linguistic:voice_change, structural:expansion, linguistic:translation
Growth of the Japanese rock industry

Throughout the 1980s, rock bands such as Southern All Stars, RC Succession, Anzen Chitai, The Checkers, The Alfee, and The Blue Hearts became popular. Anzen Chitai came from Yosui Inoue 's backup band. On December 1, 1983, rock singer Yutaka Ozaki debuted at the age of 18. In 1986, The Alfee became the first artists to play a concert in front of an audience of 100,000 people in Japan. Some Japanese musicians, such as Boøwy, TM Network, and Buck-Tick, were influenced by New Romanticism.

Boøwy became an especially influential rock band, whose members included singer Kyosuke Himuro and guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei. Their three albums reached number one in 1988, making them the first male artists to have three number-ones within a single year. Subsequent Japanese rock bands were modeled on this band. Guitarist Tak Matsumoto, who supported TM Network's concerts, formed rock duo B'z with singer Koshi Inaba in 1988.

In the late 1980s, girl band Princess Princess became a successful pop-rock band. Their singles "Diamonds" and "Sekai de Ichiban Atsui Natsu" ("World's Hottest Summer") were ranked at the number-one and number-two spots, respectively, on the 1989 Oricon Yearly Single Charts.

In the late 1980s, a new trend also emerged in Japanese rock music: the visual kei, a movement notable by male bands who wore makeup, extravagant hair styles, and androgynous costumes. The most successful representatives of the movement are X Japan (formerly known as "X") and Buck-Tick. X Japan released their first album Vanishing Vision on the indie label Extasy Records in 1988; their album Blue Blood was released on CBS Sony in 1989. Blue Blood sold 712,000 copies, and their 1991 album Jealousy sold over 1.11 million copies. Surprisingly, X Japan were a heavy metal band, but guitarist hide later came under the influence of alternative rock, releasing his first solo album Hide Your Face in 1994 and launching his successful solo career.