(en) "It’s a style of dress, there’s a lot of costuming and make up and it’s uniquely Japanese because it goes back to ancient Japan. Men would often wear women’s clothing..." - JAPANESE ROCK ON NPR, fr Kristen Sollee The Big Takeover online music magazine, 25 juin 2006.
(en) Masafumi Monden, «The "Nationality" of Lolita Fashion», dans Fuyumi Nakamura, Morgan Perkins et Olivier Krischer (dir.), Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation Across Borders, Bloomsbury, (ISBN978-0-85785-469-8, lire en ligne), p.165–178.
(en) Chako Suzuki, «Pretty Babies: Japan's Undying Gothic Lolita Phenomenon», sur fashionlines.com, e-magazine, (consulté le ), Visual Kei started in the 80s and became so popular by the 90s that the nearly all-female fan base started dressing up as their favorite band members (known as 'cosplay') who were often males that wore make-up, crazy hair, and dressed androgynously or as females (usually, the more feminine the rocker, the more fans rush to emulate them).
(en) Unsraw: Visual kei is not really categorized based on the type of music UnsraW interview, JaME-World.com, 27 avril 2007.
(en) Yoshiki: "But visual kei is more like a spirit, it’s not a music style or, you know… I think it is a freedom about describing myself, a freedom to express myself, that’s what I believe visual kei is." Interview with YOSHIKI in Brazil, JaME-World.com, 20 novembre 2011
(en) «Interview with Angelo», sur JRock Revolution, (consulté le ), Kirito: Well I still don’t think visual kei is a name for a genre; I see it as a bigger picture, as a part of rock. The visual aspect is something for a band to set themselves apart from others, at least that’s what it was ten years ago. Now it’s more like people are dressing up a certain way because they want to be visual kei or look visual kei. They are doing it to look like others instead of doing it to look different. This is obviously very different from when we started out more than ten years ago.
(en) «The Underneath Debuts: Interview Part 1», sur JRock Revolution, (consulté le ), Ryo: Well, visual kei isn’t a genre of music; it’s used to categorize the bands that show their unique characteristics with their costumes and makeup, though sometimes the music doesn’t necessarily fit the image. Either way, it’s used to describe such bands that show their individualism through their appearance..
(en) For visual kei bands, outrageous, usually androgynous looks - - gobs of makeup, hair dyed and sprayed in ways that made Mohawks look conservative, and a small fortune spent on leather and jewellery - - were as important as music (or, in many cases after X, more important than music). THE POP LIFE; End of a Life, End of an Era, By NEIL STRAUSS New York Times, 18 juin 1998.
(ja) Nagasawa Tomonori, «Nagasawa Twitter Profile», sur Twitter, (consulté le ), 俺じゃないと思うよ。XのHIDEか星子さんでしょ。 (Je ne pense pas que ça vienne de moi, c’est HIDE de X ou Mr Hoshiko.).
