My experience with the Bangya culture in Japan and Germany

バンギャ　バンドギャル = Bandgirl This term refers to an enthusiastic female fan of a visual kei band.

If you want to read more about bangya culture, I can recommend this article .

My first experiences were about 20 years ago 👵.  Thanks to Animexx I somehow got in contact with visual kei music and my first band, Malice Mizer. I still love them, and they will be my favourites forever.

I started to colour my black, or violet and once they were blue black 🤡and went to my local visual kei fanmeetings.  It was popular in the 00s, just like Kpop now, and some bands had overseas concert. 

My first concert was Dir en Grey at Rock im Park 2005. I don't have the photos anymore but found some on the net. 

Next year I saw them too, and there are still videos on youtube,

Good old times. I also went to a D'espairs ray concert in Munich. 

Of course there were lots of drama with the fans and I forgot almost everything and I started to distance myself from the scene and music because I was exhausted.

Back in 2011, it was my third time in Japan, a bandman contacted me through ameba pigg and we met a few times. He liked to boast that he is besties with Kamijo (ex Lareine, Versailles). A few years earlier, I would have been excited. He told me not to write about him on forums and not to take any photos and that Japanese fans ( Bangya) are scary 💀. 

Some years later, I went out for drinks with my female friends at a Japanese bar when some former and active band members approached us. My two friends, who are bangya (though not too extreme), were pretty excited about it. One was a singer of a really popular band who played lives at budokan and tokyo dome. They also said we shouldn't spread the word that we met. Since I don't mention their names it's ok I think 👀.

Plus a few years, Corona happened and cupid's arrow hit me. There were still measures but destiny brought my man to me and I saw him at a concert in Europe.  It was organised by bangyas, not professionals, and it was pure chaos.  I went with my former good friend who, of course, was a die hard bangya. 

One of the organizers boasted with how all the bandmember love her and that XY and XX hug her all the time and she has to make a sandwich for XY because he is so hungry. 

When my man and I could finally have some private moments, the organizer came to disturb us.

Following months, I was able to fly to Japan and I went to one of his concerts. Infront of the live house was a waiting line and I kinda felt uncomfortable seeing the fans 💀 Kinda rude of me. I've met my japanese friend, and although she is in the scene, she is a good friend. Friend talked to one of my man's number 1 fan and of course she ignored me. There were also rumors on tanuki that I'm his tsunagari (Someone who has a personal connection to the band),

Back in my country again, those organizer bangyas planned another life with another band and my former friend wanted to go and I agreed. The information, the promotion and the lack of English were so confusing that I contacted them to clarify what was going on. Soon after, she told me her life story and how miserable she is. I fell into her trap and pitied her, offered my help with doing texts. 

She asked me to translate at the concert, which made my former friend jealous because she also wanted to do it and be seen as someone important who is close to band members. So what did she do? She befriended the organizer bangya to get involved as well. One day, the organizer accidentally sent her all her login details, and my ex-friend took the opportunity to log in.

At the concert when I tried to talk to organizer bangyas favourite she always tried to disturb me and wanted all his attention. We got called backstage (what she didn't really like) to help with something. The singer of the band gifted me 10 chekis (worth 10000 yen) and organizer bangya made big eyes lol. Have to mention that I talked with him before a few times. She became jealous and hugged him infront of our eyes like "look, I'm hugging him!". There were more incidents like this, but if I list everything, it will get pretty long. 

Had to buy an album for the chekis, similar to this one

Now she is telling random people that her favourite is her boyfriend, which he declined lol. 

Lyrica Kakeru jr cheki

 

The following year, they brought my man's band and once again it was chaos. A friend of organizer bangya wanted to go backstage because she can give massages, lol. She also told her the hotel where the band stayed and where they were when they had a day off.

Fans who went to the concert said it was very unprofessional. The organizer bangyas introduced them their self way too long and sung happy birthday to a bandmember whos birthday was 3 weeks ago. Seems like they wanted to get some sympathy points. My former friend is a violin beginner and wanted to show off and played happy birthday but it sounded awful and everybody was confused why she did that.

It was obvious that she had histrionic personality disorder. It may sound harsh, but I don't think a normal person could handle it. Eventually, my own mental health started to decline, so I cut all ties. On top of that, my former friend also started acting out, so I had to say goodbye to her as well.

There are more foreign bangyas who are like them. Trying to be important by bringing bands, loosing money just to get close to them.

The japanese like to gossip on tanuki and spread lied, ignore you on concerts and some won't let you be in the front 🤡

Some will listen to your conversation when you take a 2shot with a bandguy or buy a lot of tickets to get good entry numbers.

I'm exhausted by that culture.

Wonder if some of my readers got similar experiences?