For me it started when I began watching anime (so long ago that I can't even remember when that started). I always found myself singing along. I espcially loved the endingcredits song for Vampire Knight and looked it up. It was Still Doll by Kanon Wakeshima. I got on iTunes, found a bunch of her songs and then bought a bunch more from similar artists. Now, most of my iPod consists of Japanese music. :)

Well, like most people, always watched anime, stuff like Pokemon, the obvious stuff that most people in England and the western world had on TV. There's other stuff but that's like the most obvious.

But, yh. Lol.

My friend about 3 or more years ago told me he listens to Japanese Rock, and I laughed at him.
Then yhh, i started listening to J-Rock, I think it was when I started using Japan Forum, or sometime before.

But anyway, it's fabulous. I love it!

:pinkclap:

I've been into Anime for a long time and liked a lot of the songs I heard but I never properly pursued it until a few years back. Persona 3 helped a great deal and then around the same time I was looking up Harajuku when hANGRY & ANGRY caught my eye. I started taking a more active interest and began self educating myself with JMusic, my youtube is full of cool bands now. I love how diverse the music is :D

through a Japanese drama called Glass slipper...*sigh* when I was little...loved JDrama/music since then.

My first post ^_^
I've watched anime since I was like 10, at first the things that were easily accessible like Pokémon, Sailor moon and so on. Then I started to look up a bit less known anime series and stumbled upon Sexy Commando gaiden. (reeeally awesome show if you like flipped out anime =) Anyways, first time I watched the first episode I instantly fell in love with the intro song, which is the song Romace by Penicillin. After that I got addicted to visual kei and I still am today ^_^.

While I was living in Japan my girlfriend introduced me to the "Music Station" tv show. She is a big Utada Hikaru, Misia and Southern All Stars fan.
Anyway I grew to love it. Now I'm back in Oz I download the Oricon charts and pick out the songs I like, usually J-Rock, Enka, some love songs and a bit of J-Rap thrown in. It's such a wonderful mix of genres that I never get sick of it.

Well, I got to admit that it all started with anime. I wanted to know more of Japan. And with my interest in music I went looking for some Japanese rock music. After a while I came across the band "One Ok Rock". I liked their music and I also went looking for some other genres, like punkrock, but also metal. I don't really know many groups, but I like the bands and groups I do know :D

I'm pretty sure my friend just told me to listen to Hyde. He was he favorite, so I started looking for other and just listened to Gackt for the longest time. Until I realized that the one random song I had no Idea where it came from for almost five years was Diru, and yeah. They are still my favorite J-rock/metal/whatever the hell they are band to date.

I've certainly heard a lot of Japanese music via my interest in Anime and Japanese films but nothing really grabbed me. I like to see live shows before I know if I really like a band so it's been hard for me to get into a lot of Japanese bands, so few tour the U.S. and I tend to be into more Alt/Indie/Punk stuff.

The first band that got to me was Shonen Knife in the early 90s, my roommate at the time introduced me to them. Around that time I was listening to Cibo Matto too, they put on a great live show. I also liked Ex-girl after hearing them open for Siouxsie & the Banshees.

In the last few years I've been going to the Japan Nite tour that comes through SF and I've seen a lot of great bands. From the live shows I've liked TsuShiMaMiRe, Red Bacteria Vacuum, Lolita no. 18, Josy and Hystoic Vein. I might go with a friend to see Guitar Wolf next month.

There's a New York based band I've been listening to called Asobi Seksu which is a two piece band, the female half of the group Yuki Chikudate is from Japan.