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- Anthem. Anthem is the most consistent among the best Japanese Metal bands and that is by a long shot. Sure, some bands have sold more than them or others might be better regarded, but they are pure consistency.
- X-Japan. Most people think of X-Japan when talking about the best Japanese metal bands and for a good reason: they have a great combination of personality, quality, and aesthetics.
- Loudness. Regarding the best Japanese metal bands, Loudness is quite comfortably the most known in the West. They were one of the few Asian bands to break into the American market in the 80s, and their legacy remains today.
- Galneryus. Japanese metal and anime have a long history of working together and Galneryus is a great example of that. They were already one of the country’s biggest Power Metal bands, but their song “Hunting for Your Dream” showed up as the ending for the 2011 Hunter X Hunter anime and they grew even more!
- Lazy
- Marino
- Precious
- Outrage
- Corrupted
- Kuni
- Liv Moon
- Light Bringer
- Blood Stain Child
- Nokemono
Origin: Osaka, Japan Year Formed: 1973 Lazy began as a high school band comprised of five friends going by the stage names of Michell, Suzy, Funny, Pocky, and Davy. In 1978 they signed with RCA and were pushed by the label to become a Japanese answer to pop rock acts such as the Bay City Rollers and released multiple albums under this forced style....
Origin: Osaka, Japan Year Formed: 1979 Heavily influenced by the earliest bands in the NWOBHM movement of the U.K., Marino were way ahead of the game in Japan, forming in Osaka in 1979 and releasing their earliest music that same year. Perhaps the first pulls-no-punches, pure heavy metal band in Japan, Marino played an aggressive heavy metal that a...
Origin: Tokyo, Japan Year Formed: 1986 Precious were a band that appeared early and set the bar high for the many Japanese power metal bands who appeared in the years following. One of the most popular bands attached to the Mandrake Root label, their album To Glory We Steer has continually been considered a Japanese metal classic ever since its rel...
Origin: Nagoya, Japan Year Formed: 1982 One of Japan's earliest and best known thrash metal pioneers, Outrage had a sound heavily influenced by bands such as Metallica throughout the 1980s, achieving reasonable popularity at the time. While most thrash bands experienced their biggest success in the 80s, Outrage are a rare case of a classic thrash b...
Origin: Osaka, Japan Year Formed: 1994 One of Japan's best known extreme metal acts, Corrupted have been a staple of Japan's underground metal scene for many years, performing an unmistakable, bone-crushing sludge/doom metal. A reclusive and incredibly private band, they opt to let their music speak for them. With six critically acclaimed studio al...
Origin: Tokyo, Japan Year Formed: 1986 One of the longest running solo careers in Japanese metal, Kuni has long been regarded as an important figure in the scene, and one of Japan's finest metal guitarists. His albums have featured numerous American friends despite his career being exclusively based in Japan; he has also been featured at numerous m...
Origin: Tokyo, Japan Year Formed: 2009 If there's one woman who could probably be called Japan's symphonic metal queen, I'd say it's Akane Liv, who along with her band Liv Moon has become a mainstay in Japan's modern symphonic/power metal scene despite only having started activities relatively recently in 2009. With a lovely and absurdly powerful v...
Origin: Tokyo, Japan Year Formed: 2011 In my opinion one of the finest power metal bands Japan has ever seen, they unfortunately disbanded right as they seemed to be teetering on the edge of stardom. With one of the best front-women to ever lead a Japanese metal band and a dizzying technical prowess instrumentally, surpassed by few within the genre...
Origin: Osaka, Japan Year Formed: 2000 Blood Stain Child were one of the more popular Japanese metal bands internationally during the 2000s. The band rose to prominence through combining a sound influenced by that of bands like Children of Bodom and In Flames, together with trance elements. While there were a bunch of other melodic death metal band...
Origin: Tokyo, Japan Year Formed: 1977 If they weren't around for such a short amount of time with just one album to their name, they would easily be much higher on this list. Nokemono were one of the biggest players in early Japanese metal music, and one of the first to release a full-length album that was predominantly heavy metal, preceding a wh...
- X Japan. X Japan formed in the early 1980s. Originally, the band was a mix of power metal and speed metal. Later, X Japan moved towards progressive metal with a particular emphasis on ballads.
- Loudness. Sometimes, music acts can have very straightforward names. For proof, look no further than Loudness, which has managed to remain strong for multiple decades.
- Bow Wow. Bow Wow can claim to be a very influential name in the Japanese metal scene. After all, it was one of the first bands in it, having been founded in the mid 1970s.
- Sekima-II. For those who enjoy a bit of humor with their metal, there is Sekima-II. Visually, the band was inspired by Kiss, which explains much about its fondness for makeup and pyrotechnics.
- G.I.S.M. Although generally regarded as a hardcore punk band, G.I.S.M. have always had plenty of metallic oomph in their sound. More importantly, since forming in Tokyo in 1981 they have been hugely influential on all manner of underground acts, thanks to undeniably vicious and bizarre records like classic 1983 debut album Detestation and the remorselessly unpredictable behaviour of legendary frontman Sakevi Yokoyama.
- Boris. Named after the opening track from The Melvins’ 1991 album Bullhead, Boris have been doing strange and captivating things to heavy music for over two decades.
- Bathtub Shitter. Japan has produced a great number of outstanding grindcore bands over the years, but only one of them is called Bathtub Shitter. Masters of filthy, brutal and fervently obnoxious sonic chaos, the Osaka quartet tend to write songs about either politics or, erm, shit, drawing from classic grind, sloppy death metal and primitive thrash and delivering everything with a bug-eyed zeal that few of their peers could credibly emulate.
- Melt Banana. Imagine a band that sounds like a bomb going off in a toy shop. Actually, don’t. Melt Banana already exist so there’s no need. Somewhere between nuts-out grindcore, bug-eyed art rock and the gibber-inducing insanity of left-field jazz titan John Zorn’s Naked City project, these Tokyo terrors have been making a heroically subversive and bewildering racket since 1992, earning themselves a devoted fan base that has included Mike Patton, Napalm Death and the late, great John Peel along the way.
Apr 20, 2017 · Join us in the gallery above as we celebrate the 10 Best Japanese Metal Bands! 11 Amazing Bands Who Don't Primarily Sing in English. The Best Metal Bands From 30 Countries....
Jan 11, 2024 · Here is the best Japanese rock/metal band from each of the last five decades, as chosen by Ryujin's Ryoji Shinomoto.
Jun 22, 2021 · Esprit D'Air's Kai picks the best rock and metal bands Japan's scene has to offer.
