Vanishing Vision

Vanishing Vision is the debut studio album by Japanese heavy metal band X Japan (then named X). It was originally released on April 14, 1988 as a vinyl record in a limited number of ten thousand copies, by Yoshiki's own label Extasy Records, yet it still managed to reach number 85 on the Oricon chart.

After the release of the band's second album Blue Blood on the major label CBS/Sony, Vanishing Vision was re-released on CD on October 15, 1989. In 1990, with 158,220 copies sold it was the 78th best-selling album of the year, and stayed on the charts for 47 weeks. By 1997, it had sold over 800,000 copies. A digital remastered CD version was released on September 13, 2000 by Warner Music Japan.

"I'll Kill You" is a reworked version of their 1985 debut single. "Sadistic Desire" is a song from hide's previous band Saver Tiger, originally called "Sadistic Emotion", but with rewritten lyrics by Yoshiki. An alternate version of the song would later appear on X's 1991 single "Silent Jealousy". The intro to "Alive" contains an excerpt of the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The lyrics for this version of "Kurenai" are entirely in English, it would later appear mostly in Japanese on Blue Blood and be released as their major debut single, becoming one of their signature songs. Just as its title suggests, "Un-finished..." is a short incomplete ballad that suddenly cuts off. It would also later be reworked and "finished" for the band's second album.