The Music Cities™ · Reference
The Japanese Heavy Metal Family Tree
A network map of bands, musicians, labels, festivals, venues and documented relationships across Japanese heavy music, 1967 to 2026, with the female led scene mapped member by member
Reading the mapA scene is a network before it is a genreWhat the nodes and lines mean, the inclusion rules, the timeline placement rule, the people rule and the eleven lineages.Lineage, era by eraFrom Satori to Metal ForthRoots, the boom, X and Extasy, the underground, consolidation and export: the scene era by era, 1967 to 2026.The female led sceneFour generations, one familyFour generations of the female led scene, the Destrose tree, the 2025 to 2026 recombination, personnel migrations and status as of the cutoff.CitiesWhere the scene comes fromWhere the scene comes from: bands by hub city, the counting rule and the Loudness family.InstitutionsWho decides who gets heardThe labels, magazines, festivals and venues that decide who gets heard, the Nordic connection, and the export milestones from Satori to Metal Forth.Network metricsWho carries the connectionsDegree and betweenness computed on this dataset, on the full graph and on the personnel only graph.MethodConfidence and sourcesConfidence grades, the evidence standard, terminology, the Japanese forms of names, open items and the source register.AppendixIndex of nodesEvery band, person and institution on the map, grouped by lineage, each with its own entry.
The same text is available as a PDF reference, generated from the same data file as these pages and the map, so the counts never disagree.