Due to graduate school applications, I pretty much fell behind in posting various J-Pop news onto ONTD, so I'm just going to cram it all into one post now that things are dying down again. That said, are you ready to catch up on what's been happening in J-Pop? Brace yourselves for some major releases, scandals (Adding more reason for 2016 to end already), and more!
LDH Announces Plans to Expand to Global Market, Exposed in Award Bribery ScandalLDH ExpansionLDH (The agency of acts such as Sandaime J Soul Brothers, E-Girls, and EXILE) had an interesting month so to speak. LDH President EXILE HIRO announced that LDH will expand into the United States, Europe, and Asia and open branches/divisions in each of these regions. This expansion will result in four divisions under the new parent companY LDH WORLD: LDH JAPAN, LDH USA, LDH ASIA, and LDH EUROPE. HIRO hopes to bring world-class entertainment to the global market and cites Disney and Universal Studios as examples of what LDH hopes to accomplish with this expansion.
Although LDH just announced this plan earlier this month, LDH has been expanding into the United States and Asia in the past. LDH opened dance studio "EXILE PROFFESIONAL GYM (EXPG)" in New York and started a collaboration project with avex to train Japanese young boys into artists at the studio. LDH also opened an LDH topshop and EXPG in Taiwan.
In order to continue expanding into the global market, a Los Angeles branch EXPG will open. Meanwhile, LDH is enlisting the help of business partner Afrojack to manage activities in England, Germany, France and Holland.
Ultimately speaking, details regarding this plan is mostly unknown beyond what was mentioned already and promises of foreign opportunities for acts under LDH JAPAN, so who knows what will happen from this endeavor into the global market.
LDH Caught Bribing Japan Record Awards for Song of the YearLiterally days after the announcement of LDH expanding into the global market, Shukan Bunshun published an article revealing that the company bribed officials of Japan Record Awards for Sandaime J Soul Brothers' "Unfair World" to win Grand Prix/Song of the Year in 2015. The tabloid brought (literal) receipts showing that LDH gave 108 million yen (Approx 1 million USD) to Japan Record Awards with the money coming from business coglomorate Burning Productions (This cogolomorate includes Avex, the music label of Sandaime J Soul Brothers).
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(Seriously, it's a LITERAL receipt)
Although there have been rumors of Japan Record Awards accepting bribes prior to this scandal (Most notably, AKB48's "Koisuru Fortune Cookie" losing to EXILE's "Exile Pride (Konna Sekai o Ai Suru Tame)" despite it becoming a national hit that sparked a dance cover trend), this is the first time evidence of bribery has been presented to the public. Avex, LDH, and Burning Company did not respond to Shukan Bunshun for commentary by the deadline of publication.
Sandaime J Soul Brothers Releases Music Video for "Welcome to Tokyo"Literally days after this scandal, the boyband involved in the bribery scandal teased their new single "Welcome to Tokyo" on Youtube and later released the music video days after. The single was released on November 9th, and debuted #2 on the Oricon Weekly chart with 158,936 sales (To be fair, #1 was Nogizaka46 (827,717 sales), so basically no one had a chance of getting #1 that week).
E-Girls to Release New Album "E.G. CRAZY"Hot off of their latest single "Go! Go! Let's Go!", E-Girls announced that they will be releasing a new album "E.G. CRAZY" on January 18th. The album contains 24 tracks between 2 CDs. The CDs are entitled "-E.G. POP-" and "-E.G. COOL-" to convey the two different sides of the girl group. The album will contain songs from the following singles/songs: "
Aniversery!!!", "
Merry × Merry Xmas★", "
Strawberry Sadistic", "
Dance Dance Dance", "
DANCE WITH ME NOW!", "
Go! Go! Let's Go!", and "
Pink Champagne" (Songs are hyperlinked to their respective music videos to prevent loading issues).
It is also confirmed that the album will contain four new tracks, and one of those songs will also have a music video. The album will be released in five editions: 2CD, 2CD + DVD, 2CD + Blu-Ray, 2CD + 3DVD, and 2CD + 3-Blu Ray. 1 DVD/Blu-Ray editions comes with music videos while the 3 DVD/Blu-Ray editions contains music videos, "E-girls LIVE TOUR 2016 -E.G. SMILE- tour" content, and a documentary covering the production and behind the scenes of the tour. Due to a lack of additional information, a tracklist and coverart can not be provided at this time.
Utada Hikaru Ties Personal Record of Four Consecutive Weeks on the top of Oricon Physical Album Charts, Tops the First Two Weeks of Oricon's New Digital Album Charts, to Host Live Q&A (And Messages) for FansOricon Physical Sales UpdateUtada Hikaru continues to dominate the charts with her comeback album "Fantôme". As
previously mentioned, Utada Hikaru was on the top spot of the Oricon physical album charts for three consecutive weeks and in contention of maintaining the position for yet another week. I am happy to report that Utada Hikaru indeed maintained said position and has now tied her personal record of most consecutive weeks on the top of the Oricon physical album charts (Previous personal record held by her best album "Utada Hikaru SINGLE COLLECTION VOL.1"). The last original album to accomplish this milestone is Kobukuro's "5296" (2007) and the last female artist to accomplish this milestone is Koda Kumi with Black Cherry (2006) (If best albums are included, the previous times in which this milestone has been achieved was Sandaime J Soul Brother's "THE BEST／BLUE IMPACT" (2014) and Namie Amuro's "BEST FICTION" (2008) respectively).Utada's top position streak ended the week after with Arashi's "Are you Happy?".
Digital SalesMeanwhile, Oricon recently created a digital album chart at the start of November. This digital chart tracks releases from 35 different record labels across 4 digital services: iTunes, Mora, mu-mo, and Recochoku. As far as OP knows, this chart is the first digital album chart that contains sales numbers in Japan. Unfortunately, Oricon is unable to provide data for digital sales prior to the start of the chart (In other words, total sales are still unknown for any album released prior to November including "Fantôme"), but beggars can't be choosers.
Now that we got the logistics out of the way, it's time to deliver yet more Utada Hikaru records. Since its inception, Utada Hikaru topped the digital album charts for the first to weeks since the chart's inception with 6,537 sales on the chart's first week and 3,993 sales on the second week. Utada Hikaru finally dropped down to 2nd on the most recent week (3548 sales) to Bruno Mars' "24k Magic" (9090 sales). With these digital numbers one month into the release of "Fantôme", one can only imagine how many digital copies she sold at the release date.
Livestream Q&A (And Messages) and PerformanceUtada HIkaru will be hosting a livestream event titled "Sanjudai wa Hodohodo" (Rough T/N: The thirties are moderate) on December 9th 21:00 JST. This livestream event serves as a "sequel" to her 20th birthday livestream "Nijudai wa IkeIke!". Utada hopes that the livestream allows her to properly convey her thanks to her fans. She will also be performing some songs live on the stream. While the setlist isn't confirmed, KOHH (And Punpee) are confirmed special guests at the event, so it's likely that she'll be performing "Boukyaku".
Lucky for you, not only is this event viewable outside of Japan, but you too can participate by sending her questions (Or messages in general) that she may read and respond to during the livestream. Simply tweet your questions or message with #30代はほどほど, and Hikki might even respond to it live! I'm sure she'll
love to hear "ARE YOU GOING TO DO THE THEME SONG OF KH3!?!" for the millionth time and another million times relayed via her father, so go ahead. Tweet her that.
To watch the livestream when it happens, you can catch it on
this website. As stated on the website, FIrefox and Internet Explorer 10 are not supported, so make sure you either upgrade your Internet Explorer or have another browser ready if you use one of these two browsers. The website also lets you test if your browser works, so feel free to test it now if you are concerned about browser issues.
Namie Amuro Releases Short Music Video for "Fighter"As previously
reported, Namie Amuro is releasing double A-side single "Dear Diary/Fighter" with tie-ins to Death Note prequel movie "Death Note: Light up the NEW world" and its Hulu mini-drama series. Days after
releasing the short music video for "Dear Diary", Namie Amuro released a short music video for "Fighter". The music video features Ryuk at the dinner table with Namie herself.
Daichi Miura Releases Music Video for "(RE)PLAY" and Choreography Video for "Look what you did"Daichi Miura released two videos to promote his new single "(RE)PLAY". The first video contains the music video for the single while the second video is a choreography video for B-side "Look what you did" (Daichi Miura typically releases choreography videos as dancing is one of his major selling points).
Perfume Teases New Songs in Ora² Kuchimoto Beauty Products and UNIQLO HEATTEACH CMsPerfume recently appeared on multiple commercials to promote various products including Ora²'s Kuchimoto beauty line and UNIQLO's HEATECH. Both commercials feature new songs from Perfume. "Houseki no Ame" is featured on the Kuchimoto beauty line CM while "It's my winter" is featured on the UNIQLO HEATTECH commercial. Fans have been speculating that these new songs/tie-ins are signs of a new release, so if you've been hoping for some new Perfume music, then the wait might end soon.
Kuchimoto Beauty Product CMKuchimoto Beauty Product CM MakingUNIQLO HEATTECH CM #1UNIQLO HEATTECH CM #2AKB48 Releases Music Video for "High Tension", Announces New AlbumLast month, popular AKB48 member Shimazaki Haruka revealed that she will be graduating from the idol group. In typical AKB48 tradition, she was chosen as the center of the new single "High Tension" before she begins her post-idol career as an aspiring actress
and Studio Ghibli voice actress if the acting thing doesn't work out(While Miyazaki tells the anime fans dragging her that anime was a mistake to make them cry). The music video is region restricted due to Youtube Red, so if you are unable to watch the embeded video, use
this link instead.
In related news, the idol group also announced that they will be releasing a new album on January 25th. The new album (Currently untitled) will contain the following singles: "Kuchibiru ni be my Baby", "Kimi wa Melody", "Tsubasa wa Iranai", "LOVE TRIP", "Shiawase wo Wakenasai", and "High Tension". Single B-sides "365 Nichi no Kamihikouki" and "Hikari to Kage no Hibi" will also be featured on the album. The album also comes with a serial code to enter a raffle for an intimate concert held at Toyosu PIT Live House in Tokyo in March.
Keyakizaka46's Costume Sparks Nazi Imagery Controversy48G rival group Keyakizaka46 stirred some controversy at a Halloween live with their choice of costume. The group wore a black military-style costume that caused some to notice a striking resembalance to the Nazi uniform. A tweet from Japanese social media noting the similarity can be seen below.
Responses to the controversy has been mixed between people agreeing that the costume's similarity to nazi uniforms is too similar to dismiss, to people suspecting that this was a deliberate publicity stunt, to people saying that the costume is simply a generic German-style military outfit that's commonly seen in anime. Sony Music (The record label of Keyakizaka46) released the following statement regarding the controversy.
"Thank you for your continued support of Keyakizaka46.
We have received inquiries and comments pointing out the similarities between the costumes worn by Keyakizaka46 at a Halloween event on October 22, and Nazi-style uniforms. Although it was not meant to carry any ideological meaning whatsoever, we deeply regret and apologize for the distress it has caused all people concerned. The costumes in question shall not be used again, under any circumstances.
All of the input that we have received will be taken under careful advisement, and we will do our utmost to ensure that no incident of its kind recurs in the future. Once again, we sincerely apologize for this insensitivity."
*The statement was written in English and Japanese. This is the English version that they posted on their site.
Keyakizaka46 producer Yasushi Akimoto and Seed & Flower representative (The company that produced the costumed) Shunsuke Muramatsu also issued apologies on Keyakizaka46's website. Akimoto in particular stated that the incident happened due to "lack of oversight" and was not informed about the costumes beforehand. He also promised outfit checks and staff instructions to prevent future incidents of this nature.
[Alexandros] Releases Music Video for KaijuJapan is currently experiencing a boom in the indie band scene, and [Alexandros] is one of the leading figures of this shifting trend
especially after Enon destroyed any chance for Gesu no Kiwami Otome. to maintain their success with his second dating scandal. After releasing their second major label album (Sixth overall) "EXIST!" and debuting on the Oricon physical album charts for the first time, the band released the music video for "Kaiju": The second track of their latest album.
Hoshino Gen Releases Music Video for KoiPopular singer-songwriter-actor Hoshino Gen released the music video for his latest single "Koi". The single serves as theme song of the romantic-comedy drama "Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu". Hoshino Gen also plays Hiramasa Tsuzaki in the drama: A 35 year old salaryman with zero love experience that gets into a contract (Common-law) marriage with proatagonist Mikuri Moriyama. The single is currently on a five-week digital chart streak on both Recochoku and iTunes. Since the video is region locked due to Youtube Red, use
this link if you are unable to watch the embedded video.
SourcesLDH
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2Sandaime J Soul Brothers
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2E-Girls
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8Utada Hikaru 1 /
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6Namie Amuro
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3Daichi Miura
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2Perfume
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4AKB48
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4Keyakizaka46
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3[Alexandros]
1Hoshino Gen
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2Any other releases caught your interest lately? I've personally been listening to REOL's album non-stop.
