This week, Hoshino Gen topped both Recochoku and iTunes for the fifth week in a row with “Koi.”

This week, Nogizaka46 topped the Oricon single chart with their new single “Sayonara no Imi”, selling 827,717 copies in its first week.

[Alexandros] topped the Oricon album chart with their new album “EXIST!”, selling 59,167 copies in its first week.

Utada Hikaru topped the Oricon digital album chart for the second week in a row with “Fantôme”, selling 3,993 copies in the chart’s second week.

Well-known rock band RADWIMPS will be releasing their upcoming full album “Ningen Kaika” next week on November 23rd.  As a final bit of promotion prior to this date, the band have now made the PV for its lead track “Hikari” available for viewing on Youtube.

This monochrome music video was directed by Yuki Yamato, known for her work on recent film “Oboreru Knife”, and depicts the process through which suppressed emotion is released via the actions of two girls.  In addition, the group have also released the short version of a video for their song “Sparkle”, which was directed by Makoto Shinkai and features some newly animated footage from his critically acclaimed film “Kimi no Na wa.”  The full version of this special music video will come packaged with the Limited Edition of the band’s album.

You’ll find the PVs for both “Hikari” and “Sparkle” (original ver.), as well as the digest for “Ningen Kaika” right after the jump.

It’s been two years since 35xxxv and now ONE OK ROCK announced the title of their new album,  “Ambitions“. Set to release on January 11, 2017, the latest album from the Jrock band contains 14 tracks, including recent single “Taking Off“. Sold in both Limited and Regular editions, the album is available for preorder on iTunes starting November 18. Limited edition features bonus tracks and a dvd of studio acoustic sessions. Although “Ambitions” won’t be out for a while, the track “Bedroom Warefare” is out now.

“Ambitions” features two special guests. Any guesses on who they might be? The band toured with one of them this year. The other artist is someone unexpected but not completely a surprise…

Hit the jump to discover which artists were featured on the album!

Plus get a listen of “Bedroom Warefare”!

Aimer returns with two beautiful new songs “Akane Sasu” and “everlasting snow“. The double A side single hit stores earlier this week on November 16. “Akane Sasu” is an emotional song capturing the beautiful scenery of Autumn while “everlasting snow” is a bittersweet holiday ballad. “Akane Sasu” serves as the ending theme for airing anime, Natsume’s Book of Friends.

Listen to the songs below!

This week’s episode featured KinKi Kids. The duo is currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut. In this episode of SONGS, each member was interviewed separately revealing their thoughts on the group since their debut. Behind the scenes footage was also shown in the episode. Kinki Kids also performed three songs.

KinKi Kids – Glass no Shounen / Bara to Taiyou / Ai no Katamari

Popular singer/songwriter Keisuke Kuwata will be releasing his latest single “Kimi e no Tegami” next week on November 23rd.  Though he has already published the music video for the single’s lead song to his Youtube channel, he has now followed up by uploading a PV for B-side “Itazura Sarete” as well.

This video stars actress Ryoko Hirosue and was designed to be reminiscent of the suspense-driven dramas which were popular in Japan during the 1970s.  To quote Kuwata, he wished to create a music video that could have been the trailer for a film or drama based on the crime novels of Seicho Matsumoto.

Read on below for a peek at this rather uniquely retro PV and look forward to the release of Kuwata’s new single next week!

Tonight, YTV aired its annual year end music special, Best Hits Kayousai. The event was held at Osaka Festival Hall and was hosted by Miyane Seiji, Wentz Eiji, and Nishiyama Maki. Best Hits Kayousai 2016 featured performances by the likes of Sandaime J Soul Brothers, Nogizaka46, Hoshino Gen, Kis-My-Ft2, Nishino Kana, Yuzu, and more. Check out the full show below!