Some tabloids are reporting that actress Maki Horikita is gearing up for a full-time comeback to acting. After giving birth to her first child with actor Koji Yamamoto in December, 2016, she went on to announce her retirement from acting in February, 2017.

Her last role was the 2016 drama “Whispers from a Crime Scene“, which finished airing in March of that year. Since 2018 rumors have swirled that Maki would be making her long awaited return to acting, but nothing has came to fruition. The latest round of rumors claim that Maki is in talks to appear in two new drama series’.

This week’s guests were SixTONES, Saito Kazuyoshi, and Kitri.

SixTONES – Imitation Rain

Saito Kazuyoshi – Chiisana Yoru

Kitri – Rashin Dori

The saga continues for disparaged actress Erika Karata. After it was revealed that she was involved in a three year secret relationship with Masahiro Higashide, Erika continued work as usual, for a few days. However, as more details bout the affair began to come out, especially regarding the home life of Masahiro’s wife Anne Watanabe, the backlash continued to grow.

Erika was seen filming for a TV Tokyo drama, but it’s likely she will no longer be apart of the project. In an updated statement, Erika revealed that she came to the decision to “refrain” from performing, deeply giving another set of apologies.

Singer hitomi recently celebrated her 44th birthday, and with that came quite a shocking announcement. The avex diva is pregnant with her 4th child! hitomi is currently scheduled to give birth in the summer time, the sex of the baby has not been revealed yet.

Sharing the new on her official ameba blog, hitomi joked that she would like to be able to raise a baby before she gets too stiff from old age, and would like to take advantage that she is still able to give birth.

This week, SKE48 topped the Combined Single chart with their new single “Souyuutoko Aru yo ne?”, with 290,028 points in its first week.

King Gnu topped the Combined Album chart with their new album “CEREMONY”, with 281,618 points in its first week.

SKE48 also topped the Single chart with “Souyuutoko Aru yo ne?”, selling 289,471 copies in its first week.

King Gnu also topped the Album chart with “CEREMONY”, selling 238,047 copies in its first week.

Official HIGE DANdism topped the Digital Single chart with their new digital single “I LOVE…”, selling 33,029 copies in its first week.

King Gnu also topped the Digital Album chart with “CEREMONY”, selling 30,419 copies in its first week.

King Gnu also topped the Streaming chart with their single “Hakujitsu”, with 5,334,664 streams in its 48th week.

This week’s guests were SixTONES, Snow Man, Ame no Parade, Morning Musume. ’20, and Halo at Yojohan.

SixTONES – Imitation Rain

Snow Man – D.D.

Ame no Parade – BORDERLESS

Morning Musume. ’20 – LOVEpedia

Halo at Yojohan – Innocent Play

We’re back with this week’s edition of Oricon Flashback! This is where we look back on what topped the charts this week 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years ago. Think of it as a way to reminisce and learn about the past of Japanese music.

Back in mid-2019, it was announced that singer/songwriter Keisuke Kuwata would be providing a ‘support song’ for the “Issho ni Yarou 2020” campaign. This project is a special joint venture by television networks Nippon TV, TV Asahi, TBS, TV Tokyo, and Fuji TV to encourage viewer participation ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The music video for this cheer song, titled “SMILE ~Harewataru Sora no You ni~”, has now been uploaded to YouTube. The clip features Kuwata’s energetic and upbeat performance of the track as he slowly makes his way to Japan’s newly renovated National Stadium.

You’ll find the full PV for this uplifting mid-tempo number right after the jump.