Gifts from Buck-Tick

What's your most prized Buck-Tick-related possession? Maybe it's a first press CD, maybe it's an ultra-rare poster from some year when they were famous and you weren't born yet (fans born in the 90's, we're looking at you!)

Maybe it's Imai's stabilizer-model guitar, in all its glory, or maybe it's that pink and purple tour t-shirt that your online girlfriend who lives in Japan sent you, just to force you to choose between questioning your fandom and questioning your sexuality (Imai has never been ashamed to wear pink and purple with pride. Whoops, no pun intended.)

Or maybe, it's merely a collection of fabulous old stickers you never could bring yourself to paste on your guitar, theremin, toilet seat, or anywhere else, really (one of them might look especially familiar to readers of this blog!)

Cool, ain't they?

But if you talk to enough fans, especially fans who have been following the band for a long time, you start to get some really weird answers to this question.

For example,

"My favorite Buck-Tick possession is my collection of Sakurai Atsushi's cigarette butts! My friend went drinking with him twenty years ago and rescued them from the ash tray, just for me!"

Or,

"I scratched him at a concert once when he stuck his hand in the audience. Now I have his DNA!"

Please, let's remember that no matter how advanced the genetics lab in your basement is, non-consensual mass cloning of sovereign individuals is classifiable and prosecutable as identity theft and/or sexual assault. Also, scratching people is mean.

But short of disturbingly fetishistic acts of experimental science, there are plenty of lucky fans whose prize Buck-Tick possessions are those special lottery prizes from the various interesting promotional campaigns the band has had over the years.

A custom music box that plays "Jupiter"? How delightful!

Or how about these gorgeous "Gensou no Hana" flowers delivered directly to your door, complete with a signed note from the band members? Surely nothing could be more beautifully symbolic of elusive romance than a bundle of perfect blue roses.

But if flowers aren't your style, how about the more recent 13kai wa Gekkou-themed ipod that was a lottery prize around the time of the band's 20th anniversary celebrations? No ipod could be better than this one for stuffing full of all of Buck-Tick's albums, plus all those pirated concert tapes you made by entering the venue with miniature recording equipment cunningly disguised in your bosom, courtesy of your best friend's boyfriend who works for the CIA.

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I know, I know. These tamer gifts, despite their beauty, may not entirely satisfy your rabid fangirl needs. While it's possible that needs like these are unfulfillable, over the years at least the band's promoters have made attempts to feed the cravings of fans the world over who long desperately for bite-size band members that they could put in their pockets and take home. Thought the Dokudanjou Beauty figurines were the first of their kind? Well you thought wrong. Buck-Tick have been lovingly rendered in vinyl multiple times over their long history, and never so spectacularly as for the Sweet Strange Live Film. All colored and properly proportioned, your super-hero rock stars the Kick-Butt-Ticks (tm) are ready to save the day! Just kick them into hurry up mode, and here we go again!

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If you have any seriously cool, rare Buck-Tick items you want to share, leave a comment or drop us a line and maybe we'll post some more.