On August 14, 2006, Yoshiki (formerly of X Japan) announced that he was forming a band with Gackt (a translation of the news article announcing the band is in the Translations section). The announcement confirmed the rumors that had been circulating since Yoshiki mentioned at Otakon that he was teaming up with Gackt to form a band. There was quite a stir in the various jrock fandoms, with a lot of people questioning whether a band like this would survive the egos of the men involved. There was no official announcement from Gackt's end, further fueling speculation that the band would never get off the ground. The band's name wasn't announced at that time, and most fans simply called it the "superband". The newsarticle stated that the band would start recording music in 2007, and would tour the U.S. and Japan thereafter.

On December 27, 2006, it was announced that Sugizo (formerly of Luna Sea) would be joining the band as a guitarist. At Jrock Revolution, a jrock concert in Los Angeles organized by Yoshiki that took place on May 25-26, 2007, Yoshiki announced the final member of the band, Miyavi. At the same time, the name of the band was announced as being SKIN, later clarified to be S.K.I.N. What the initials stand for has not yet been revealed by the members. Finally, it was also announced at Jrock Revolution that the band's first performance would be on June 29, 2007 at Anime Expo in Long Beach, California. On May 29, 2007, Gackt’s official website, Dears, finally put up their announcement regarding Gackt’s involvement in S.K.I.N.

Without having released any singles, and with no hint as to what they would be like, S.K.I.N. was finally revealed on June 29, 2007. They played four songs (GEI-SHA; Killing you softly; Beneath the Skin; and Violets), with Gackt on lead vocals, Yoshiki on drums, and Sugizo and Miyavi on guitars. Ju-ken, from GacktJob, played bass for the band during the concert. During one portion of the concert, Gackt and Yoshiki played a piano duet, while Sugizo played violin and Miyavi played the shamisen. Gackt spoke to the audience entirely in English throughout the concert. A more detailed review of the concert will be up shortly, so please check back again! In addition, there were many cameras filming the concert, so it is hoped that a DVD of the concert will come out at some point.

There is currently no official website for S.K.I.N. (there is an unofficial website at http://www.skin-online.net/). Each of the members have their own individual websites, and Yoshiki, Sugizo and Miyavi have Myspace pages. There have been no announcements regarding S.K.I.N.'s future activities, but judging from the response they received at Anime Expo, they will undoubtedly be back to rock their fans.

This section is written and maintained by Gekka. Please contact her at gekka@*nospam*eiennoyume.com if you have any questions/comments/corrections.