Malice Mizer (マリス・ミゼル; Marisu Mizeru) is a visual kei rock band from Japan. They were active from January 1992 to December 2001. Formed by Mana and Közi, the band's name stands for "malice and misery", extracted from "nothing but a being of malice and misery" — their reply to the question "what is human?". Their earlier music and themes were characterized by their strong French and classical influences, later moving away from deliberate French romanticism and incorporating Gothic-Victorian aspects after several tragedies befell the band. Despite the stated archetypes, Malice Mizer is best recognized as a thoroughly original entity.
Malice Mizer is as famous for their music as for their live shows, featuring lavish historical costumes and stage sets, short silent theatre pieces preluding various songs, whimsical dance routines, and even a particularly notable instance of the vocalist descending to Earth (the stage) as a fallen angel, only to ascend again at the end of the concert. Throughout their history, the band has gone through several different lineups and three drastic image changes.
On December 11, 2001, it was announced that Malice Mizer would go on an indefinite hiatus. However, as Mana recently wrote on his homepage, three of the four members (Mana, Közi and Yu~ki) have regained frequent contact with each other from the middle of 2008, and on December 27, seven years after the hiatus started, Mana and Közi finally met again on stage along with members from Moi dix Mois to perform in front of the fans with a session concert. They also performed together during the "Deep Sanctuary"-concert the 17th and 19th of July.
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