Girl group Nogizaka46 have transformed into “handsome men” in a brand new CM for Haruyama, a clothing brand that specializes in office wear attire. The CM is being used to promote the brands spring collection.

While Haruyama also offers women’s office wear, the Nogizaka girls actually wore items from the mens collection for the filming of the CM. Member Mai Shiraishi commented that she loved the “masculine” feeling of wearing a suit, and felt really cool. She especially had a good time filming with fellow member Sayuri Matsumura.

Nanase Nishino also participated in the CM. While everyone was getting ready in the dressing room she said the whole experience was a little surreal, it was almost like she really was in a dressing room filled with men! Overall she loved the experience however, sharing Shiraishi’s thoughts in finding everything cool.

The song used in the CM is a new track called Synchronicity, it is currently scheduled to be released as a single in April. Watch the CM and BTS footage below!

Disgraced producer Tetsuya Komuro seems to be quite busy for a retired man, today marks the release of Blueprint the first mini-album from his unit PANDORA.

PANDORA consists of Komuro and Daisuke Asakura, who is a member of the band access. Back in mid January it was exposed that Komuro was cheating on his wife KEIKO, and as a result he would be retiring from music activities.

Nostalgia works! Morning Musume’s latest mini-album Hatachi no Morning Musume has topped the daily Oricon charts selling over 38,000 units. This puts them at a very large lead against their competitors, with the #2 album selling 9k basically securing their top spot for the week.

The last time Morning Musume achieved a daily #1 with an album release was with their 5th studio album No.5, released in March 2003. This was also their last album to achieve a weekly #1 ranking on Oricon.

Hatachi no Morning Musume was released under the name Morning Musume 20th, honoring the groups 20th anniversary. For promotional material generation 1 members Yuko Nakazawa, Kaori Iida, Aya Ishiguro, Natsumi Abe, and Asuka Fukuda were prominently used, even appearing on the album covers itself and MVs. The album has already outsold the first week sales of the groups last album effort, 15 Thank You, Too released in December 2017.

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Arashi member Jun Matsumoto appeared in a press conference for Meiji Chocolate held in Shiodome Tokyo, just in time for Valentines day.

Matsumoto is currently serving as the official image character for Meiji’s extremely popular “Meiji Milk Chocolate”. The Johnny’s star appeared in a dapper suit warmly greeting all the media that appeared.

When asked for some of his favorite Valentines day memories he shared that he once had a classmate whose family owned a sweet shop. The owners young daughter would give him a tremendous amount of chocolate every year for Valentines day, and once he got a nosebleed from eating so much! 

AKB48 member Yuka Tano recently made headlines after insulting both South Korea, and their enthusiastic fans.

The incident went down when the idol held an Instagram live, a fan asked Tano if she had done any plastic surgery on her eyes. After answering no, she suddenly went off on a tirade about South Korea. “I think everyone who visited South Korea has received surgery…”, and “I hate those people who love Korea”.

She additionally went on to say “I think Koreans are cute, but I hate Japanese people who like Korea. Do you know what I mean? I mean… Japanese people who want to be Korean, I hate them!”

This week’s guests were BRAHMAN, Crossfaith, E-girls, FIVE NEW OLD, FLOW, and GRANRODEO.

BRAHMAN – Special Medley

Crossfaith – Wipeout

E-girls – Aishiteru to Itte Yokatta

FIVE NEW OLD – Sunshine

FLOW x GRANRODEO – Howling

This week’s guests were Sexy Zone, TWICE, Golden Bomber, Camila Cabello, GENERATIONS, and Hoshino Gen.

Sexy Zone – Wasurerarenai Hana

TWICE – Candy Pop

Golden Bomber – Album “Killer Tune Shikanee yo” Masaka no Zenkyoku Medley

Camila Cabello – Havana

GENERATIONS from EXILE TRIBE – Y.M.C.A.

Hoshino Gen – Doraemon

Folk-rock singer Kenta Maeno recently announced that he will be releasing his latest full-length record, titled “Sakura”, on April 25th.  “Sakura” comes nearly four-and-a-half years after the release of Maeno’s previous album, “Happy Lunch”, and will include 13 newly written tracks from the musician.

Of note, “Sakura” will be co-produced and arranged by cero‘s Yu Arauchi, Eiko Ishibashi, Takuro Okada, and Seiji Muto.  The album will additionally include performers such as Wataru Iga, Ryo Konishi of CRCK/LCKS, Jim O’Rourke, and AMAZONS, this talented collective aiming to produce a work influenced by rock, pop, and jazz in equal measure.

Read on below to find not only the track list for “Sakura”, but also a stripped-down live version of album track “Ima no Jidai ga Ichiban Ii yo”.