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Weekly Oricon: Arashi's feat and AI's failure

Posted by Shito on 2009-03-10 19:30 - Translation : Cara

After a week high in releases, the Oricon has delivered its verdict. Results are quite different from the sales of the first day, except for one thing: boys band Arashi outdoes the charts and is close to a record....

Arashi already outdid the 2008 music market and start 2009 just the same way. Their single Believe / Kumori Nochi, Kaisei is unquestionably at the top spot of the Oricon charts with 501,988 sold. No single had sold over 500,000 copies in its first week since KAT-TUN's REAL FACE which had been released in 2006. And the only Arashi single which already achieved this is no other than their debut single which was released over 9 years ago...

Only crumbs are left to the other artists: GLAY's anniversary single gets off only just decently with 78,380 copies sold, AKB48 sold 66,226 copies, Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi comes fourth with 31,169 copies sold, and Yuna Ito catches a good 5th position despite sales of only 27,254 copies with her new single. After starting well, Ken from l'Arc~en~Ciel contents himself with a 7th position, behind YUKI. Aqua Timez rank at #11, Kou Shibasaki is #16, Hitomi Shimatani 27th, SCANDAL 30th and DOPING PANDA 44th.

As for the albums, the group FUNKY MONKEY BABYS eventually gets hold of the top spot with 80,320 copies sold for their third album, ahead of CHATMONCHY and their 78,342 copies sold. JUJU comes third by selling 60,706 copies of her second album, ahead of the supercell project and a best album by Mika Nakashima which did not sell over 50,000 copies. Dragon Ash's new album is 6th, while singer AI collapses with only 17,868 copies sold of her new album, far from MIC-A-HOLIC A.I's sucess (it had sold over 450,000 copies in 2005-2006). Finally you can note that alan's first album gets a consistent 15th position.