On December 31, Urata Naoya announced that he has withdrawn from AAA, the group that he leads. His withdrawl stems from his assault arrest earlier this year.
After the arrest, he was punished by his managament company, Avex Management. He has spent the past few months thinking about his future activities, taking into consideration the trouble he has caused his groupmates, fans, staff, and others. It is because of this, that he has decided to leave AAA.
On December 31 at 7:15 PM JST, the 70th NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen will air. The show will feature performances by the likes of Arashi, Shiina Ringo, Seiko Matsuda, Perfume, MISIA, Foorin, Daichi Miura, and Hoshino Gen. The performance order for the show has been released, and can be seen below!
There is a live stream of the show and Arama! Japan will be hosting a chat on Discord so that readers can chat with each other during the show! See more below!
Over the next few days, we’ll be looking back on the year end charts for the years that were covered in the 2019 editions of Oricon Flashback. Next up is 2004.
Over the past few days, we’ve been releasing our first set of podcasts, focusing on the music of the 2010s. The first part focused on artists, the second part focused on idols, and the third part focused on the overall music industry. The fourth and final part of this series continues on the topic of the overall music industry, with a focus on anisong, Japanese hip hop, and the future of Japanese music.
Featured on the podcast alongside myself are Selective Hearing’s Hannah and Patrick St. Michel of The Japan Times.
With the closing out of this series, Arama! Japan has made the podcasts available on Spotify. We will be adding the podcasts to other platforms in the days to come. For those who don’t use Spotify, we do have other ways to listen. Check it out below!
Over the next few days, we’ll be looking back on the year end charts for the years that were covered in the 2019 editions of Oricon Flashback. Next up is 1999.
On December 30 at 5:30 PM JST, the 61st Japan Record Awards will air. Many acts are nominated for the Grand Prix, including Little Glee Monster, Daichi Miura, Keyakizaka46, AKB48, Nogizaka46, Hinatazaka46, DA PUMP, and Foorin. The Best New Artist Award will also be given out to Kaizo Ryota, Niihama Leon, BEYOOOOONDS, or Ryusei. The show will feature performances by many of the acts named above!
There is a live stream of the show and Arama! Japan will be hosting a chat on Discord so that readers can chat with each other during the show! See more below!
After a hiatus, Staff Selections is back! And what better time to bring it back than the end of the 2010s! This decade saw so much happen, but what did the staff members of Arama! Japan like this decade? Find out below!
It’s a new year soon, so that means Morning Musume has a new name! In January Morning Musume ’20 will be releasing their 68th single. A triple a-side titled “Kokoro & Karada / Lovepedia / Ningen Kankeio No Way Way“
This will be the first single to feature 15th generation members Rio Kitagawa, Mei Yamazaki, and Homare Okamura. Mei was a former Hello!Project trainee, while Homare and Rio won an audition to be in the group. Even though this is their first release with the group, they have been members since June 2019. For the past 6 months the group focused on touring.