When I talk about Malice Mizer, even now in my heart there are complicated feelings. Since I went solo, a part of me has hoped that one day I would be able to talk with you about Malice Mizer again.

I wanted to become a better person [lit: achieve a higher level] than who I used to be before telling the story of Malice Mizer, so while going solo, I was desperately working to get up to that level.

Malice Mizer is still something that I take pride in, and I wouldn't change a thing. As a band, I was proud of the many and varied things we came to represent, and the members were each extraordinary individuals.

Each of the members was not just one in five of a five part group called Malice Mizer. The strength of the power that was gathered there in five people by one driven individual brought forth the power known as Malice Mizer. Because of that, we each acquired the ability to go solo. From the time I joined back then, I continued to tell the members that. If we could do that, Malice Mizer could conquer Asia! That was that image I had for the band.

I joined in the fall of '95, and Malice Mizer, which was experiencing conditions that had it on the brink of breaking up, began their revival tour. It was almost two years till our major debut. We even realized our dream of playing at the Budoukan.

Malice Mizer was able to do it. We were able to conquer Asia. I thought that there was nothing that could go wrong with my dream. However…there was obviously a point from where our gears started going out of order.

At that time, it was around the end of the "visual kei" boom period. Though there were many bands who did not want to say that they were visual, I said clearly, "We are visual kei." There was no resistance at all to me saying that.

In all honesty, I really didn't care what people said. If I have my own beliefs about things, then if other people want to criticize me, whatever they do is fine with me.

If I think about it now, the cause of Malice Mizer's breakup was my own individualism and self-confidence, and the widening difference between things that the other members were concerned about .

The first time our relations became strange was when the performance at the Yokohama Arena was drawing near (July '98). The final straw was when I wrote the music to "Le Ciel." Until then, I was going to be the lyrics writer and either Mana or Kozi was going to write the music. "Le Ciel" was the first time I became a member that handled both the music and the lyrics. Among the members, I was the only one who kept doing more of these kinds of tasks, and I completely isolated myself.

When I was honest with myself, I was shocked. Within the members of the band, with it being me versus the other four members, we parted ways cordially. There was no mediator, and no one followed up on me.

Though I said, "shouldn't I have done what I did with 'Le Ciel?'" a short time later, I really wanted to go back to the band. But in the end, that didn't happen.

But above everything was the problem of money. Money is a dreadful thing. I learned all about this when I was working as a host [note: from earlier chapters; Gackt worked as a host and dealer in a casino]. Suddenly, if you gain a whole lot of it, you'll pass into the phase of not caring about the value of anything.

For example, there are people who have a lifestyle of 150,000 yen a month. Lunch is 500 yen, dinner is 1000 yen, and occasionally they'll spend 3,000 on some splurge. But then, one night when they wake up, it suddenly doubles by a hundred and they end up making an income of 15,000,000 yen a month…what happens then?

The value of everything is about 1/100th now. The 500 yen daily meal special feels like 5 yen. If that's the case, then spending 3000 yen every day on dinner is all right, isn't it? That's how people think. However, the 3000 yen that you feel like you're spending at that time is really 300,000 yen.

Whenever you suddenly acquire lots of money, that feeling is always near. From the price on the price tag, you feel like just removing two zeros from it. If a 28,000 yen shirt seems like it's 280 yen, then spending money is normal.

When I was in Kyoto, my sense of finance went a little crazy, and I developed a habit of buying everything. I was in the mindset of "it's ok, it's ok, I've got money." However, as this happens, your circle of friends changes. Your friends up till now pull away completely, and the people left behind are those whose only purpose in life is money.

If you earn money, a feeling of "won't some misfortune happen to me?" will spring up. However, that's not the case. Not being able to let go of the mindset of earning money is what makes you an unhappy person. Money wakes a strange sense, like a gush of hot water, and those who don't have it don't think about it at all.

After I went to Tokyo, I quit being a host and a dealer. Naturally, I quickly ran out of money. "Are?" I said. I was completely broke. At that time, I couldn't believe it. When I saw what was left of my bank deposit, it was such a strange feeling that I thought, "I've got to have been robbed by someone!" I didn't stop thinking about 30,000 yen shirts as 300 yen, but those 300 yen I wasn't even earning…

As a little time goes by, you return with bitterness and regret to the source of that feeling. And then, you begin to reflect and say "what a stupid idiot I was!"

Money makes people crazy. In truth, I was just driven crazy by my own selfishness.

From everything in this lesson, when Malice Mizer went major, even though we were making lots of money, my heart wasn't shaken. But that wasn't true for everyone.

When you make a lot of money, some people drift away, some people grow closer. When that happens, rumors get whispered around and people change. In the band, when we started making more money, I told the other members about the mistakes I had made in the past. I said, "Money will definitely make you do strange things. So please, wake up!"

But it seemed like they didn't understand my true intentions. If they didn't experience it once personally, then they probably wouldn't know what I am talking about. I believed that one day they'd realize this.

Then one day in 1998, around when the summer heat was beginning to cool [lit: when we were beginning to leave behind the summer heat], they called a members' meeting. Though usually at the meetings, only members attended, that day, when the appointed time came, all of the other members and the president of the office were all there and waiting for me.

"Why is the president at a members' meeting?" I asked. And someone answered, "because Malice Mizer is over."

Huh?

And right after I thought that, they said it.

"We can't work anymore with you."

In that instant, I didn't really feel anything much. So, I said that I would like Malice Mizer to continue even if I did quit. But the band's answer was, at any rate, just that they were unable to do that.

All right, everyone, I will say no more. I won't be obnoxious.

In this case, I couldn't say that. If this was the end, there was also a way to erase that. No matter what would happen at the end, could I shut the curtain in the face of the fans that have helped me along until now? That was the most important thing.

As I was saying these things, someone else started saying nasty things.

"Isn't it good enough that we put out a CD? We're selling copies, at least…"

At those words, I got angry.

"Don't joke around! Don't make fun of the fans!"

In my anger, I got up from my seat and left. The sadness that I felt even more than the anger was accounting for most of what I did. I was miserable.

That is the truth about my departure from Malice Mizer.

This is not a story for me to cast blame. It was a problem of suddenly having too much money. Of the band members' differences of conciousness. Of a driving obsession. Malice Mizer = what I once was = an anxiety that made me what I wasn't. There were things that weighed heavily on us, and they became a vicious circle and ended up hurting everyone.

There was no other way, back then…that is the only thing I can believe.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES
This is the first translated section I've done from Gackt's autobiography Jihaku (Confession). I am not doing these in order. I'm doing them in order of which sections are most interesting to me, and probably most interesting to everyone out there.

There are a few things I ask:

1. PLEASE DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES take these translations and post them in your LIVEJOURNAL, BLOG, WEBPAGE, BBS, OR ANY OTHER PUBLIC PLACE ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. I work really hard on these.

2. These are MY TAKES on Gackt's words. I am not Gackt. I have tried to express in English the emotions he writes about in Japanese. In some cases I've altered what would be a literal translation in hopes that a looser one will fit better.

3. Respect the author and buy the book. Please. That's all I ask. It's really cheap for a Japanese book. Even if you can't read it, if you're a Gackt fan and you're reading these translations, buy the book.

4. I am NOT FLUENT in Japanese. Maybe in 10 years. But definitely not right now. If anyone else is doing translations and would like to correct mine, please feel free.

5. I can't promise how fast I'm going to do these. It depends on how much free time I have. Obviously I will have more free time on the weekends than on weekdays. So don't email me or spam my LJ threatening me with bodily harm if I don't post translations. People who do that will just be rewarded with me refusing to post any more of them, or friends-cutting them. So be patient. I know I'm not the only one who is translating this, so other people might have other sections up also.

Respect the rules above and we'll all be happy and have fun reading Gackt's book. So without further ado...GET'S! (oh wait. that's not Gackt >.>)

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