Visual Kei
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50 free Visual Kei trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Visual kei is one of the most striking things Japanese rock has produced: bands in towering hair, heavy makeup and elaborate costumes, playing anything from speed metal to bubbly pop. It grew out of the underground clubs of the 1980s, filled stadiums in the 1990s and then spread around the world through anime theme songs and fan conventions. This quiz covers the whole scene. There are questions on pioneers such as X Japan, Buck-Tick and Luna Sea, on theatrical acts like Malice Mizer and Shazna, and on later favourites including Dir En Grey, the Gazette and Penicillin. You will also meet the record labels, magazines, subgenres, fashion and fan rituals that hold the movement together. It is written for curious newcomers as well as longtime fans. The early questions lean on famous crossovers with film, games and television, and the later ones dig into band histories. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Visual kei band Nightmare's songs The World and Alumina were the first opening and ending themes of which anime?
Death Note
Death Note used Nightmare's The World as its first opening and Alumina as its first ending, across the first nineteen episodes. The exposure made the band from Sendai a major name in visual kei.
Q 02In 2009 Sanrio launched a merchandise line blending X Japan's Yoshiki with which famous mascot character?
Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty and the drummer merge in Yoshikitty, the first Sanrio character modeled on a real person. In 2018 it out-polled the original character in Sanrio's own popularity ranking.
Q 03Visual kei guitarist Miyavi played a brutal prison camp corporal in which 2014 film directed by Angelina Jolie?
Unbroken
Unbroken cast Miyavi as Mutsuhiro Watanabe, the corporal who singles out Olympic runner Louis Zamperini for beatings. Back home he is known for a finger-slapping style of guitar playing.
Q 04Cross-dressing visual kei musicians are often likened to onnagata, the men who play women in which Japanese theatre?
Kabuki
Kabuki has relied on onnagata since 1629, when women were banned from its stages. In visual kei the look rose to prominence with Malice Mizer, whose guitarist Mana performed dressed as a woman.
Q 05X Japan's 2007 reunion single I.V. was the main theme of the fourth film in which horror series?
Saw
Saw IV got its main theme after the studio asked Yoshiki to compose one, and he chose to record it with his newly reunited band. The single arrived a decade after X Japan had broken up.
Q 06L'Arc-en-Ciel, which began as a visual kei band in Osaka, has a French name meaning what?
The Rainbow
The Rainbow is what the French name means, and Japanese fans shorten it to Laruku. The band has had no association with visual kei since its major-label debut in 1994.
Q 07Shazna singer Izam, famous in 1990s visual kei for his feminine look, was inspired by which British pop star?
Boy George
Boy George and his band Culture Club were Izam's main influence, and in 1998 he recorded a whole album of their songs. Shazna's major-label debut album sold over a million copies.
Q 08The band X became X Japan in 1992 to avoid confusion with a punk group from which American city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is home to the punk group X, whose prior claim on the name mattered once the Japanese band signed an American deal with Atlantic Records. The planned US album never came out.
Q 09Golden Bomber, the visual kei act behind the hit Memeshikute, is famous for doing what on stage?
Not playing its instruments
Not playing its instruments is the whole act: the members dance and stage comic dramas instead. Only singer Sho Kiryuin plays anything for the band.
Q 10Gackt, once the singer of Malice Mizer, voiced and co-created the character Genesis for which video game franchise?
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy VII's prequel Crisis Core features Genesis Rhapsodos, a character modeled on Gackt, voiced by him and partly his own creation. His voice samples also became the Vocaloid singer Gackpoid.
Q 11The term visual kei comes from a slogan printed on the cover of which 1989 X Japan album?
Blue Blood
Blue Blood's cover carried a band slogan that a magazine editor later shortened into a name for the whole scene. The album stayed on Japan's chart for more than 100 weeks.
Q 12Which monthly magazine, founded in 1990 by editor Seiichi Hoshiko, was the first devoted to visual kei?
Shoxx
Shoxx gave the scene its first dedicated publication, and its founder is also credited with coining the scene's name. Each issue put a different act on the cover with a 20-page feature.
Q 13Before the term visual kei caught on, bands like X Japan were labelled okeshou kei, which means what?
Makeup style
Q 21Art of Life, a heavily orchestrated 1993 release by X Japan, consists entirely of what?
One 29-minute song
One 29-minute song fills the whole record, which still reached number one on the album chart. It was the first release under the name X Japan, made after bassist Heath replaced Taiji.
Q 22Which Japanese prime minister, an X Japan fan, led the party that used the ballad Forever Love in 2001 ads?
Junichiro Koizumi
Junichiro Koizumi was also reported to have helped get a museum for the band's late guitarist opened in Yokosuka in 2000. His Liberal Democratic Party ran the song in several commercials.
Q 23Yoshiki of X Japan composed the official theme music in 2012 for which Hollywood awards show?
Makeup style struck editor Seiichi Hoshiko as too cheap a label for such a big band, so he told his writers to stop using it. Fans later clipped his replacement down to V-kei.
Q 14Silver-Rose, Kuroyume and Laputa led an early-1990s visual kei scene, more about music than fashion, in which city?
Nagoya
Nagoya gave the darker, music-first style its name, Nagoya kei. Kuroyume, formed there in 1991, went on to top the national album chart twice.
Q 15Which visual kei subgenre, pioneered by An Cafe and Kra, pairs upbeat pop rock with bright, colorful outfits?
Oshare kei
Oshare kei grew out of the wave of bands formed around 2004 that the press called neo-visual kei. An Cafe describe their own sound as Harajuku Dance Rock.
Q 16Which label, founded in 1986 by X Japan's Yoshiki, released the first albums by Luna Sea and Glay?
Extasy Records
Extasy Records was funded with money Yoshiki's mother gave him when she sold her business. He said he never planned a big success, only to shake up the independent scene.
Q 17Malice Mizer, Shazna and La'cryma Christi were three of visual kei's Four Heavenly Kings; which band was the fourth?
Fanatic Crisis
Fanatic Crisis completed the quartet named at the height of the 1990s boom. By the decade's end major labels were backing out and visual kei slipped back underground.
Q 18About 50,000 people attended the 1998 funeral of which X Japan member at the Tsukiji Hongan-ji temple?
Hide
Hide was mourned on the warmest day of the year so far, and nearly 200 fans needed first aid. His single Pink Spider entered the chart at number one later that month.
Q 19The Last Live, the farewell concert X Japan played on New Year's Eve 1997, took place at which venue?
Tokyo Dome
Tokyo Dome hosted X Japan on five straight New Year's Eves, and the farewell was the last of them. Later that night the band played Forever Love on the song contest Kohaku Uta Gassen.
Q 20X Japan's Yoshiki composed a classical piece in 1999 to mark ten years on the throne for which emperor?
Akihito
Akihito's tenth anniversary was celebrated at the Imperial Palace, where Yoshiki played his piece Anniversary at the request of the Imperial family.
The Golden Globes
The Golden Globes theme was later released on iTunes in 111 countries, with all proceeds going to charities chosen by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Q 24We Are X, a 2016 documentary about X Japan, won a special jury award for editing at which film festival?
Sundance
Sundance hosted the premiere in January 2016, and Yoshiki played there with a string quartet. Stephen Kijak directed the film.
Q 25Dir En Grey crossed America in 2006 on the Family Values Tour, created and headlined by which nu metal band?
Korn
Korn created the tour and shared top billing that year with Deftones. Dir En Grey joined late, missing the first three shows.
Q 26The Gazette's 2010 single Shiver was the opening theme for the second season of which Victorian-set anime?
Black Butler
Black Butler chose Shiver, the first single the Gazette released after moving to Sony. Fellow visual kei band Sid had already sung an opening for the anime.
Q 27Besides guitar, Luna Sea's Sugizo is known for playing which classical instrument, learned from age three?
Violin
Violin lessons began at three on his father's initiative. Sugizo now switches between it and guitar on stage, including with X Japan, which he officially joined in 2009.
Q 28Days before Luna Sea's tenth-anniversary concert for 100,000 fans in 1999, what destroyed the elaborate stage set?
A gale
A gale wrecked the set on May 27, three days before the show, and at Sugizo's suggestion the band played on with the debris as its backdrop.
Q 29Luna Sea's first tour outside Japan, in 1999, visited Hong Kong, Shanghai and which other Asian city?
Taipei
Taipei joined Hong Kong and Shanghai on the January tour, years ahead of the scene: most visual kei bands only began playing overseas after 2002.
Q 30Malice Mizer guitarist Mana's clothing label Moi-même-Moitié helped popularize which Japanese street fashion?
Gothic Lolita
Gothic Lolita is the look Mana sells as Elegant Gothic Lolita through the label he founded in 1999. Its clothes have also been stocked by boutiques in Paris and the Netherlands.