華麗なる追憶劇 ~Encore une fois~ Moi Dix Mois ZIZ Umeda Bangboo

 I totally f-up the lottery for this Moi Dix Mois tour. I thought I had entered the lottery for tickets for Fukuoka and Osaka and then I didn't ??(still don´t know what I did). Fortunately I managed to get tickets for the Osaka regular sale, I don't think I really reflected on that this might be a bit of a Malice Mizer reunion thing so when I saw that I had a B ticket number 33 I didn't think it was that bad (how wrong I was, the A tickets went up to 250 something).

Again I ended up behind a rock, this time it kind of pissed me off because the staff kept yelling for everyone to move forward, it was packed, I ended up next to the toilet... people kept squeezing by and the guy in front of me had quite some space in front of him but he refused to move so I kind of got shoved into his back every time someone went to the toilet and I could feel the breath of the person behind me on my neck XD it was HOT as well so not very nice, I honestly felt so grossed out and tired (I came straight from work) between the ZIZ and Moi Dix Mois sessions I just felt like "get this over with!" for context, there was a 30 minute break with TONS of people going to the toilet and I just kept getting pushed around.

ZIZ opened the night, I haven't seen them in over 1 year! So I was hyped but unfortunately I thought the setlist was kind of lukewarm, didn't get to hear any of my favorite songs. During one of the talks Közi mentioned how they had brought some merch so he encourage people to buy something and he pointed out that most people probably came for Moi Dix Mois. This makes me so sad, I think when they do these coupling gigs they sell out because people want to see Malice Mizer, even if it's only 2 members they were the main songwriters and IMO the spine of the band and so many people seem to think Malice Mizer=Mana and that makes me sad for Közi. When he talked about the merch he said something like many might not be familiar with us (ZIZ) and one girl shouted "I KNOW (you)!" and he said jokingly that then the merch was for her XD Közi also talked about that Mana suggested they do this event in Osaka this year (the previous one was in 2024 in Tokyo with Schwarz Stein) and here I've seen people say when Közi did Mana's voice he imitated a death voice and I'm going to be honest, I thought he sounded like he imitated an old man's voice XD 

The awful 30 minute wait was worth it when the curtain was pulled to reveal the Moi Dix Mois members all wearing masks to the tones of Uruwashiki Kamen no shoutaijou and all my frustrations was blown away. During the song Mana kept throwing out glitter from cups and also plastic flowers. For the next song Mana had one of those whip things he has in Illuminati so even though I heard it was Neo Pessimist coming on my Malice Mizer fan heart went "Illuminati?" XD

During Immortal Madness Seth wanted us to call the regular Dix Love and then also Mana sama Közi meccha Suki. Again in the back it was pretty silent, I really hate being in the back at Moi Dix Mois concerts... Seth talked about how it's nice to get together like this from time to time, how maybe people who are Malice Mizer fans also get to see what kind of music Mana does now and also to see "the red and blue guy together". Then Közi joined them on stage, wearing a red blazer and his ruffles from the last big Malice Mizer reunion in 2018, and they played Tsuioku no Kakera! It's one of my favorite Malice Mizer songs and Seth's voice was really good for the song. I might be mistaken but came across some tweets being angry because they said people were mean to Seth about singing Malice Mizer songs...I didn't see that, what I did see was Seth tweeting something like sorry for singing the songs (my impression was it was just a very humble Japanese thing where he apologized for taking the part of the singer in this legendary band but not seriously apologizing) and then he tweeted again saying he apologized for the misunderstanding that it was mainly people from overseas. Not sure if this was what people were talking about but in general it's best not to over engage in tweets with bands if you're not fluent in Japanese and there might be misunderstandings due to cultural or language differences (I still don't  engage in tweets or posts in general if I feel unsure of the tone or the language and I've been following my favorites for 20 years and know some Japanese.)

For the last song they did N.P.S.N.G.S and like magic everyone squeezed to the stage and I actually got as close as maybe 2 meters from the stage! which means it was plenty of space to begin with... Not saying everyone should've stood squeezed for 2 hours but I think everyone probably could've taken 1 step forward to make it a bit more comfortable for us in the back. The ZIZ members came back on stage, Chargeee started playing with Seth's hair and also stood with Mana for a while. Everyone left except for Mana and Közi, Mana had some paper and a marker in which he wrote let's do it again and Au Revoir and then Au Revoir started playing and they left stage. Fans kept singing along as the curtain was closed and the venue was lit up again. I felt a bit drunk from the experience, or my gin and tonic but was sobering up as I walked to the station. 

Moi Dix Mois 誕生典礼祭Mana様Birthday Tour 2026 Fukuoka

 I’ve wanted to travel more in Japan for a while but I never end up doing it. I guess I’m a bangya at heart so if I can combine travel with live gigs I actually end up traveling.

Therefore my trip to Fukuoka was accompanied by a Moi Dix Mois live. I ended up not feeling well, right before I left the hotel for the venue (not a good start) so I got there around 16:05 and since I had a B ticket I thought it would be fine. When I got there I was surprised that there were so few people waiting to get in and so many numbers weren’t there (curious if people were just late or if local fans might’ve bought several tickets so that the band will come back again). 

Despite having a B ticket I got to the 4th row (kind of, of course I ended up behind lolitas who stand still for the whole live and can’t move forward- this is a common thing at Moi Dix Mois gigs because of Mana’s clothing brand I assume? I think everyone should be able to do, or not do whatever they like but it feels a bit frustrating when Seth’s hyping everyone up saying he wants people to ”abarete ike!!!” and no one headbangs etc xD).

The set list was pretty similar to the previous gigs. I felt lucky to get Vizard as the encore song, it’s one of my favorites. I also realized I’ve been to harsh to Angelica. I’ve always thought of it as one of the ”boring” songs but it was really good yesterday. During Immortal Madness Ryux had come up with what everyone should shout, it was really long and I honestly had no idea what it was. Seth started laughing because he said he thought it would be impossible to work into the song but he praised everyone (you could barely hear it though xD so I think most people were confused)

As always Mana had a message for everyone, he mentioned that he remembered when they came to Fukuoka with Malice Mizer and they stayed at Yu~ki’s house. Közi and Kami shaved their rodies head in the garden I think he said as well xD I don’t think it was Kamijo though. 

He also mentioned one time when Sugiya overslept.

Then it was time for Mana’s happy birthday song. I’m curious if I’m the only one who finds it weird. His birthday was a month ago and they still make everyone sing happy birthday and he ” blows out the candles” (the MdM lightsticks). Last year he did a birthday tour that lasted for months and same this year xD couldn’t they’ve done something else if they wanted to tour? A greatest hits tour? Have fans vote for the songs they want to hear like Schwarz Stein did. Album tour? Play one album from start to end. I think it’s so weird to choose to have a birthday tour when they haven’t released any new material in over 15 years, it feels like ” we need to come up with a reason to tour, to kept the boat floating”. Many fans probably think I’m horrible for saying so but I can still enjoy them and be critical. 

I’m going to be critical/mean one last time; Mana kept throwing his guitar picks in the same direction. It bothered me, the same 3 people got several of them thrown at them. I thought he liked baseball, throw better xD

During Vizard Mana came down from the stage and leaned into the people in the first row when playing. By the end of the song he held out his guitar so people in the back could touch it. I saw one guy who squeezed in just to gently touch Mana’s shoulder for a second and then go back to the back. I thought it was kind of fun/sweet. Mana really is one of the visual kei gods. 

Before the gig the band announced on Twitter that during the presale of merch those who bought goods for more than 5000yen would get a signed card from Mana (just plain white). I was sure they would be out of cards by the time I got there but then Seth said they still had them during the last MC and my collectors head immediately started considering buying merch, even though I didn’t want anything. I finally got to my senses and decided it’s insane to buy stuff I don’t want just for the card. (Just saw on Twitter Mana signed the wrong date, he wrote May instead of April)

Next they’re going to Osaka for 2 nights, the last one with ZIZ (which I’m going to). Other gigs are France this summer and Hong Kong. Apparently Mana is going to the US as well and they’ll go to Hiroshima in November, I think they said.

Schwarz Stein Blanc Dehors 3-22-2026

 The first Schwarz Stein gig of the year. I was kind of sad I'd miss this as the original date was February 15, I was still in Sweden at the time, but fortunately Kaya got the flu and they rescheduled the gig for March 22nd.

I did my tax (確定申告書) earlier this year and realised I should try and hold back a bit this year so I revisited the old highway buses. I knew I wouldn't be able to pull through both ways so I went to Tokyo by bus (omg I did not miss that, I slept about 2 hours and my neighbour snored and looked like she was masturbating in her sleep). I really admire people who can run on no sleep, I'm not one of those and I made the worst decision to have a rom and coke at the club (by the time of the after talk I felt like passing out).

Anyway!

Since this live is up for streaming there are probably not that many secrets to tell, Hora had a new accessory. Similar to the eye-horn he used to wear in the early days but it was blooming. Very pretty.

The setlist had ups and downs in my opinion, I'm really missing harder songs (why did they cross out FIXER? and where's Syphilis and disorder?) but on the other hand I got Apocalypse which I really like.

At the after event they did play Sleeping Madness and Lilith as a some sort of celebration that they released them for streaming. I couldn't help thinking it was kind of funny how everyone cheered and clapped when Kaya talked about how they released Sleeping Madness and Demigod for streaming. It's always the same fans at the gigs, we all know we already have all their cds XD 

One funny thing that happened which most already saw on the stream, half of the attendees were gonna go to the Moi Dix Mois live after and for some weird reason they actually had pulled out their Moi Dix Mois band towels :/ Hora pointed it out, making a joke out of it, he kept asking "do you have plans after this?" "Where are you going?" and at one point he even took one of the fans towel XD (later I saw on twitter that Kaya also went. I thought it was weird how they seemed to want us out as soon as possible XD)

Hora mentioned at the after event that he has a stock of songs, about 20 if I remember correctly, so he even suggested making one more album! Kaya first thought it was too soon after DEMIGOD but they seemed to hint it might happen next year! Also, if anyone has missed it, Hora has made a new song for Kaya's upcoming release. Another interesting thing mentioned was that Kaya kind of requested if Hora could make Schwarz Stein "versions" for some of his solo songs for his anniversary live in June. Like a SS Chocolate. I won't be able to go to that live so I'll miss it unfortunately. If it happens.

After the event we all lined up for our chekis and it really felt like the staff wanted us out. No time for small talk (I'm also always nervous anyway but I kind of wanted to talk about Final Fantasy 6 with Hora since I saw he cleared it on Saturday XD) well well, I'll save it for the Mayohk event in June.

Schwarz Stein -Reincarnation- Osaka

 About 2 weeks since their Tokyo live they came to Osaka. Since I live here I’m always happy when they stop by (which seems to be once a year).

Just like in Tokyo this was a remix live and the set list was almost identical but they skipped Sirius and did Fleeting Beauty instead. I also thought they skipped fixer, which I thought/think they did in Tokyo (maybe I just imagined it XD) but I was checking twitter and another fan wrote that they didn’t play it in Tokyo either…. *confused*

I would’ve hoped for a bigger change, I wish they would’ve played the older remixes, like Sleeping Beauty. I also miss Syphilis and Disorder and Creeper XD truthfully they could just make the gig 3hours long so they can go through the new and the old classics XD

Kaya still had a bit of a cough, Hora kept saying we all are going to get sick, he said it was especially bad for the people standing infront of Kaya :P Kaya insisted it was allergies though. Kaya asked Hora to do the MC since he was scared of starting to cough but Hora who usually talks quite a bit said he didn’t want to. I personally thought this was a perfect time for Hora to do Bio Genesis but of course that didn’t happen.

They mentioned the calendar again, Kaya implying Hora should go through with it and do the firefighter naked shot in May XD 

They talked about next year and I think Kaya got a bit confused, he forgot that he already told us they will have an anniversary live in August next year, so he said he’d save that for the event in December but that it was already in his calendar (I later checked with another fan who has the calendar and it’s only that live and the one in February in it). Kaya will be busy with his solo next year so I’m not sure what the Schwarz Stein schedule will look like. I personally looked forward to Hora’s birthday next year since it’s on a Sunday (Hora’s birthday is after the Golder week so I can’t take time off work right after a week long holiday but if it’s a Sunday I’m free) however it doesn’t seem to be anything planned. I was going to ask him during the satueikai but I’m always very nervous and forget what to say and I also had some instructions for him for my pose XD I think the lady who took the pictures just wanted me to go XD

They sold their last copies of Demigod as well and Kaya pointed out he doesn’t like when people buy cd’s and then put them up on mercury really expensive. I thought it was good he pointed it out because Demigod was a bit insane, people bought several copies with the remix cd and and then charged double for it. For today’s satueikai we had the option to get a cheki or have the staff take a picture with our phones (Kaya asked that we have a nice filter on XD). I like physical photos so I got chekis like always. Today I wanted to ask for a pose but I’m not very good at it and I can’t really think of any but during the live it came to me; Hora kept referring to himself as God at the last live (and well, I guess for most of his solo :P Let there be light) so I decided I wanted to ask for the birth of Adam pose XD well our fingers pointing to each other I guess you could say. The lady who took the photos was confused about me wanting to take my photos separately (since last year I but 2 tickets and ask to take 2 shots) she asked them if it was ok and they said yes. I first took one with Kaya and then I took a deep breath and asked for a God pose and before I got to explain what I meant by it Hora seemed puzzled but when I said with our fingers I think he got it XD He did it anyway (so sorry for my silly request XD) His make up was different today, he had a thick line drawn from his eye down, it looked really cool but unfortunately it's not very visible in my cheki. On my way out I decided to burn some more cash by getting an old cheki from South America and I was lucky, I pulled out a signed one. I guess it was thanks to the hand of God.

Schwarz Stein Reincarnation Tokyo

 Earlier this year they made the remix album Reincarnation and a coupling gig. Then it was announced that they would make a mini tour (Tokyo and Osaka) and they also made a survey asking what song fans would like to hear remixed for this tour. 

Yesterday was the first gig of the tour and there were some things that surprised me. First was that they played the DEMIGOD version of Addictive Epicurean (I prefer the new regular version so I was happy though) and second was which song made it to become a new remix; Current. I was hoping people would vote for a more rare song (I voted for the alternation of generations since that’s the only song by now that they haven’t played live since their reunion at least).

Before the DEMIGOD release Current was played quite a lot at lives. Another thing about the remix, there were very subtle changes (a friend said she didn’t even realize it was a remix at first). I was hoping for a bigger change and for a different song.

Since the set list didn’t change much from earlier this year I’m also curious what songs people voted for to hear (I’m gonna ask Kaya and Hora at the next live). 

There were also no new merch despite that being included in the questionnaire and prices had increased (1 cheki with them now cost 3000yen and a random cheki was 1500yen) not sure if that was because they didn’t have any afterevent and that’s comes with a 3shot cheki. 

Kaya mentioned he had a cold last week and that he still has a bit of a cough but he pulled through. I managed to get a front row place this time so he took my hand during Succubus when he leaned in, I wasn’t knocked in the head this time (might not have mentioned that but last year i got kaya’s elbow in my head xD it’s ok, i don’t mind it getting rough). Like always I had so much fun and it’s sad going back home having to deal with every day problems. 

Points from the mc

1. There will be another anniversary live next year . 
2. The event in December is a ”no plan”, meaning they don’t know what they’ll do then yet. 
3. Kaya suggested Hora also make a calendar, he suggested he make a ”fireman” calendar (apparently Kaya is into that xD, doesn’t surprise me)
4. Kaya also suggested Hora stagedive. He said no and during Succubus when Kaya leant down on us I saw Hora pushing him a bit. Some of us waved at him to stage dive during succubus when he got close but he didn’t.
5. Kaya said they’ll probably change the setlist a bit for Osaka. 

MAYOHK - Let's Teck!!

 I'm so happy and at the same time so sad because I came home from the Mayohk Osaka gig. Happy because they're awesome and sad because I don't know when I'll be able to see them again.

I can say it a million times but Közi and Hora together is a match made in heaven. The more I listen to them the more I love it. Seriously, ドゥエンデ and PLANETA they're so good! I usually complain about the Hora remixes but I really feel like they've used Hora's original songs well and really changed them instead of just adding vocals like they usually do when Schwarz Stein uses Hora solo songs.

I haven't been to a mixed live in ages, I completely missed that they posted their time slot on twitter so I went to the club when they opened the doors just to be sure I'd get a good spot. Someone tried to sneak a bag to the front of the stage infront of Hora but I stood there for 2 hours, I consider myself a musiclover and I listen to many different genres but I suffered through those 2 hours to be at the front XD 

Because of the weather I don't really feel like dressing up since I will be drowning in my own sweat by the end of the day so I went with the Hora sexy lips t-shirt today and Hora noticed :)

They haven't shared an official setlist yet but I feel like they played all songs from the album, unless I mix it up with the Tokyo live, + the 2 new songs  MODO and ウドゥドゥラポォフト. We also didn't get the "device time", Transcend -the death- and Twilight.

The Mc's were very short, Közi mentioned they'd sell chekis and that all purchases would come with a bonus (it was a small sticker). They were supposed to have those in Tokyo as well but Közi forgot to bring them. Közi also mentioned he really likes Osaka (why doesn't that surprise me?) and then the normal ばばじじ talk XD When they mentioned the chekis, I think Hora said something like buy chekis "even if he's an old man" XD  Hora's tooth still hurts but the swelling has gone down. 

That was about it. 

They're awesome and I hope more people appreciate them so they can have more one-man gigs and continue to release more music.

About the songs, don't know if it's because they played so few songs in South America, but I don't get the Sexy Music hype. It's a cute song but it can't compare with ドゥエンデ and PLANETA, or Donut! XD 

I have my driving exam tomorrow so I hope tonight will aid me tomorrow (please make me pass)

MAYOHK Showcase #4

My second MAYOHK live. A unit with Közi and Hora really is a dream come true. They are my favorite artists and kind of made to collaborate in my opinion xD since their album release I’ve been very eager to see them live again. I was running late today, all the way from Osaka. I got stuck in traffic and ended up on the 13:00 train. Then in Tokyo i took the wrong train to my hotel making me even later but i managed to come right when they were about to call my number! There were no new merch however there was a new song! (Or 2 I wasn’t aware of but I think they only said one new). According to the set list ウドゥラドゥウポォフト was their new song, Hora did death vocals , I really liked it. A song called MODO was also new to me. It sounded a bit more synth, a bit Depeche Mode feel to it. Really like it too so I hope they'll release them. Hopefully they’ll release them soon, I want to hear them again. Hora had shared on Twitter the day before that one of his teeth was cracked and that it hurt. The minute he stepped on stage tonight you could tell he was really swollen. He had done his black make up a bit higher on his right side, probably to cover the swelling a bit. Közi joked about Hora complaining about the pain before the gig and that he was popping pills (he said he was like a junky xD). He seemed to be in a lot of pain and he mentioned Közi’s accident earlier this year and Közi revealed he still feels something (違和感) in his elbow. 

As Közi unfortunately said by the end that they don’t have any one-man gigs planned for the moment and that they probably will perform at different events instead. 

Hora and Közi is a really good combo, not just musically but I think they complement each other so well on stage. Közi is so playful and I think he can bring out the best in most people (he really is one of those artists I think are hilarious to be around). 

Also I finally realized which Hora song セフィボン is! I’ve been scratching my head since I heard it and it’s Spine from Icebound!

I usually don’t like when Schwarz Stein takes Hora’s solo songs and just adds lyrics, mostly because I think it undermines Hora’s solo, like it’s just an empty library and I see his work as HIS. However, I have to give it to Közi I guess because I think they’ve really rearranged the Hora songs they’ve used well. Both セフィボン and Planeta are favorites of mine. 

For the encore they played Sexy music again xD seems to be a fanfavorite (it’s catchy but not in my top 5).

I’ll see them again tomorrow in Osaka but after that i don’t know when the next time will be so I’m a bit sad. 

After the live a friend took me to Seth's bar/cafe.