The top 10 highest grossing domestic and foreign films in Japan has been announced. Summer box office hit “Code Blue The Movie” (9.23 billion Yen) took the top spot for highest grossing film of the year, followed by “Detective Conan: Zero Enforcer” (9.18 billion Yen). Major distributor TOHO accounts for 7 of the top 10 domestic films. Aside from TOHO films, the list include Koreeda Hirokazu’s Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifiters”, Fukuda Yuichi’s “Gintama 2” and Ueda Shinichiro’s phenomenal hit “One Cut of the Dead”.
Check out the films that made the list below.
FUJI TV aired live “Johnnys Countdown 2018 – 2019” held last night at the Tokyo Dome, hosted by TOKIO’s Kokubun Taichi and V6’s Inohara Yoshihiko.
The groups perform the usual group shuffle medley and member shuffle medley. Kanjani8 performed a 15th anniversary special medley, the whole of Arashi made it to the Dome for their 20th anniversary special medley, NEWS performed via live relay at Kyocera Dome and King & Prince debuted at the Countdown.
A highlight is the final stage of Tackey & Tsubasa, who performed a special medley before being given a final send off by everyone. 4TOPS (Yamashita Tomohisa, Ikuta Toma, Kazama Shunsuke and Hasegawa Jun) reunited to backdance for the duo.
Check out the performances below!
Let me start off by saying that I didn’t find this year particularly exciting. In fact, I listened to less music this year than any year in the past decade or so. Why? Because there were few things this year that truly excited me. There were many things that were just “decent”, but few that really amazed me. I felt this way to a degree in 2017 as well. An indie band or a city pop revival act that would’ve captivated me earlier this decade is probably not going to get more than one play of their album now, if I even listen to it. I just feel that things were so much more exciting earlier this decade, when things were building, but then the wave that was supposed to happen never really happened. Instead, we just got a bunch of acts that were supposed to be great coasting, and then newer acts copying that stagnation.
I felt that more things were happening under the surface this year, as opposed to directly in front of me like I would like. And there were things that were real milestones in the industry, but they largely didn’t affect me and the acts that I listen to.
One of these milestones was Oricon finally catching up with the times in a big way. After finally creating digital album and digital single charts, in 2016 and 2017 respectively, they ended the year by creating charts for albums and singles that combine CD sales, downloads, and streaming, as well as a streaming chart.
Over the past few days, we’ve been looking back on the year end charts for the years that were covered in the 2018 editions of Oricon Flashback. We end with 2013.
Today, the 69th NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen aired. The White Team (the men’s team) won. Several popular acts performed, including Arashi, Yonezu Kenshi, Shiina Ringo, MISIA, Daichi Miura, Perfume, Nogizaka46, and King & Prince. Check out the full show after the jump!
On December 30, the 60th Japan Record Awards were held. Nogizaka46 took home the top prize of the night for the second consecutive year with their song “Synchronicity”, defeating Keyakizaka46, Miyama Hiroshi, TWICE, SEKAI NO OWARI, Hikawa Kiyoshi, AKB48, Daichi Miura, Nishino Kana, and DA PUMP.
Tatsumi Yuto took home the award for Best New Artist, besting STU48, Chuning Candy, and BiSH.
The show featured performances from the acts named above as well as performances by others such as MISIA, Wink, JUJU, and Pink Lady. Check out the full show after the jump!
Over the next few days, we’ll be looking back on the year end charts for the years that were covered in the 2018 editions of Oricon Flashback. Next up is 2008.
On December 31 at 11:45 PM JST, CDTV Special! Toshikoshi Premier Live 2018→2019 will air. The show will feature performances by the likes of Daichi Miura, King & Prince, Keyakizaka46, Aqours, hitomi, Morning Musume. ’19, LiSA, and DA PUMP. 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! Links to the show and the chat are after the jump!
