Streaming is the big thing in music worldwide for the past few years, with Japan being a noticeable exception. The Japan Times recently released an article investigating streaming’s place in the Japanese music industry.
There are concerns that Japanese youth have been turned off by the music industry’s pushback against digital content. Last year, music consultant Mikiro Enomoto asked a group of college students where they listened to new music. About 80% of the group replied that they used YouTube or something of that nature. This year when he asked the question to a group of college students, nearly all of them said that they don’t even bother looking for new music anymore. This isn’t an exact study, but it does give some insight into how the youth of Japan deals with music and the industry today. Is the youth not listening to new music, or are they using less than legal options like pirated downloads?
Over the next few days, we’ll be looking back on the end year charts for the years that were covered in the 2015 editions of Oricon Flashback. This is the third part of this series, 2005.
Arashi wrapped up their “ARASHI LIVE TOUR 2015 Japonism” at the Tokyo Dome last December 27. With this, the group has achieved another record, 17 years from their debut. Attendance to Arashi’s concerts officially exceeded 10 million.
The group has mobilized 10,163,000 of concerts attendees in their 17 years, marking the shortest amount of time to reach it. The record was first achieved by SMAP after 20 years of activity.
As a gift to fans, the group announced an Arena Tour for 2016, their first arena tour in 9 years. The group will be holding 2 shows in a day for some of the concert dates. In total, the group will tour 6 cities with 17 performances, mobilizing 170,000 people.
The tour will start at Sun Dome Fukui in April and end at Yokohama Arena in August. The new tour is titled “ARASHI ‘Japonism Show’ in ARENA” and will include “Japonism” elements in it. According to Matsumoto “At this point, I’m visualizing the Arashi “Japonism Show” in ARENA would be more like a “show” than a regular “concert”.
Their Dome tour was held at 5 different venues, for a total of 17 performances and mobilized 800,000 audience in total. The theme of the tour was “go back to the roots” with the images of “Johnny’s” and “Japan,”. Ohno Satoshi was responsible for the choreography of three songs and all members took a challenge for the performances of their solo songs such as “mask magic” by Ohno Satoshi, “Drumline” by Sakurai Sho, “Aerial Tissue” by Aiba Masaki, “Tap Dance” by Ninomiya Kazunari, and “Parkour” by Matsumoto Jun.
On December 30, the 57th Japan Record Awards were held. Sandaime J Soul Brothers took home the top prize of the night for their song “Unfair World”, beating off competition from the likes of Gesu no Kiwami Otome., AAA, AKB48, Nishino Kana, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, and Nishiuchi Mariya. This is the second year in a row that Sandaime J Soul Brothers has won this award. Last year, the group won it for their song “R.Y.U.S.E.I.”
Kobushi Factory took home the award for Best New Artist, besting lol, Hanaoka Natsumi, and Yasuda Rei.
The show featured performances from several of the acts named above as well as performances by others such as Seiko Matsuda, JUJU, Hideaki Tokunaga, and Kumamushi. Check out the full show after the jump!
At 11:45 PM JST on December 31, CDTV will air its New Year’s Eve special, CDTV Special! New Year’s Eve Premier Live 2015→2016. The show will be about 5 hours long. There will be many acts performing on the show, including AKB48, Sandaime J Soul Brothers, Perfume, back number, Superfly, Hoshino Gen, JUJU, KANA-BOON, SMAP, aiko, and Nishino Kana.
Arama! Japan will be live streaming the show and hosting a chat as well so that readers can chat with each other during the show! Links to the show and the chat are after the jump!
The winners for the 28th Nikkan Sports Film Award/ Ishihara Yujiro Memorial Awards were announced. The award ceremony was held last December 28 at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo, attended by more than 600 movie officials.
The Nikkan Sports Film Award are film-specific prizes awarded solely by the Nikkan Sports. Last year, Okada Junichi and Miyazawa Rie won the Best Actor and Best Actress awards respectively, while “Eien no Zero” won Best Movie and Takahashi Yamazaki for “Eien no Zero and STAND BY ME Doraemon” won Best Director.
Find out this year’s winners and check out some pictures from the ceremony below.
TOKYO GIRLS’ STYLE member Konishi Ayano announced last December 28 her graduation from the group and retirement from the entertainment industry. In June this year, Konishi suspended her activities for medical treatment of her lower back. Tokyo Girls’ Style will continue with four members.
Konishi stated that she had lost the confidence to continue since her hiatus. During her break, she “thought seriously about whether or not I should do it once again”, “I had no confidence that I could continue on working hard, with my eyes on the same dreams as the others, and while the 4 of them have been aiming even higher, it was inexcusable for me to go on with such half-hearted feelings. Was I just dragging myself? Thus, it came to this decision”.
The other members of the groups, Yamabe Miyu, Arai Hitomi, Nakae Yuri, Shoji Mei also gave comments and decided that they would continue on with activities with four members.
The group was formed on New Year’s Day 2010, with a CD debut in the same year in May. While there has been no replacement of members since then, Konishi took hiatus from activities from June this year. On December 23, the group released the album “REFLECTION” with 4 members.
(via Oricon)
At 7:15 PM JST on December 31, the 66th Kohaku Uta Gassen will air on NHK. The show will be about 4 and half hours long. There will be many acts performing on the show, including Arashi, AKB48, Sandaime J Soul Brothers, Perfume, Shiina Ringo, Gesu no Kiwami Otome., Hoshino Gen, AAA, Seiko Matsuda, MISIA, BUMP OF CHICKEN, and X JAPAN.
Arama! Japan will be live streaming the show and hosting a chat as well so that readers can chat with each other during the show! Links to the show and the chat are after the jump!
