2016 is gone, and what a year it was for Arama! Japan! We had many popular posts over the past year, but which ones received the most comments?

The post with the most comments from 2016 was “Disbandment of SMAP Confirmed!” with 355 comments. Next was “Blind Item: 17-year-old pregnant after orgy with “super popular” idols?” with 352 comments. And rounding out the top 3 is “Utada Hikaru Is the Least Interesting Thing about ‘Fantôme'” with 341 comments. It should be noted that these are now Arama! Japan’s 3 most commented on posts, garnering more comments than our former most commented on post, the 319 comments of 2014’s “Tourists upset over Arashi concert; call it ‘psychological torture’, ‘awful'”.

Check out the rest of 2016’s top 10 below!

On December 31, CDTV aired this year’s edition of its annual year end music special, CDTV Special! New Year’s Eve Premier Live 2016→2017. Several popular acts performed, including AKB48, Sandaime J Soul Brothers, Perfume, back number, Piko-Taro, Hoshino Gen, JUJU, Kis-My-Ft2, [Alexandros], aiko, and Nishino Kana. Check out the full show after the jump!

As previously reported, J-rock legend GACKT will be releasing an official cover of one of Ayumi Hamasaki’s biggest hits, “SEASONS”. The full music video was uploaded on Nestle Japan’s official youtube channel, and is being used to promote the successful “Dolce Gusto” coffee machine.

The music video follows the story of a young couple, profiling the ups and downs faced in many relationships. The lead actor in the video plays the role of a film director, who is ‘directing’ the video he’s starring in! After giving some instructions to GACKT, he sits down and watches the video shoot take place. He takes a sip of coffee made by a “Dolce Gusto” which triggers memories of his relationship.

Check out the full video below.

New year new me! Looks like that’s the case for talent Rola and Sandaime J Soul Brothers member Hiroomi Tosaka. The media has learned that the two have decided to put a stop to their relationship right before the new year. Lack of communication, and little time to spare due to their extremely hectic schedules are being blamed for the two drifting apart.

Rola and Hiroomi originally got acquainted with each other after appearing on a variety show together and began their relationship at the end of 2015. As with most Japanese celebrity relationships everything was kept extremely low-key as the two tried their best to keep it a secret from the public. They were doing a pretty good job until August of 2016, when a couple tabloids reported that the two were visiting each others apartments.

Both stars are currently busy promoting their latest projects. Rola’s hollywood debut “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” will be released to North American theaters on January 27th and Hiroomi is finishing up promotions for J Soul Brother’s latest successful single “WELCOME TO TOKYO“. A new single titled “Happy?” has already been announced and is scheduled to be released on March 8th.

(via Sponichi)

Previously, entertainment company LDH has announced its restructuring and global expansion as LDH WORLD. On January 1, the company has revealed several of its upcoming projects of its artists. This includes Sandaime J Soul Brother’s upcoming single and best album, GENERATIONS’ second world tour and several international activities under EXPG and LDH Kitchen. THE RAMPAGE From EXILE TRIBE will make their debut this January and have another single planned. Details of the release events for their debut single “Lightning” has also been announced.

LDH fans, mark your calendars for these upcoming releases! Take a look also at the LDH Official Company Trailer 2017 released featuring the company’s roster of talents.

American singer Ariana Grande is set to appear as a special guest character in Square Enix’s free-to-play Final Fantasy mobile game Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius. Ariana shared the news on her official Instagram account. It hasn’t been revealed how players will be able to recruit Ariana into their party yet, but as with most mobile games it’ll most likely be some sort of special event where players get a chance to “summon” her as a recruitable party member.

Ariana’s character in Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius will be wearing a rabbit latex outfit, based on the cover of her latest studio album ‘Dangerous Woman’. As seen in a preview shown on her Instagram account some of her attacks are music based!

Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius can be downloaded for free on both android and ios. It’s a classic turn based game featuring characters from all across the Final Fantasy universe, as well as original characters exclusive to the game. A preview of Ariana’s character can be seen below!

Over the past few days, we’ve looked back on the end year charts for the years that were covered in the 2016 editions of Oricon Flashback. This is the final part of this series, 2011.

FUJI TV aired live “Johnnys Countdown 2016 – 2017” held last night at the Tokyo Dome.

TOKIO hosted the show this year. Johnnys groups performed a “Thank you medley”, the usual member shuffle medley, group shuffle medley where Kanjani8 attempted and failed to perform Kis-My-Ft2’s rollerskates, and hit song medley. Other highlights include Okamoto father and son performing together, Hey! Say! JUMP 10th anniversary medley, and NEWS announcing a tour starting April. Arashi (minus Aiba) did a bit of livestream from NHK before proceeding to JCD. They performed wearing an Aiba Masaki jacket.

Towards the end of the program, Nagase Tomoya called on everyone to give a round of applause to SMAP.