It's interesting how Dir en grey is the starter for quite a few people. (was for me too. The whole Withering album)

oh... and you've got Nao's smiley in your sig?

I think it's because they've been around so long and are starting to gain mainstream success in other countries.

and yes~
I love that face mark.
:}

probably.... though X Japan and Buck Tick have been around a bit longer. (maybe there's others I don't know of?) but I don't know much yet about those groups.

:) so do I.

My starter was L'Arc~en~Ciel and Malice Mizer :P 5 years ago.

I love Japanese music!^^ Only my friends and such really know that I listen to it though.
But that's just because I don't really go out of my way to tell random people much about myself, I like to make friends first and gradually get to know someone :P

Also I am pretty withdrawn with stuff like that, I guess that's because I got bullied at school, so I find it hard to talk to people I hardly know about my "unusual" interests :P

I first heard Japanese music and really liked it when I heard it in the Final Fantasy video games. I wanted to start listening to music, and I found that I only liked that. I heard Gackt's song Redemption in Dirge of Cerberus: FFVII and tried his music and am now a big fan. That lead me into liking more bands, such as Malice Mizer, Lareine, and Versailles. I have been a fan for 11.7 months now!

When I was twelve, I went on this one website called glitter-grapgics.com, and I searched “Music,” which, as we all know, is a very big category. Well, on the twentieth page, an animation of Bou came up.
http://i36.tinypic.com/25ph1yg.gif
Now, I had no idea that J-Rock existed, let alone had different styles. I clicked on the picture and saw a comment that said, “O-M-G, Bou is so cute!” *(or something along those lines.)* So, I searched “Bou” in Google images, and got pictures of cosplayers. – I didn’t know that they existed, either. So, I just moved on. Well, two years later, I went back onto the same website, searched “music” again, and on the hundredth page, the same picture came up. I recognized it, so I clicked on it again. But this time there was a difference, one of the comments said that Bou had quit the band “AnCafé,” so I went onto YouTube and searched them, clicked on a PV, andd…<3.
*(Yes, I found out about them almost a year after the LA show, and one year after he quit.)* - Soooo sad! )':

L'Arc~en~Ciel
I first heard this band in Full Metal Alchemist and loved it so much so I had to go on to listen to the bands other songs and just kind of fell in love with the various songs they have.

The Gazette
Love how they sound and love the look of the members in the band.

I am trying to think of more but those are two bands are some of my favs. I have more its just the only one that comes to mind for me. And I really thank my friends for getting me into j-rock music.

I first listened to Japanese music as anime openings, but now I'm also hooked up on Janne da Arc & Arashi :p