This week, NMB48 topped the Oricon single chart with their new single “Warota People”, selling 273,499 copies in its first week.

HKT48 topped the Oricon album chart with their debut album “092”, selling 122,262 copies in its first week.

back number topped the Oricon digital single chart for the second consecutive with “Mabataki”, selling 38,747 copies in its second week.

EGOIST topped the Oricon digital album chart for the second consecutive with “GREATEST HITS 2011-2017 ‘ALTER EGO’”, selling 4,747 copies in its second week.

Earlier today, a cell phone video emerged on the internet of a couple engaged sexually. The man in the video can clearly be indentified as the rapper KOHH. His face can clearly be seen in the video, as can his numerous, distinctive tattoos. The woman in the video has been identified as model Miyamoto Ayana, seeing as how the video originally appeared on her social media. The original video was deleted from her account, but it has since spread on the internet, via multiple uploads.

Last year in December it was announced that Utada Hikaru‘s music catalog would be available on popular streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify. Her discography was available right away for Apple Music, Spotify would be receiving her music a month later on January 8th, today!

The good news is that the majority of her Japanese discography is included, all six of her studio albums starting from FIRST LOVE to Fantome are ready for streaming. However, her singles from 2017 are missing for now. The bad news is that streaming for her music is currently unavailable for Spotify customers living in North America (Canada, United States, and Mexico).

Japan has slowly been more receiving of streaming music, with many companies starting their own service like LINE’s Line Music and Avex’s AWA. Just like YouTube, it seems the future will be an on-going battle for having their media be accessible to fans living outside of Japan; But overall it is a step in the right direction.

Utada is currently in the studio finishing work on her untitled 7th Japanese studio album due out later this year.

A few days ago, we announced The 2017 Arama! Japan Awards. You, the readers, selected who would be nominated for our awards show. The voting for the preliminary round was closed recently and we now have the final nominees. There are some expected nominees, but also some surprises. There’s something for everyone here!

Voting will open now and runs until January 20. On January 21, the winners will be announced. There are more details on that to come.

The voting form is located below! Voting in every category is not mandatory. If you don’t want to vote in a certain category, feel free to skip it.

This week’s guests were Kondo Masahiko, Nana Mizuki, and LiSA.

Kondo Masahiko x Nana Mizuki x LiSA – Midnight Shuffle

LiSA – Catch the Moment

Kondo Masahiko – Ozashiki Kouta 2017

Nana Mizuki – Suiren

Kondo Masahiko – Kiseki

This week’s performers were teto, CHAI, and Da-iCE. There was also a talk segment between the show’s hosts and MUSICA Editor-in-Chief Ariizumi Tomoko where they went over a list of the acts that a group of 85 music industry professionals and 300 Tokyo music fans chose as the ones to look out for in 2018. The full top 30 list can be seen after the jump!

teto – Ano Twilight

CHAI – N.E.O.

Da-iCE – TOKYO MERRY GO ROUND

Music movie ‘Saraba Seijaku’ has released a list of artists appearing in the film. Directed by Kenichi Ugana, the film is depicted as “quiet noise music movie”.

‘Saraba Seijaku’ is a movie about a world where all entertainment is forbidden – books, movies and music. The lead characters, Mizuto and Tokio (played by Kaito Yoshimura and Ryuya Wakaba), work at a screw factory, doing mundane tasks day out, day in. Then they learn about a place where music has survived. Sumire, Takumi Saito and Nobu Morimoto play supporting roles.

The film features 30 different artists and musicians, mostly indie or underground. Making an appearance in the film are, for example, punk band Colored Rice Men, GOMA, Smash Your Face, INU, hardcore punk band QP-CRAZY, jan and naomi, tabla drummer U-Zhaan, Yuji Rerure Kawaguchi, drummer Bachikaburi, Michiro Endo, and Compact Club.

The film opens in theaters on January 27.

Watch a short making-of clip of ‘Saraba Seijaku’ behind the link.

It’s Friday, so it’s Open Post time! Feel free to chat with your fellow readers about whatever you like! Enjoy!