Japan, J-Rock Culture and Researching How to Interview Artists

Japan is a small (all though bigger than England) island in the very east of asia. it has roughly the same population of the USA but is only the size of about California, on top of this about 90% of the people live on about 10% of the land this is largely because of the mountainous terrain of most of the country. This means that people live in a place where space is a premium. this creates a place where respecting people and not being a pain is massively engrained in to the culture and the identity of the nation. This may seem irrelevant but this means that the very essence of rebellion is about being a general nuisance, and what is a nuisance? Loud Music and the loudest of this is J-Rock and Rock in general.

J-rock and Japanese metal are very popular among the youth of japan. With J rocks emergence through western influence in the 50s and 60s, and then Japanese metal emerging in the 90s both genre are treated by the older generations with the same distaste and fear it is met with in the western world.
the image associated with J rock is different from its metal counterpart. the imagery of J rock is that of a false reality with dark colours intermixed with black and darker shades of many colours. you generally get an emo or emotional look to the lead face of the band, and unlike in the western world it is not always the singer as the face of the band. the image at the top illustrates this perfectly. also the music tends to be more synth heavy compered to the almost synthesiser free western rock.
Japanese metal is a different affair it is heaver than its western counter part (stronger guitar heavy bass and a thick drum beat down). as a result it is loved by many people out side of Japan and outside Asia. the imagery for metal is very different from most genre as it is based very much based around アニメ or anime. The only thing I can compere it to is the band gorillaz in its heavy use of animation to keep an almost anonymous feel to the image. 
gorillaz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoQYw49saqc)
foreground eclipse (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkH_3S6-MU0).
comparing both the videos you can see there is a similarity in that both use animated counterparts of the band members. Japanese metal actually borrows a lot from the Japanese rich culture of ghosts and myths and a lot you will find that in Japanese metal they will sing exclusively about a myth or urban legend.
the image to the right is actually album art from a metal band that basically demonstrates everything that is Japanese metal. in fact by the sheer virtue of metal using the anime style they try and create this juxtaposition between the cute girl of purvey japan and the evil that may prowl the nights.
even though it is eastern music we can apply western media theories to this especially when it comes to youth as the perception of youth is very similar to our ideas of youth representation.



An Interview 

so we all now know this but how do you go about interviewing them?
well first you have to look at the etiquette of Japan. Don't be late under any circumstance it is very very rude to leave someone you asked to do something waiting and this actually has been the pit fall of many a British journalist.
Dressing up is a very good idea Because if you aren't wearing a suit in japan you may as well be naked or a north Korean general outfit.
Use the proper suffixes so use -san or -sama but using -sama after there name is much more safe as it assumes they are more dominant and higher in society that you.
DONT POINT because if you do expect for them to walk away right away as this is the equivalent to the middle finger in western society.
sometimes they may give you a business card and if your interviewing them they probably will. take it with both hands and DO NOT put it in your pocket while they are watching you do it keep I in your hand or buy yourself a holder.

So that's etiquette what about general interviewing?
choose the questions before hand- this is something that may seem simple but actually could be a pit fall especially if you are not at all prepared.
be appropriate so if they seem like they mean business you may want to keep that joke about the girl and the dentist with a stutter to yourself. otherwise you may find yourself insulting the very person your interviewing.
keep to the point- don't waist there time simple as that.
record- use a recorder to record everything because just taking notes isn't fast enough and you don't want to miss a word of what they say.