ARAMA! JAPAN | Page 1389 | Breaking J-Pop News and Celebrity Gossip

Namie Amuro and B’z top the weekly Oricon charts! 6/8-6/14

The Oricon physical music sales charts for albums and singles for the week of 6/8-6/14 have been released!

Hot off the heels of the release of their new studio album EPIC DAY, veteran hard rock duo B’z released their newest single titled “RED”. The new single hit stores with 157,073 copies sold in its first week. “RED” is currently being used as the entrance theme for baseball player Kuroda Hiroki of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, making it B’z’ first song written specifically for an athlete.

The twelfth studio album and third bilingual album by Namie Amuro Genic was released this past week with first week sales of 160,474. This album has become the highest selling album by a female artist this year, surpassing Superfly’s fifth studio album White and its first week sales of 119,000 units.

Check out the top 10 of both charts below!

Digital Singles Charts for the Week of 6/10 – 6/16

For the second week in a row, Superfly topped Recochoku with “Beautiful.”

Meanwhile on iTunes, UNISON SQUARE GARDEN topped the chart for the second week in a row with “Sugar Song and Bitter Step.” It sold 45,965 copies.

Celebrities Attend the Tokyo Presentation of Christian Dior’s Fall 2015 Collection

Late last year, esteemed French fashion house Christian Dior presented its Pre-Fall 2015 show in Tokyo. Today, Dior returned to Tokyo to re-stage its Fall 2015 show that originally took place in Paris earlier this year. The show took place at The National Art Center, Tokyo. The event brought out the likes of Rola, Mika Nakashima, Kato Miliyah, and Mademoiselle Yulia. Dior ambassador Rihanna also made the trip over for the show. She even took pictures with a few of the Japanese celebrities in attendance. Check out photos of the attendees after the jump!

NEWS Wraps Up Tour at the Tokyo Dome, previews new single “Chumu Chumu”

On June 13 and 14, NEWS held the final peformance of their NEWS LIVE TOUR 2015 White at the Tokyo Dome. The tour started from March in conjunction with the release of the group’s latest album “White”. They carried out a total of 16 performances in 7 locations and mobilized an audience of 255,000.

Member Masuda Takahisa took charge of the design for 9 of the group’s costumes for the tour. The tour content and production was carefully crafted by the members during discussion. NEWS performed over 33 songs, centering on their album songs. In addition, they showcased their new single Chumu Chumu, to be released on June 24 during encore, delighting 55,000 fans on the final day.

‘Chumu’ means ‘Kiss’ in Hindi and for this Tegoshi Yuya shows off a “kiss face” during the MC, received by great cheers by the fans.

Oricon Album Ranking for the first half of 2015

Oricon recently announced the results of the albums ranking for the first half of the year. For this chart, the LDH group, Sandaime J Soul Brothers from EXILE TRIBE, have managed to top the charts with their album, PLANET SEVEN. This is the second time they’ve topped the half year ranking. The first time was with their album last year, THE BEST / BLUE IMPACT.

Oricon collects date from 33,110 shops around Japan. The mid-year chart counts releases from Dec 22nd, 2014 to June 15th, 2015. Check out our singles ranking here!

Check out the TOP 50 list below!

Oricon Single Ranking for the first half of 2015

Oricon recently announced the results of the singles ranking for the first half of the year. This has been the fifth year in a row that mega-idol group, AKB48 has dominated the no. 1 and no. 2 spot for the best selling single of the year. In fact, this is a historical first in the industry! It’s also been 11 years since a group last had consecutive million sellers for the first half of the year. The previous acts to achieve this includes Mr.Children (’93 ~ ’96) and B’z (’94 ~ ’97). Those groups have only accomplished this four times in a row, while AKB48 has now done this 5 times in a row.

Oricon collects date from 33,110 shops around Japan. The mid-year chart counts releases from Dec 22nd, 2014 to June 15th, 2015.

Check out the TOP 50 list below!

SEKAI NO OWARI release English version of “Dragon Night”

SEKAI NO OWARI have released their debut English single! an English version of their 8th single “Dragon Night”. The song can either be purchased on iTunes or streamed on Spotify.

Check out the music video below!

The official EXILE TRIBE mobile website was recently updated with some unfortunate news. Both American concert dates for GENERATIONS from Exile Tribe have been cancelled.

Visa issues have been listed as the reason for the cancellation, it was never specified if these visa issues pertained to the entire group or just a select few members. The group and management would like to apologize from the “bottom of their heart” due to the inconvenience this caused. GENERATIONS was scheduled to perform at the Los Angeles Echoplex today, and at the New York Santos Party House on June 19th. There is no word if these concerts will be rescheduled or not.

GENERATIONS recently held a successful concert in Paris, France back in March. Here’s to hoping their visa issues can be sorted out and can resume their oversea activities.