Due privacy reasons, I won't write the name of the bar and bandman in my story. For the bandman I just refer to "bandmanA" "bandmanB" etc.
I also share no photo's.
Even if you know about WHO I talk, please do not mention their names. But use "Owner, bandmanA, bandmanB, etc. "
Another thing I like to add is, any visual kei bar or any bar who SELLS champagne, search for a different bar, even if the fee isn't high. Birthday parties aren't supposed to be celebrated with "instore" champagne as well. If its a good bar, customers just bring a bottle of champagne, to celebrate a birthday.
Also any bar who charge more than 1000 yen for a "fee", don't go.
All you can drink should not exceed 5000yen and should include ALL drinks. Not only a list of selected drinks.
But it's better to avoid all you can drink anyway, unless if it are really special "celebrations, like birthdays or other special occasions".
So please be aware.
another thing is that a bar should be REALLY clear about TAX. usually for good bars it's all included and NOT excluded. Because if they exclude it, they can ask whatever they want. And always be sure to see a receipt, don't leave without knowing the final price. And don't leave without checking your money.
Going to a bar for the first time, is usually also cheap and safe, but how more you go, how more some bars going to see you as an ATM. So be careful. If you have balls, NEVER agree to pay a high bill, just run off and go to the nearest police box. And then the next day or after go to the bigger police station of that area. They might can't do nothing if you don't live in Japan, but leaving a report is always good and never useless.
But here is my story:
Just like in the past two years, I went to a visual kei bar..
This bar owner is a person who is more known by younger visual kei fans. Older bandman don’t even know who he is.
My visits over the past two years have been fine.
I never went there for "love", but just to stay the night and to have fun drinking.
I always knew it's a “bandman host bar,” so that it is expensive, but still within a range I could enjoy and afford. But I paid prices before from around 160,000 yen. Usually my bill was around 60,000. Since you also pay for the bandman drinks and some "overcharge".
I don’t know how common “visual kei host bars” are in the current visual kei scene, but I know there are a bunch.
But what happened this year quite shocked me.
This year, I went to the bar after an event.
That night, I was deceived by the bar’s staff band members: bandmanA, bandmanB, and bandmanC. They tricked me out of 300,000 yen — 190,000 yen in cash and 110,000 yen on my credit card.
I tried to contact the owner but received no reply.
Two other bandman were also present. bandmanD only paid attention to his smartphone and bandmanE was busy with other customers.
That evening, bandmanA asked me, “Champagne?” I told him, “I don’t have much money left, and I can’t use the ATM anymore…” He replied, “Do you have creditcard?” So I reluctantly paid for a very expensive bottle with my card. The bottle that originally cost 40,000 yen somehow became about 120,000 yen… But in reality, this bottle only costs about 4,000 yen on Amazon.
After that, I ordered another bottle of the same champagne, which I paid for in cash.
A little later, I accidentally broke bandmanB’s makeup mirror. I offered 10,000 yen as compensation, but I must have mistakenly handed over 20,000 yen. bandmanA noticed my mistake but said nothing and put the 10,000 yen in his pocket without pardon. Neither of them refused the money — they happily accepted it.
Later, bandmanC also came to the bar. I told him, “I pay for one bottle of 30,000 yen.” I clearly said I didn’t want to spend any more, but while I was in the toilet, bandmanC took all the cash from my pocket (bandmanA even took photos of it with my phone). He said something like “I’ll pay for the next bottle~” and suddenly disappeared.
When it came time to settle the bill, they didn’t even show me the receipt and basically forced me to leave… Once I got in the elevator and checked my wallet, all my 10,000 yen bills were gone.
The door was already closed so I knocked on the door until bandmanB opened the door but at the moment he saw me, he tried to close the door BUT
I forced my way back into the bar! but bandmanA was already gone, and bandmanB didn’t want to return the money, because it was “bandmanA’s” doing. bandmanE, and his girlfriend were still there, bandmanD also fled already. After we ate gyoza for breakfast together, bandmanB escaped by taxi and bandmanE and his girlfriend did run away...
(I felt stupid not to have checked my money in the store, because they didn't show me the bill, and only said "it's all good", but at such moment you aren't aware of like "its a scam", then later at the elevator I checked, but well too late...)
Later, when I contacted bandmanA, he said, “There should be evidence on the camera.” But when I said, “Maybe bandmanC stole the money,” he suddenly changed the subject and even said, “Weren’t you drunk, so you don’t really can’t remember what happened?” That made me think, “So taking money from someone who’s drunk isn’t a crime?”
In truth, I wasn’t very drunk that night — I was closer to feeling sleepy.
It is true that I lost about an hour of memory, but I don’t know why.
In the end, I gave up on writing DM’s with bandmanA and blocked him and the others on all SNS platforms.
I still haven’t received any reply from the bar owner. I find this extremely rude.
Some fans say “You should contact the bar via DM”, but believe me the owner would still not reply. His bar is based on “ripping off”. But I do think that the owner said something to bandmanA and bandmanC, because a bandmate said on his insta story there was some “trouble”. So I think they talked about it anyway.
I went to the police to explain the situation. The police said, “We’re already keeping an eye on that bar,” but because I live overseas, pursuing a full court case would be difficult and expensive.
At this point, whether bandmanA or bandmanC did what, doesn’t even matter to me anymore. The other bandmen who were in the bar saw everything and did nothing to stop it. So they’re all complicit.
Because I don’t live in Japan, a lawsuit is unrealistic…
It’s truly shocking and unbelievable that talented visual kei bandmen would do such scummy things.
There were some incidents at the bar last year too, but I didn’t think too deeply about it at the time. Last year, a fan came all the way from Nagoya just for bandmanA. However, by the end of the night, bandmanA was very drunk and just fell asleep on the sofa. That fan apparently paid around 90,000 yen for that disappointing experience. I was genuinely shocked that a bar like this actually exists. I know that Japan’s “host culture” is a normal thing. But if you’re paying host-level drink prices, shouldn’t you at least receive the best service possible?
Because of this incident(this year), my entire view of the visual kei scene has completely changed.
I even feel a sense of disappointment toward the scene as a whole.
I also feel somehow being lied to, because bandmanA told me that he is super serious about his music and so many other things, but yet he enjoyed to rip me off together with bandmanC. Just unbelievable.
Right now, the visual kei world doesn't really feel as a “safe” place anymore. There aren't many safe bandman bars where you can drink. Which is a pity, because there should be safe places to be when you miss the last train or just want to drink all night.
Maybe some degree of overcharging fans at bars is unavoidable.
But stealing money directly from someone’s pocket is truly the lowest thing you can do.
So be careful. Even if you don’t carry lots of cash with you, be sure that you always be able to RUN away if things are going to stink. And even if you can’t start a lawsuit, always GO to the police to leave a “report”.
I also want to say, the bar owner was NOT at the bar when it happened. And I also don't know in how far he is responsible. I also think it's not need to send any hate or jokes to him about this matter.
However, be still free to going to any visual kei bar, but please be careful.
Good bandman won't invite you to expensive bars. That's all what I say.
Everyone please enjoy visual kei carefully.
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, but I’d love to keep building this into a more active and engaging space.
