Visual kei is a subculture and category of Japanese musicians that have a strong focus on extravagant stage costumes that originated in Japan during the early 1980s.
Koji Dejima of Bounce wrote that visual kei is not a specific sound, but rather it "revolves around the creation of a band's unique worldview and/or stylistic beauty through visual expressions in the form of makeup and fashion". While visual kei acts can be of any music genre, it originated with bands influenced by glam rock, heavy metal, punk rock and gothic rock.

Visual kei was pioneered by groups such as X JAPAN, DEAD END, BUCK-TICK, D'ERLANGER, and COLOR, and gained further notoriety in the 1990s through the success of groups like LUNA SEA, GLAY, L'Arc-en-Ciel, and MALICE MIZER. The movement's success continued through the 2000s with GACKT and more musically broad bands such as DIR EN GREY, the GazettE, Alice Nine, and Versailles, a period which some critics term "neo-visual kei".