I definatley tried X-Japan. Very good band. Awesome music. They have some of my favorites, like Rusty Nail (definatley one of my all time faves) and Joker (heh, that song always cracks me up.) I'd say that X-Japan was the biggest and most influential rock band in Japan's early rock history, and definatley influenced all of the Japanese visual rock bands today! It's so sad that Hide died.. 🙁
Any other bands I should try, besides X-Japan? I tried out spread beaver (besides their distasteful name) and found the music they produced during their limited run to be very good.