Two of the interviews were conducted after lives with other audience members I met at the live, and were in Japanese. The third was conducted in English at a cafe with a friend whom I met through lives. I also originally had plans to conduct an interview with an acquaintance who is a bassist in several visual kei bands, but by the allotted time he had agreed to be interviewed, he was heavily intoxicated and incapable of answering my questions properly. In each interview I started out by explaining a but about what I was studying, and then asked the same or similar questions, such as, “what is furitsuke?”, “how does furitsuke impact your experience of a live?”, “does furitsuke improve your experience of a live, or is it the opposite?”, and “for what purpose do you, personally, do the furitsuke?”. I would then ask additional questions based off of the interviewee’s answers. None of the interviews were recorded digitally. Instead, notes were taken on paper.
The first person whom I interviewed was a Japanese woman who has been attending visual kei lives and participating in the scene for over twenty years. We first discussed the purpose of different types of furitsuke movements, and she explained when and how to use them. She then discussed the history of furitsuke. According to Interviewee #1, furitsuke first came about in the early 1990s at the lives of a band called Kuroyume. Audience members would do a sort of modified fist pump, in which they would unfurl their fist while pumping their arm up and forwards, and refurl the fist on the way down. However, because the audience was so crowded, everyone had to do the movements in unison to avoid hitting each other. This sort of movement caught on with other bands, and from there it expanded into the wide range of furitsuke used today. I next asked her about how furitsuke impacts her perception of lives, and whether it improves the experience or not. She said that because the furitsuke is based around the music, as it corresponds to the beat and melody, it helps her focus on the music. She also likes that it gives her a way to interact with the music. Because lives are often too crowded to dance to the music, there is usually only space for the head and hand movements of furitsuke. By performing furitsuke, Interviewee #1 is able to move along to the music and enjoy it without disturbing anyone. She noted that when she is doing the furitsuke along with everyone else, she feels a sense of connection to the music, band, and audience (personal communication, March 31, 2019).
Interviewee #2 is a Japanese woman who has been attending visual kei lives and participating in the scene for around twelve years. During her interview, we discussed why she performs furitsuke, what she likes about it, and how it makes her feel. For Interviewee #2, she uses furitsuke to communicate her feelings of love and gratitude to the band. She told me that during a live she can’t yell out, “I love this song!” or “I love you!” so she expresses her feelings in furitsuke. She expressed that she tries to give back to the band the energy they are generating with their performance in her furitsuke. Interviewee #2 also said that when doing the furitsuke, she feels connected to the rest of the audience and to the band, like she is “part of a whole.” She noted that after lives, although she’s physically tired, she feels happy, refreshed, and invigorated (personal communication, March 31, 2019).
Interviewee #3 is a Canadian woman who has been a fan of visual kei for eight years, but has been attending lives for five years. During her interview, we discussed the main movements associated with furitsuke, how it contributes to positive audience interactions, and its role in connecting people. For Interviewee #3, as a foreigner in Japan she generally stands out at lives, but once the live starts and she does the furitsuke along with everyone else, she feels like she’s accepted in with the audience and seen as “part of the fans.” She also emphasized a sense of connection through doing furitsuke. “In the livehouse, it feels like there’s 2 groups: the band and the fans. But when everyone does the furi along to the music with the band, it feels like there’s one big group,” she said. Interviewee #3 described how when she’s in a livehouse full of people and everyone is doing the same furitsuke, she feels connected and grounded, like, “I’m here, I’m really seeing the band.”
She also noted the unique role furitsuke plays in establishing connections between audience members. Often during lives, in the heat of the moment it is easy to accidentally step on someone’s foot or hit them in the head while doing the furitsuke. Therefore, after a live, it is customary for audience members to go around and apologize to those whom they have hit or bumped into accidentally. Through that, many people meet and become friends. Furitsuke also establishes a hierarchy amongst fans, while still connecting them. For example, a fan who is always attending the lives of their favorite band will often get a special place in the saizen, the front row, and will know the furitsuke very well. Interviewee #3 said that there are some fans that she sees at every live for a certain band, and if she’s ever not sure what to do for the furitsuke, she knows to watch and follow them, as they know best. (personal communication, April 13, 2019.)
As a participant observer, I also experienced and observed the sense of connection described by all three interviewees. One astonishing thing I noticed is that before a live in which there is likely to be moshing or abareru, fans will usually remove their shoes before the live and instead wear just socks or slippers. At non-visual kei rock or metal lives in both Japan and America, this would surely result in broken toes, or at least pain from getting stepped on. Steel-toed shoes or combat boots are practically required wearing for metal concerts in America. Johnson described this as a gesture of trust within the audience, that members would trust each other to be careful of each other’s safety while still being able to act out in aggressive ways (2019). Indeed, I’ve witnessed many expressions of trust while audience members are performing some of the more hardcore forms of furitsuke. People who fall down while moshing are immediately helped up by those around them, and I’ve seen people hold on to each other to keep them from toppling over as they headbang. Johnson explains this trust as being founded on the basis that the majority and default of visual kei audience members are women, therefore providing a safe space in which women can “break free of outside expectations, including those that would render them passive or docile,” (2019).
One particularly notable experience I had at a live while attending as both a fan and a participant observer made me realize that not just the audience, but the band also seem to consider furitsuke an integral part of visual kei lives. I attended a live for a gothic metal visual kei band called La’veil MizeriA in February of 2019, and during one of the songs the audience started doing a sort of abareru dive, in which the members in the saizen bent over the barrier and the other audience members would run up, jump into them violently, get hit with a riding crop by one of the band members, and then run back. I was in the second row, but I was worried about hurting the girl in front of me by jumping into her, and held back. The guitarist noticed that I wasn’t doing the furitsuke and reached over, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to the front and pushed me down gently so I did the “jump” into the girl. I was then hit lightly on the head with the riding crop and sent back into the audience. From this I realized that even the bands seem to consider furitsuke a necessary part of visual kei lives.
Apart from interviews and participant observation, I also used Douglas Marshall’s paper “Behavior, Belonging, and Belief: A Theory of Ritual Practice,” which describes the components necessary to constitute a ritual practice to formulate my argument. The first necessary component of a ritual practice is co-presence, or the gathering of many people in a group. Co-presence results in de-individualization. De-individualization is a loss of sense of self, and has three important effects: a strong sense of unity with group members, disinhibited behavior free from normal constraints, and a reduction in self-awareness. Co-presence also creates a generalized physiological arousal in many species, including humans, which affects subjective states, facilitates more intense and prolonged activity, and results in social facilitation, where in the case of repetitive tasks, the presence of others improves one’s performance on said task. Another effect of co-presence is emotional contagion, where in large co-present groups, certain moods and behaviors are likely to become shared.
Co-presence alone is of course not enough to constitute a ritual, there must also be practices (Marshall, 2002). All ritual practices exert some form of control on attention, and the reason for this is quite straightforward: the certain practices direct attention away from one’s emotions. During a ritual practice, doing certain movements and repetitions focus one’s attention on the movements and sensory experiences, thus serving as a distraction and blocking negative thoughts from entering one’s mind (Hobson et.al, 2017). The most common ways rituals arrest attention is through spectacles, structured activity, and/or rhythmic movement. Spectacles such as bonfires or certain ritual dances direct attention away from one’s self and towards the spectacle. Rhythmic movement is a characteristic feature of positive rites and figures prominently in almost all accounts of ritual. Drumming, clapping, singing, swaying, and dancing are all forms of rhythmic movement found commonly in ritual practices. Rhythmic activity not only directs attention away from the self, but also produces endogenous opioids, which add to the feeling of “effervescence” experienced during a ritual. Rituals serve to create a sense of belonging, as evidenced by the fact that a sense of unity and social integration are among the most noted results and functions of rituals. Many social species, not just humans, use rituals as a means of social bonding (Marshall, 2002).
Tying in the model of ritual practices with the information I gathered from participant observation and interviews, it can be concluded that furitsuke during visual kei lives functions as a ritual practice. Individuals gathering in a group to form an audience certainly constitutes co-presence, and de-individualization is observed through a sense of unity, disinhibited behavior, and reduced self-awareness. The sense of unity and trust can be seen in the act of removing one’s shoes before a live, as audience members are trusting each other to not harm or injure each other during the live. Disinhibited behavior is certainly present: shrieking, flailing, headbanging, and jumping around are all common facets of furitsuke at visual kei lives. Reduced self-awareness is also present, as attention is directed away from the individual and towards the performers and furitsuke. A control on attention through spectacles and practices are most definitely prominent aspects of visual kei lives. The band, often in towering platform heels, spiked hair, and elaborate makeup and costumes, are the epitome of a spectacle. The furitsuke, a rhythmic movement performed in unison in accordance with the music played by the band, directs attention away from the individual and focuses it on the movements and the music. Moreover, the feeling of “effervescence” associated with ritual practices and rhythmic movements described by Marshall (2002) corresponds with the happy, invigorated feeling Interviewee #2 described feeling during and after visual kei lives (personal communication, March 31, 2019).
Most importantly, however, is the sense of connection and of unity. All three interviewees, independent of each other, expressed that the furitsuke has the effect of making them feel connected with the audience, band, and music. If the purpose of a ritual is to create a sense of belonging and connection, then the furitsuke certainly does its job. From these points, it can be concluded that furitsuke during visual kei lives is a ritual which serves to connect the audience members to each other and the band through music and movement.
In this paper, I described visual kei and furitsuke, explained the methodology used for conducting my ethnography, discussed the results found, and then tied my data in with my original argument. Using a theory of ritual practice, I related the necessary components of a ritual to the practice of furitsuke during visual kei lives, and concluded that furitsuke during visual kei lives is a ritual which serves to connect the audience members to each other and the band through music and movement.
Works Cited
Hobson, Nicholas & Schroeder, Juliana & Risen, Jane & Xygalatas, Dimitris & Inzlicht, Michael. (2017). The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 22, 1-25.
Interviewee #1, personal communication, March 31, 2019.
Interviewee #2, personal communication, March 31, 2019.
Interviewee #3, personal communication, April 13, 2019.
Johnson, A. R. (2019). From Shōjo to Bangya(ru): Women and Visual Kei. Shōjo Across Media: Exploring "Girl" Practices in Contemporary Japan, (303-329). Palgrave Macmillan.
Marshall, D. A. (2002). Behavior, Belonging, and Belief: A Theory of Ritual Practice. Sociological Theory, 20, pp. 360-380.
McLeod, K. (2013). Visual Kei: Hybridity and Gender in Japanese Popular Culture. Young, 21(4), pp.309-325
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