Director Sang-il Lee will turn Shuichi Yoshida’s prose to big screen again, following the international success of their 2010 project ‘Akunin‘ (‘Villain’). The anticipated new movie ‘Ikari‘ (‘Anger’) is a mystery revolving around seven people that are all somehow connected to one unsolved murder case. The poster with all main characters portrayed by amazing cast of Ken Watanabe, Aoi Miyazaki, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Ken’ichi Matsuyama, Mirai Moriyama, Go Ayano and Suzu Hirose has been released together with a trailer that promises a must-watch movie for all cinema connoisseurs.

Sakura Fujiwara, who is currently headlining the Getsu9 drama ‘Love Song‘ opposite veteran Masaharu Fukuyama, will release her new single ‘Soup’ on 8th June. The title song written and composed by Fukuyama is also the ending theme of the drama. Promotion video has just been released – check it below!

This week on Recochoku, Utada Hikaru reclaimed the top spot with “Hanataba wo Kimi ni”, topping the chart for third non-consecutive week.

On iTunes, Nishino Kana topped the for the second week in a row with “Anata no Suki no Tokoro.”

This week, Sexy Zone topped the Oricon single chart with their new single “Shouri no Hi Made”, selling 93,741 copies in its first week.

Oda Kazumasa topped the Oricon album chart with his best album “Ano Hi Ano Toki”, selling 54,525 copies in its third week.

The ongoing Japanese seinen web manga ReLIFE, which has its anime adaptation scheduled on July 2016, will also have its stage play adaptation on September of this year!

On June 8, indigo la End will release their new album, “Aiiro Music.” The band has now released the music video for the album’s opening track, “Aiiro Suki.” The video revolves Kawatani Enon and his female neighbor. Check it out after the jump!

Hello, Arama! Japan readers and welcome to this week’s installment of #1 Song Review! Last week saw Utada Hikaru defeat Johnny’s WEST to stay on top for the second week in a row. This week, we have 2 newcomers facing off. Find out what various staff members thought of the songs that topped the physical and digital charts this week and share your thoughts on them too!

Ayumi Hamasaki has released a surprise album exclusively through the music streaming service AWA. Only launched 1 year ago, AWA hopes to introduce music streaming to a much more broader audience in Japan. The service was developed by Avex Trax and CyberAgent inc.

A couple days ago AWA teased some exciting news regarding Ayu, leading many fans to speculate a new single or album announcement.

“MADE IN JAPAN” is Ayu’s 17th studio album, it contains 10 tracks and will be made available for purchase physically and at other online retailers on June 29th. Ayu will support the album by embarking on the “ARENA TOUR 2016 A ～MADE IN JAPAN～” starting in May, the tour concludes on July 18th. Naturally, AWA is not available for listeners living outside of Japan so most of us have to wait a bit before hearing the album in full!

Check out MADE IN JAPAN’s tracklist below