Not proto-visual. The band formed in 1990, and released their first demo around 1991, when VK was already in full-swing.

Skull Crusher, then Extasy. I agree that they dropped the VK aesthetic by the new millennium, but they were indeed a VK band at one point. And also, the term “visual kei”, as the popular story goes, traces back to April of 1989 when X released the “Blue Blood” album, although there was a heavy metal band during the mid 80s that possibly coined visual kei which I can’t remember the name of at the moment. Therefore, I don’t believe a band can be “proto-visual” when VK was already a thing by their formation, let alone by the time they released demos around 1991.

This is the only one I don't agree with @robkun on. Or rather, I can agree that they're not “proto-visual,” but I wouldn't necessarily call them “visual.” They're certainly tangential to the scene and probably influential in it musically, but to me lack a certain vkei “flavor.” So I'll remove the proto-visual tag, but leave non-vkei, at least for now. (I'll also remove proto-visual from those other Free-Will bands.)

By the way, I'm planning to have a sort of voting system for tags eventually so that we can handle disagreements more elegantly. But this will do for now.

John, I agree to some degree. YOUTHQUAKE, to me, are in the same boat as TOKYO YANKEES: both bands were, in my opinion, visual at some point early on. Although perhaps YOUTHQUAKE abandoned the visual image much more drastically and quicker than TOKYO YANKEES. If you look at YOUTHQUAKE now before they split (hell, even over a decade before they split), you'd definitely think they were a non-visual band. But they were, in my opinion, for the first several years of their activity, a VK band that not only had the image, but the associations. But since YOUTHQUAKE were a non-visual group from around the new millennium to their split in 2013, I can see both sides.

Here's a low-quality scan from a SHOXX in 1993 showing YOUTHQUAKE performing at a special event with REDIEAN;MODE, BILLY & THE SLUTS, Jolly Pickles and Youka. http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm45/morgiana5/Shoxx17/shoxx17-sa-2.jpg

Yeah, I’d agree with that tag.