On December 14, INI will release their debut album, “Awakening.” The album’s concept is “the moment you become aware of your new self, shine.” The album will include the previously released songs “Rocketeer”, “Brighter”, “CALL 119”, “We Are”, and “Password.”
The album will also be a first for INI in that some of the members will be participating in song creation. Nishi Hiroto wrote the lyrics for the new song “SPECTRA”, while Tajima Shogo wrote the lyrics for the new song “Runaway.”
Ahead of the release of “Awakening”, the music video for “SPECTRA” has now been released. Check it out below!
The Yano Research Institute recently issue a report ranking the top groups of otaku. Their survey was conducted in July and August, taking a sample of 10,000 men and women ages 15 to 69. The report named 26 different kinds of otaku, with the top ten being revealed.
Anime otaku came in first, with them number 6.85 million people. They were followed by manga otaku at 6.48 million and digital game otaku at 4.54 million.
What’s also interesting is which groups spent the most per person per year. While idol otaku came in fourth place in terms of numbers, they were #1 in terms of spend per person, with ¥93,704, nearly three times the amount of the average anime otaku. They were followed by Disney otaku at ¥53,274, even though ranked tenth in terms of population. Digital game otaku held their #3 spot with ¥48,504.
Check out the rest of the ranking below!
“Happy Surprise” isn’t just the name of Naniwa Danshi‘s new single! It’s also what the gave fans today: an official Twitter account!
The group’s official Twitter account was opened by J Storm a few hours ago. Check out their first tweet below!
modelpress has revealed its “Faces of 2022”!
The results came about through a mix three criteria: a public survey, a survey of 30 members of modelpress’ editorial staff, and the number of articles the person was in on modelpress in 2022.
The public survey was conducted October 24 – November 15. There were 17,938 respondents, with the male to female ratio being 1:9. The respondents ages were 10s (14.7％), 20s (24.7％), 30s (18.8％), 40s (21.2％), 50s (16.1％), and 60s (4.5％).
See who was chosen below!
This week, Official HIGE DANdism retook the top spot on the Hot 100 single chart with their digital single “Subtitle”, with 16,836 points in its sixth week.
SEVENTEEN topped the Hot Albums chart for the second consecutive week with their first Japanese EP “DREAM.”
Official HIGE DANdism also topped the Artist 100 chart.
Over the years, this site has chronicled the issue of ticket scalping in Japan. Things really came to a head in 2016. In March of that year, Arashi announced that they would install facial-scanning technology at the concerts to thwart scalping, something that Momoiro Clover Z, B’z, and Mr.Children did in 2014.
In August of that year, the group “Tenbai No” (translation: “Resale No”) was formed. The group took out full page ads in two of Japan’s biggest newspapers, Asahi and Yomiuri. The ads read, “We are against the high-priced reselling of tickets, which is depriving music of its future.” The ad then listed the 116 music acts, 24 events, and four music organizations that agreed with Tenbai No.
m-flo was one of 116 music acts who supported Tenbai No. I immediately reached out to group member ☆Taku Takahashi for a statement on why he agreed with Tenbai No, especially since he advocates for Japanese music spreading internationally, and many felt that this group hurt the chances of international fans attending concerts while in Japan. He said that it is hard for even Japanese people in Japan to get tickets to certain concerts. However, he added, there are certain acts who do sell tickets internationally, with, bringing things back to the present, Fujii Kaze doing so this year.
Going back to Arashi, in September of that year, a woman was arrested for scalping the group’s tickets and making ¥10 million in profit in the process. Police said investigations showed that the woman purchased tickets on a website and resold more than 300 of them over the past year and a half.
That brings us to today.
During the Louis Vuitton Cruise 2023 show earlier this year, the fashion house revealed the revival of its decade old collaboration with Yayoi Kusama.
Set for release in January, Louis Vuitton held an event in Tokyo on November 29 to celebrate the new collection. Attendees included Rola, Koki, Nissy, Kikuchi Rinko, and Kiritani Mirei. See who else attended below!
This week’s episode is a two hour special. This week’s guests were KinKi Kids, Yuuri, wacci, Matsushita Kohei, LiSA, RADWIMPS, Little Glee Monster, and LE SSERAFIM.
KinKi Kids – Glass no Shonen / Aisareru Yori Aishitai / Zenbu Dakishimete / Boku no Senaka ni wa Hane ga Aru / Anniversary / Ai no Katamari / Giniro Ango / Amazing Love
Yuuri – Christmas Eve
wacci x Matsushita Kohei – Koidaro
LiSA – NEW ME
RADWIMPS – Ningen Gokko / Zen Zen Zense / DADA / Futarigoto / Suzume feat.Toaka / Kanata Haluka
Little Glee Monster – Join Us!
Matsushita Kohei – MUSIC WONDER
LE SSERAFIM – ANTIFRAGILE
