Asahi has reported that talent Mari Sekine will marry South Korean singer K (Kang Yoon Sung).

According to acquaintances, the two will submit their marriage registration this August with the intention to hold a ceremony in the Fall after nearly 2 years of being in a serious relationship together.

The couple met in 2009 when K made a guest appearance on Mari’s radio program while promoting his Japanese EP ‘Merry Christmas’. It was reported that they started dating after Mari showed up to several of K’s concerts. Even during K’s mandatory military service back in Korea, the two kept in touch and she even flew there to visit him.

Mari plans on continuing entertainment activities after her marriage, but will step down as the host of Nippon TV’s morning program ‘ZIP!’ this Fall.

Ashida Mana will be releasing her 4th solo single Fight!!/Yuuki on August 6th.

Fight!! is currently being used in Ito-Yokado CMs, Ito-Yokada is popular Japanese general merchandise store. The second a-side Yuuki is a promotion song for the NHK mini program Yuuki wo Utaou. In August, Ashida will embark on a five day mini live & high touch event to commemorate the single release.

The single covers, PV for Yuuki and short PV for Fight!! can be seen below.

All-girl band Akai Koen has revealed more details on their forthcoming second album “Moretsu Rythmique”, set for release on September 24. The first detail would be their new artist picture, depicting the band as children. They also released the cover and tracklist for “Moretsu Rythmique.” Check them out after the jump!

To celebrate the release of their new single ‘Black Butterfly/Kaze ni Fukarete‘, Hello! Project idol group juice=juice held a mini live event and handshake meeting.

They performed at the LaQua Garden Stage to a crowd of 700 people, starting with their new song ‘Black Butterfly’ and continuing with previous singles like ‘Romance no Tochuu’ and ‘Hajimete wo Keikenchuu’.

In a thunderous roar, professional wrestler Masahiro Chono barged in and yelled ‘I am CHONO!!’. The wrestler, whose nickname is Black Charisma, is currently commemorating the 30th anniversary of his professional wrestling career. He toasted to good health with a glass of juice with each member.

Soundscan Japan has released its album and single rankings for the first half of 2014. This is for the period covered December 30 2013 – June 29 2014.

Included in the list below are the top 10 Western albums, highlighting Frozen’s successful run in Japan.

For the note, Soundscan numbers are calculated based on POS-sources (point of sales) and ranks sales for each version individually for CDs (both Singles & Albums). Soundscan also doesn’t include label-owned and agency owned stores such as Avex’s Mu-mo shops and AKB’s chara-ani. Soundscan number may or may not be higher than Oricon numbers.

Oshare-kei band Serial⇔NUMBER has announced that Fumiya, Ryou, Natsume and YUI will be leaving the band, leaving lead vocalist Jin Sasaki as the remaining member once more.

This happened before back in 2010 when all the members except Jin Sasaki graduated after their December 27th live performance at Takadanobaba AREA. Soon after, an audition was announced and the members that are currently leaving were added to the band in August of 2011.

The four members will continue their duties with the band until October 15th when they graduate after their show at Ikebukuro EDGE.

Natalie reports that their upcoming release has been postponed.

R&B singer-songwriter Yup’in‘s music video for her 3rd single ‘Myself;Yourself‘ has been uploaded to the TA Homiez Factory official YouTube Channel.

Through the cooperation of Hamamatsu’s Film Commission, this video was shot in an old elementary school and Nakatajima Sand Dunes in the Shizuoka Prefecture.

Yup’in commented on the production, “I was able to work with a lot of people on this song and video, but it took a long time! haha I’d like to thank the composer, engineers, director and all the staff involved that made this happen.”

Long-running heavy metallers X Japan announced earlier this week that tickets for their October 11th Madison Square Garden concert will go on sale this Friday, August 1st at 10AM EST. This will be the band’s first NYC concert since 2010.

This event is sponsored by New York Comic Con and takes place the same weekend. At the convention itself, X JAPAN leader and co-founder Yoshiki will take part of a panel with the legendary Stan Lee and talk about the comic book based on based on Yoshiki himself, ‘Blood Red Dragon‘.