Weekly Oricon Rankings (Ending 06-09)

The top single for the past week was KAT-TUN’s “In Fact”, which sold 145,872 copies. That’s pretty much standard for them.

EXILE SHOKICHI’s “Back to the Future” saw 61,804 copies sold at #2.

At #3 was Shiritsu Ebisu Chugaku’s “Butterfly Effect”, scoring a very respectable 53,913.

The new Berryz Koubou single had one of those long titles. Let’s see if I get this right . . . “Ai wa Itsumo Kimi no Naka ni/Futsu, Idol 10-nen Yatterannaidesho!?” sold 44,219 copies.

Taking #5 in its third week, AKB48’s “Labrador Retriever” tacked on an additional 39,422 to its total, boosting it to 1,764,489.

Kobukuro’s “Hidamari no Michi” sold 37,703 at #6 in its first week.

In its second week, “Dare no Shiranai” from Arashi was at #7, selling 35,752 copies to bring its total to 497,374. That’s not a very good number.

Perhaps part of the reason for the weak sales of “Dare mo Shiranai” could be found at #16, where Arashi’s “GUTS!” was still hanging out, selling 5,086 copies for a six-week total of 582,995.

King Cream Soda’s “Geragerapo no Uta” took #20, adding 4,002 to its total, which is now at 57,299 after six weeks.

Upcoming J-Pop Releases – May 2014

There’s no avoiding it – May starts out very slow for releases. I must be missing some stuff, since the only noteworthy release I can see on May 7th – the first regular release date of the month – is Weaver’s “Kocchi wo Muite yo”. So, if you know of a release I should add, please mention the artist and title in a comment, and I’ll add it on. As it is, the list looks a little thin until later on, where we get the two big names – AKB48 and Arashi – as well as a number of releases I would be curious to see the numbers on. I’m still rooting for KAT-TUN to make a comeback and SZ to get a boost from their new programs.

As usual, more complete listings are available on merchant websites, and I use the CD Japan ones to generate this list.

May 7th

Weaver – Kocchi wo Muite yo

Creephyp – Neguse

May 8th

Momoiro Clover Z – Naitemo Iindayo

moumoon – Jewel

May 14th

Sexy Zone – King & Queen & Joker

Superfly – Live

Funky Kato – Kagayake

BABYRAIDS – Bucchake Rock’n Hacchake Roll/Baby Step

SUPER GiRLS – Hanamichi! Ambitious

Yoshikuni Dohchin – Samenagara Miru Yume

BUCK-TICK – Keijijo Ryusei

DEMPA GUMI.inc – Dear Stage e Yokoso

BREATHE – Tomorrows

USAGI – Hello / USAGI ~Fumaina Story~

THE NOVEMBERS – Kyou mo Ikita ne

Tokyo Karankoron – Koi no Machine Gun

Weekly Oricon Rankings (Ending 02-23)

The top single of the past week was Kanjani8’s “King of Otoko!”, which became the group’s most successful single by selling 352,888 copies – narrowly beating the first week of the group’s previous best – “Musekinin Hero”. That’s quite a comeback after a pair of soft singles.

Arashi’s “Bittersweet” took number two, selling 42,896 copies to bring its two-week total to 554,592. That’s lower than what I’d usually expect for an Arashi single’s second week, and this one didn’t knock it out of the ballpark in the first week. On the other hand, it’s better than what we saw on “Endless Game”,  so I think we’re just looking at average results here.

At #3, “Aoi Ryu” (青い龍) from EXILE ATSUSHI sold 35,085 copies.

“Otona nano yo!” from Berryz Koubou took #4 by selling 30,229.

Kobukuro’s “Ima, Sakihokoru Hana Tachi Yo” sold 19,277 at #7.

Kanjani8’s new single has had significant coattail affects on their previous two singles – the ones that didn’t do so well. I don’t know if this is event-driven or whether people just didn’t know about “Hibiki” and “Kokoro Sora Moyou” until they went to the store to buy “King of Otoko!”. Anyway, “Hibiki” took #9 in its sixth week, selling 16,140 to finally get above the platinum mark with 257,223 sold in total. “Kokoro Sora Moyou” got #11 with 13,150 sold in its twelfth week to push its total to 254,981. In other words, Kanjani8 saw three of their singles crack platinum in the Oricon standings in the same week. That has to be some kind of strange record/coincidence, right?

Weekly Oricon Rankings (Ending 01-19)

The top single for the past week was Kanjani8’s “Hibiki”, which sold 206,091 copies  and seems to be on a similar trajectory as their previous single released only seven weeks ago – “Kokoro Sora Moyou”.

There was very little competition for Kanjani8, as the number two spot was taken by Sakanaction’s “Goodbye/Eureka”, which sold 22,195 – little more than a tenth of the number Kanjani8 put up. It’s still not a good time for new releases, apparently.

Nogizaka46’s “Barrette” was the next notable single, taking #9 in its eighth week by selling 10,097 copies to push its total to the vicinity of 500k – 496,164.

At #12, Fukuda Kouhei-san’s “Nanbu Semishigure” is still hanging out. It now boasts a sixty-five week total of 135,463.

Kanjani8’s “Kokoro Sora Moyou” no doubt benefited through the coattail effect from the release of the new single – it bounced from #30 to #13, selling 5,049 copies in its seventh week for a total of 230,342.

“101 Kaime no Noroi” from Golden Bomber took #14 this week with its three-week total now at 170,306.

The Busaiku team from Kis-My-Ft2 was right behind at #15, with their “Tana kara Botamochi” selling 3,733 in week six. Its total is now 192,367.

At #16, AKB48’s “Koisuru Fortune Cookie” is still adding to its formidable total after twenty-two weeks. It surpassed 1.5 million this week, reaching 1,503,487.

Weekly Oricon Rankings (Ending 01-12)

Can I just skip this week? I mean, the record companies clearly did. The top single this week sold only 11,298 copies and my threshold for a mention usually requires that a single looks capable of selling 50k before dropping out of the top 30 (with exceptions made for artists I have a specific interest in). I don’t think the top single – the third solo single from AKB48’s Iwasa Misaki-san (unless I’m missing a single somewhere) – will even mange 20k before falling below #30 (though I think that the fact Iwasa-san debuted as an enka singer is fascinating). The top album was the same as the past two weeks, but I suppose we’ll get to that after I finish up the noteworthy singles.

And there were a lot of lingerers thanks to the void of strong new releases.

At the head of the pack was Golden Bomber’s “101 Kaime no Noroi” at #4. The second week of sales for it were pretty weak – just 8,854 – but that just means that it was heavily front-loaded, which is no surprise. Its total is 166,514.

NMB48’s “Kamonegikkusu” bounced from #19 to #6, selling 5,572 to bring its fifteen week total to 473,437.

The Busaiku team from Kis-My-Ft2 took #7 with their “Tana kara Botamochi” selling 5,539. Its five-week total is at 188,634.

At #8 in its sixty-fourth week, Fukuda Kouhei-san’s “Nanbu Semishigure” keeps going strong and now has a total of 130,151.

“Ride With Me” from Hey! Say! Jump got #9 with 5,057 sold and a three-week total of 182,568.