Popular rock band Southern All Stars have recently confirmed that their latest song is going to be picked up as the theme song for the upcoming TBS drama “Ryusei Wagon”.  The track, titled “Iya na Koto Darake no Yo no Naka de” (“In a World Full of Nasty Things”) has been described as a mid-tempo ballad and will be the first song from the band to be used as the theme to a drama in 11 years, since “Ai to Yokubou no Hibi” (“Days of Love and Desire”) was attached to the fourth season of the drama “Ooku” in 2004.

“Ryusei Wagon” is based on the best selling novel by Shigemasu Kiyoshi and will be directed by Fukuzawa Katsuo, famous for his work on “Hanzawa Naoki” and “LEADERS”.  The drama tells the story of Nagata Kazuo (Nishijima Hidetoshi), whose life is falling apart (laid off from his job, his wife wants a divorce, his son commits domestic violence, etc.) until a chance meeting with a wine-coloured wagon driven by people who Nagata believed had already passed away.  The wagon takes Nagata on a journey through his past and makes him realize exactly where things went wrong with his wife and son.

“Ryusei Wagon” will begin airing on Sunday nights at 9pm JST in January 2015, and while no release date has been announced for “Iya na Koto Darake no Yo no Naka de”, it has been confirmed that the song will be included on Southern All Stars’ upcoming full album, their first in almost 10 years.  You’ll find a brief (low quality) preview of the track right below the cut, so please enjoy!

Itano Tomomi’s new single “Come Party!” has been gaining some attention online recently, but not for the best reasons. It has been discovered to sound distinctly similar to a song from Kpop group “Girl’s Day,” which has sparked accusations of plagiarism.

Youtube has started their annual “Youtube Rewind” series highlighting the year’s most popular videos. This year, Youtube Japan has uploaded a special playlist highlighting the most popular music related videos. Naturally private, unlisted, and deleted videos were not included. Any views from outside of Japan also weren’t included.

Japan wasn’t able to let go of Frozen this year, the animated Disney blockbuster capitalized all top 5 positions. The Japanese version of “Let It Go” took the #1 spot with over 80 million views.  The first non-Frozen related video belongs to SEKAI NO OWARI‘s “Snow Magic Factory” pv, SEKAI NO OWARI was also able to grab the #7 position with the their pv for “Hono to Mori no Carnival”. Sandaime J Soul Brothers and even more Frozen rounded out the top 10.

The entire playlist, consisting of 50 videos can be seen here.

Digital music service Recochoku has released its year end chart for 2014. The chart counts from the beginning/middle of December 2013 til around a few days ago. Find out who were the top artists and what were the top songs on this site after the jump!

The Oricon physical music charts for the week of 12/01-12/07 have been released! Kanjani8 top the single charts selling 201,022 copies of their single “Gamushara Koushinkyoku” in their first week, while EXILE ATSUSHI takes the number one spot of the album charts pushing 81,146 units of his third solo album “Love Ballade“.

Check out the top 10 of each chart below!

Oricon Weekly Single Charts
Rank	Song	Sales
1 New	Gamushara Koushinkyoku Kanjani8	201,022 1st Week
2 New	Hengao de Bye Bye!! DISH//	31,546 1st Week
3 Down	Kibouteki Refrain AKB48	26,394 2nd Week
4 New	courage Haruka Tomatsu	23,794 1st Week
5 New	Hikari no Spur Negicco	20,092 1st Week
6 New	Fureau dake de ~Always with you~/IT’S THE RIGHT TIME Daichi Miura	16,671 1st Week
7 New	Last Goodbye DEEP	16,063 1st Week
8 New	SURPRISE-DRIVE Mitsuru Matsuoka EARNEST DRIVE	14,822 1st Week
9 New	REAL/Koiro Passion Rev.from DVL	14,630 1st Week
10 New	Koi Yuki Silent Siren	13,670 1st Week

Check out more on Oricon’s Weekly chart.

Oricon Weekly Album Charts
Rank	Song	Sales
1 New	Love Ballade EXILE ATSUSHI	81,146 1st Week
2 New	Best Always Eiichi Ohtaki	37,325 1st Week
3 New	HELLO WORLD SCANDAL	35,699 1st Week
4 New	Request JUJU	34,397 1st Week
5 New	Two Tops Treasure Tackey & Tsubasa	23,984 1st Week
6 New	Sukima Switch Sukima Switch	22,413 1st Week
7 New	RING Bullet Train	18,986 1st Week
8 Down	with LOVE Kana Nishino	15,266 4th Week
9 New	Hitotsu ni Narenai Nara, Semete Futatsu Dakede Iyou creepyhyp	14,062 1st Week
10 Down	THE BEST OF BIGBANG 2006-2014 BIGBANG	13,059 2nd Week

Check out more on Oricon’s Weekly chart.

Recochoku:
1. Che’Nelle – Happiness
2. Haruka Tomatsu – courage
3. SEKAI NO OWARI – Dragon Night
4. Nishino Kana – Darling
5. e-girls – Mr.Snowman
6. Leo Ieiri – Silly
7. Mitsuru Matsuoka EARNEST DRIVE – Surprise-Drive
8. Yoshida Yamada – Hibi
9. Sandaime J Soul Brothers – R.Y.U.S.E.I.
10. Sukima Switch – Hoshi no Utsuwa

iTunes:
1. Che’Nelle – Happiness
2. Haruka Tomatsu – courage
3. SEKAI NO OWARI – Dragon Night
4. Leo Ieiri – Silly
5. e-girls – Mr.Snowman
6. BUMP OF CHICKEN – Parade
7. Sukima Switch – Hoshi no Utsuwa
8. Nishino Kana – Darling
9. BUMP OF CHICKEN – Fighter
10. Sandaime J Soul Brothers – R.Y.U.S.E.I.

As previously announced, NEWS will start out 2015 with a magnificent love song based on “Princess Kaguya” from the “Tale of the Bamboo-cutter”. Their new single “KAGUYA” will be released on January 7, 2015. With the help of Ninagawa Mika’s music video direction, they created a curiously bewitching, yet modern version of “Princess Kaguya”. It is a special song that combines a story passed down from ancient times and the “current” NEWS.

The full song preview, PV preview, single covers and tracklist have been revealed. Check them out below.

PR event was held at 12/8 on Atago Shrine Tokyo with Ebichu members wearing Sengoku era armor. This collaboration between Square Enix and Shiritsu Ebisu Chuugaku was started with members praying in the shrine for year 2015, and concluded with main PR event including the quiz challenge about Sengoku era with of course, odd questions and answers.

After the ceremony ended, Ebichu’s mascot Aika Hirota was interviewed about their activity this year, how members are “transferred” (which their own term on graduation and new members addition) and become eight members group. Rika Mayama also express her wishes for next year to perform in Music Station and Kouhaku Uta Gassen.

Sengoku IXA is a browser based strategy game, where player become Joushi (castle owner) with main mission to expand the territory and become the biggest clan in Japan. Pictures and Videos around this event are provided after the jump.