Music career in Japan?

The assignment for my Japanese class had to be related to liveing in Japan, and I chose to look at how musicians live, how people view a career in music (aka, is music seen is not being a proper job, etc).

If anyone could give some information relating to this topic/answers to the questions below it would be greatly appreciated :)

1)How do opinions differ when it comes to choosing a career in music between generations? E.g. Teenagers opinions vs older people's opinions.

2) How do you get a start in the music industry? Get to know people? Try to get gigs? How?

3)Family/friend relationships? How are they affected? Are parents normally supportive? Are any expectations/responsibilities affected?

4) How do you get your music known? Make your own CDs? Flyers?

5) Importance of image in music, e.g. Beauty/appearance vs talent.

6) Any significance to cross-dressing? (Often seen in visual kei)

I think as far as families go it's like anywhere else- a lot of parents aren't supportive because there's such a small chance of making it as a successful artist.

To make it as an artist, however, the system here is a little different. Look up what's called "noruma", the pay-to-play system. Unlike in the west, bands have to sell a certain number of tickets or pay the hall out of pocket in order to play there, and only after reaching noruma do they get any profit (for example, if the noruma is 10 tickets, from ticket 11 and on they will get a percent of the money. The money from 1-10 goes to the live house). I think that's a big part of the reason they push artist goods here so hard, artists get all the profit from those. The upside of the system (though I think most indies bands would be loathe to admit to an upside) is that anyone, no matter how unconventional or unknown, can get stage time if they can pay and live houses aren't under as much pressure to book only commercial and already popular acts.

When a band goes major they recieve a monthly stipend from their label and are sometimes provided with things like clothes, etc. from the label and sponsers but I've heard even the top artist salaries here aren't anything like the astronomical numbers you see in the west.

As far as the cross-dressing thing, it's just a stylistic convention of visual kei (likewise you usually have the one who shows his thighs/stomach, one who wears glasses, etc). It's something they do to excite and attract the female fans, not something they do because they feel like women, want to be women etc.