Visual kei/Awesome

Charity

Visual Kei artists have been involved in charity of various sorts.

• In the early 90s, Toshimitsu Deyama and Yoshiki Hayashi were some of the loudest voices for AIDS activism and charity in Japan. Those infamous "X Japan condoms" weren't a joke - they were meant as an (albeit unintentionally Hilarious in Hindsight) attempt at raising AIDS awareness and to promote condom use in general.
  • From the same band, hide and Mayuko Kishi. Mayuko Kishi was a fan with a rare blood disorder that required a bone marrow transplant and continuing health care. hide began to visit her and her family regularly, got tested to see if he was a match, and on being found ineligible, became an advocate both for bone marrow donation and a financial donor to the Japanese Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Mayuko Kishi would eventually get her transplant, and she actually ended up outliving hide - she died, according to reports, around ten years after he had.
• Two of the biggest charity efforts after the 3/11 East Japan Earthquake were began by Visual Kei artists. Gackt helped launch and became one of the major spokespersons for Show Your Heart, along with Shinya from Luna Sea. Meanwhile, Yoshiki Hayashi used his existing Yoshiki Foundation America to raise funds to be donated to the Red Cross for the earthquake relief effort.
  • Sugizo from Luna Sea and X Japan personally volunteered with the cleanup in Ishinomiyaki, as well as liveblogging some horrifying photos of the damage and participating in antinuclear protests.

Memorials and Tributes

Visual Kei bandmen (and Japanese rockers in general) do care for their fallen comrades, no matter why they are gone.

• The hide memorial shows. The biggest show of all was the 2008 hide memorial summit, but before that, there was the first funeral itself, footage from which is both a Tear Jerker and Crowning Moment of Awesome for almost everyone involved in both holding themselves together enough to prevent more fan suicides and in showing just how much the scene in general cared for one of its own.
• Versailles making a Performance Video solely as a tribute to the late Jasmine You.
• TSP making a Performance Video for Taiji Sawada, when the band Outlived Its Creator.
• In an odd situation, a lot of Visual Kei rockers will tend to show up and play at the memorial shows for the (not Visual Kei) drummer Munetaka Higuchi from Loudness, because he was that influential on them as well. The drummer Himawari from Sex Machineguns is among these - you can recognize him by his pink hair and his wearing only a chastity belt.