[Event] 30 Days of Visual Kei - Day 11
PERSON WHO BEST PROMOTES VISUAL KEI
Akemi Oshima
Who better to name "Global Ambassador of Visual Kei" than Akemi Oshima? In an age when visual kei is best promoted and introduced by word of mouth from fan to potential fan all over the world, Akemi O. is making sure we have plenty of reference materials at hand.
She writes articles for magazines and blogs. She created loveable visual kei obsessed kitty Biju-tan to interview visual kei artists. She was a driving force behind a visual kei DVD magazine--in Region 1 DVD format--that not only interviewed prominent visual kei bands, but also showed sample clips of their performances. She's put herself out there on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and she posts occasional updates in English. She posts pictures like the one above, telling personal stories about the band members she interviews and with whom she is photographed.
Now for the past year, she has been airing a monthly interview show called Viju Love Cafe on visualand.tv. The show is aired freely over the Internet, is broadcast at multiple times, and eventually is posted in an abbreviated on-demand version. She has done her utmost to ensure that no matter where they live, fans should be able to catch at least some version of the show at a reasonable hour for their time zone. During the show, she interviews not only Japanese visual kei bands, but also visual kei bands from around the world. Recently, she's featured bands from Sweden and Germany, helping fans world wide to understand that visual kei really is a global experience. She brings visual kei into our homes, and she makes it accessible.
She a professional journalist, but she also genuinely seems to be a visual kei music lover. Who better to understand the needs of the global fan community than someone like Akemi Oshima? I'm constantly amazed at exactly how much she does to make this music accessible to us, and to bring us information in a wide variety of formats.