New Years, new clothing! In order to make way for the upcoming spring offerings, many stores often have sales during the first few days of the New Year. Shibuya109 is widely known for their “7Days Baragin” sales they have during this time; with so many great offerings for the fashion conscious. They teamed up with Tokyo Girls Collection to choose their face(s) for this sale that will invigor customers and act as style role model(s) for the new year. For 2017 they’ve chosen Nogizaka46. With great sales, come great swag and fun for the shoppers. Take a look at the different offerings featuring Nogizaka46.
From December 22 – 25, this year’s Japan Figure Skating Championships took place in Osaka. Shoma Uno and Satoko Miyahara won their portion of the event. This competition determined who Japan will be sending to the Four Continents Championships in Gangneung, South Korea in February and the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland in March.
With four-time reigning champion Yuzuru Hanyu out of competition due to the flu, Shoma Uno won the men’s portion for the first time with a total score of 280.41. His short program was given a score of 88.05, the second best of the night, 2.29 points behind Takahito Mura. Shoma said that he couldn’t focus after a wobbled landing on his opening quad flip prevented him from completing a combination jump. He later fell on a quad toe loop. “I had to think it’s another start even if I miss my (quad) flip, but I couldn’t switch my mind.”
Shoma’s free skate received the best score of the night with a score of 192.36. Although he wobbled on his landings early on, Shoma made up for it with a solid finish that included a triple axel and a high-difficulty, three-jump combination. “My landings were not as good as I thought they should be in the first half,” he said, having had a vision of his error-strewn performance in last season’s Worlds — where he finished seventh. “I’m really glad it didn’t end like the Worlds.”
It has been announced on the official Avex site that dance and vocal unit Dream 5 will end its activities on December 31, 2016.
Avex management and the Dream5 staff apologize for the sudden announcement of this news and are grateful for the all support the fans have given in the past 7 years. The announcement mentions that the members will pursue their own individual activities and each left messages for closure. It specifically mentions that Akira Takano, the sole male member, began participating in plays earlier this year will focus on performing in theater for the future.
Kis-My-Ft2‘s unit Busaiku (Wataru Yokoo, Toshiya Miyata, Takashi Nikaido, Kento Senga) will release their 4th single “Michishirube” next year on January 4. It has been a year and 10 months since their last single “Yacchatta!” was released in March 2015.
The A-side is a ballad written and composed by all 4 members. The group lodged together for 10 days to create their song, plan the music video and CD jacket, and hold meetings with staff members. Busaiku’s music videos always begin with the sound of a music box, but this time the story starts from the music box itself. The stage from their debut song is also used as a symbol, and there are humorous ‘Busaiku-like’ shots throughout the MV.
Legendary Johnny’s group SMAP has had their final performance as a group, performing one of their signature hits “Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana” on the last episode of their variety show SMAP X SMAP .
The disbandment of SMAP was confirmed 4 months ago after Johnny’s & Associates Inc sent a fax to the media. Since the performance aired SMAP has shot up to the very top of the twitter trends, there’s currently over 1.5 million tweets regarding the group/disbandment. Many of these tweets are from oversea fans truly showcasing the impact SMAP has had in the Japanese entertainment world.
The members of SMAP got their start in a group called “The Skate Boys”, who served as backup dancers for Hikaru Genji. In 1988 Johnny Kitagawa chose six of the boys to create a new group, SMAP. They held concerts and even had their own variety show before releasing their debut single “Can’t Stop -Loving-” in 1991. For SMAP’s final performance “Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana” was the song choice. Released in 2003, it became one of their signature hits. As of 2016 it has sold over 2.9 million copies making it the fourth best selling single in Japan.
Watch the full performance below.
A few weeks ago, it was reported that Yasutaka Nakata and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu are releasing a split single on January 18. It was also reported that this single will feature a mystery foreign artist. Well, the title of the single as well as the name of the foreign artist have been revealed!
The single is titled “Crazy Crazy / Harajuku Iya Hoi” and the foreign artist was revealed to be Charli XCX. “Crazy Crazy” is Nakata’s song and features both Kyary and Charli XCX. “Harajuku Iya Hoi” is a Kyary solo track.
“Crazy Crazy” was written by Charli XCX and composed by Nakata. The song is entirely in English, a first for Kyary, and will be released in 110 countries digitally on January 18. With this collaboration, Kyary has now completed all five of the fifth anniversary goals she set earlier this year. Of the song, Kyary said that she was happy about it even though the English lyrics were a challenge. Charli XCX also expressed excitement over the song.
Check out more information on the single, including an audio teaser, below!
This week, Kanjani8 covered The Beatles.
Kanjani8 – Day Tripper / Ticket To Ride / Help! (The Beatles covers)
We’re back with this week’s edition of Oricon Flashback. This is where we look back on what topped Oricon this week 5, 10, 15, and 20 years ago. Think of it as a way to reminisce and learn about the past of Japanese music.