Visual Kei is a bold style that draws visual inspo from the 70s & 80s. Drawing inspiration from rock acts like Queen, David Bowie, and Kiss, visual kei is a style that blends vibrant colors with large, teased hair and slim, slightly boxy clothing proportions. It blends music, fashion, and theatrical performance into artistic, stylistic expression and is characterized by its bold, flamboyant visuals. The visual kei aesthetic emerged in the late 1980s in Japan. Female visual kei fans are called “bangya,” which is a shortened version of the phrase “band girl.”

It's also a music genre characterized by bold visuals and exciting sounds. Visual kei brings the heavy metal ballads popularized by American and British glam and heavy metal bands together with colorful, feminine visuals. The instruments of visual kei are heavy, aggressive, and powerful, juxtaposing with the soft, catchy J-pop style choruses for a striking, exciting sound. Popular visual kei bands include Malice Mizer, Plastic Tree, X Japan, Buck-Tick, and Luna Sea.