YMMV / The Gazette

• Adorkable: All the members have their moments, especially in interviews, but fans always like focusing on Kai in this aspect.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The first three albums released under the Sony Music label are nowhere near as well-regarded as the records that preceded them. TOXIC was a particularly egregious offender as it was what followed DIM, so people who adored that had high expectations just waiting to be shot down. On the other side of the spectrum, Dogma is a sign that they're slowly crawling away from this.
• Awesome Art: DIM and DOGMA sport very nifty covers.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Filth in the Beauty," "Baretta," "The Invisible Wall," "13STAIRS [-1]," "DERANGEMENT," and "GABRIEL ON THE GALLOWS" are some of their best.
  • Two albums of awesome: NIL and DIM.
• Broken Base: The fandom mainly consists of overzealous worshippers and self-professed "critics" who did nothing but hate them.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: They get far more respect than any other mainstream Visual Kei metal band in Japan, a consequence of being the only metal band in PS Company's lineup, which is entirely made up of Oshare Kei bands. Also one of the few Japanese Nu Metal bands (along with Dir en grey, Maximum the Hormone and High And Mighty Color) to gain some recognition and respect is scenes outside Japan, where bands like them normally suffer from massive backlash.
• Fandom Rivalry: With labelmates Dir en grey.
• Harsher in Hindsight: A meta example. The entire band was promoting their new live album through social media throughout April of 2024, with most simply retweeting Gazette's main page, the only exception being Reita (a bit of an Ensemble Dark Horse), who wrote several tweets himself. The final tweet reads "I wish the Gazette lasts forever" after pleading with the fans to watch the live album when it comes out. Two days after his last tweet, Reita was found dead, aged only 42, making this his last known words. For an added punch, Reita died on April 15th, with the album he worked hard to promote set to release on April 17th.
• In the Style of: Dir en grey, Deathgaze and exist†trace, at times.
• Narm: Ruki is a normally great (albeit limited) singer. That said, his singing ability takes a 180-degree turn from acceptable to horrid when he's singing in English.
• Nightmare Fuel: "Taion" seems to be inspired by the case of Junko Furuta, who was kidnapped, raped, and tortured to death.
  • "Shikyuu" off DIM features what sounds like a baby crying its eyes out accompanied by a foreboding, coldly calculated soundscape. It can definitely catch first-time listeners off guard.
• Signature Song: "Filth in the Beauty".
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • DIVISION is particularly polarizing due to its "Americanized", almost-Rammstein-like Industrial Metal sound in places.
  • "Fadeless" is a return to the band's signature sound. Fans who praised the Darker and Edgier songs in DIVISION however, didn't like the softer direction of the single.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Some J-metal fans think that they copy too much from the bands mentioned. Even their newer releases, wider pool of stylistic influences notwithstanding, aren't exempt from the claim.
• Wangst: Few songs.

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