ORICON ROUNDUP

Porno Graffitti ruled the Album Charts this week with their joint release BEST ACE and BEST JOKER scoring sales of over 100K each to take the top 2 positions. Coming off their single Love, Too Death, Too, which placed no.2 on the Oricon Charts, the album is their first no.1 album since 2005's THUMP x.
Last week's no.1 WE LOVE HEXAGON, fell to no.4 but still managed sales over 50K. The album fell down on the daily charts due to the new releases, but saw itself reclaim the top spot over the weekend and going into its 3rd week on the charts.

Kanjani8 unsurprisingly hit the top of the Singles Chart for their 5th consecutive no.1 single. What might be a surprise is the huge sales of 347K, up over 150K from their last single Wahaha's debut sales. Musekinin Hero's incredible sales just firmly cements Kanjani8's growing popularity in the Japanese single's market.
Hey! Say! JUMP drops to 7th spot from last week's no.1, with sales of 23K, pretty much on par with their previous singles' 2nd weeks.

MilkyWay's TanTanTaan had a bit of a disappointing debut, only managing to sell 16.6K and charting at no.8 on the Singles Chart. This is down 11K from their debut Anataboshi however it is up 4K from Koharu Kusumi's Papancake's dismal sales.

CHARTS:

Singles:

01 Musekinin Hero Kanjani8 347,735
02 Toki no Ashioto Kobukuro 136,111
03 Nihon no Mikata -Nevada Kara Kimashita- Yajima Biyoushitsu 38,844
04 Monochrome no Kiss SID 36,982
05 36ºC WaT 33,389
06 Sou ~new love new world~ Fukuyama Masaharu 24,425
07 Mayonaka no Shadow Boy Hey! Say! JUMP 23,499
08 Tan Tan Taan! MilkyWay 16,667
09 Ame ga Furu Sakamoto Maaya 13,825
10 motto☆Hadenine! Tomatsu Haruka 11,505

Albums:

01 PORNO GRAFFITTI BEST ACE Porno Graffitti 104,747
02 PORNO GRAFFITTI BEST JOKER Porno Graffitti 102,931
03 Kaze no Chroma Remioromen 55,229
04 WE LOVE HEXAGON Hexagon All Stars 54,978
05 DJ KAORI'S JMIX II (Various Artists) 44,207

REVIEWS: Whooo~ Weekly review time again. I actually really enjoy doing these reviews because it's totally opened my perspective on the Japanese music industry. A lot of the time I used to let true gems slip past me but now I pretty much listen to all the popular new releases each week so I'm discovering lots of new artists and songs I like. It's great fun!

36ºC WaT

36ºC is WaT’s first single in a while (since April to be exact), and it’s a ballad which so many of their songs are. I do enjoy some of WaT’s tracks but 36ºC is more of the same stuff that we’ve all heard before. The boy’s voices are on the high side, which some will find detracts from the song; personally I’m used to their whiney voices and it’s the only thing they really have going for them for uniqueness atm considering their music lately has been *yawn* a tad boring.
This being said, it isn’t as horrible as I may have made out. It does have a charm to it, it’s a sweet song and not a total disaster. Fans of WaT who drool over their soppy ballads will likely come rushing from the shadows to grasp their copy. I have tried to like WaT. Wentz and Teppai are undoubtedly very endearing guys with nice personalities, but yeah … it’s just not happening for me.
Raid has a scintillating little fantasy post on his blog pertaining to the PV for 36ºC. Check it out for some tear jerkingly sweet boy on boy fanfic (sad or happy tears – will depend on the reader lol). It’s probably the most entertaining thing about this single, unfortunately.

Rating: 6/10

Ame ga Furu Sakamoto Maaya

Popular Seiyuu Sakamoto Maaya releases her 17th single this week with Ame ga Furu, a sweet ballad with a fresh, interesting sound to it.
One thing I have to note straight away is Sakamoto’s vocals. I’m so used to Seiyuu’s having very high pitched, squeaky voices and while Sakamoto’s are high, she could be a standalone singer, her voice is really very good.
There are some nice attempts to turn this song from a plain ballad to something a little different in the way of an upbeat, interesting chorus which definitely helps the song.
Personally, it really isn’t the genre of song I can picture myself going back to too often, but I can’t deny that it’s pretty good. I like how it has a very distinct autumn sound to it, it’s really nice to hear.

Rating: 7/10

Musekinin Hero Kanjani8

I have to admit I don’t listen to much Kanjani8, so I have to ask ... are they usually this crazy? This song has a lot of crazy, comedic elements – refreshingly not taking itself too seriously. The JaJaJaJa~n chorus parts are catchy and the whole song is a fun little adventure
The instrumental is pretty cool, with a nice rocky touch and the guys have a lot of fun with little shouts and random phrases throughout.
I’m not certain about replay value, I tend to think for fans it would have quite a bit, but perhaps not so much for non-fans. For a song like this you really need to have some investment in the guys and their personalities, I think. I still enjoyed it, but perhaps not as much as Kanjani8 fans would have.

Rating: 7.5/10

Nihon no Mikata -Nevada Kara Kimashita- Yazima Beauty Salon

Oh dear lord - MY EYES! Yazima Beauty Salon (Yajima Biyoushitsu) is trio comprised of DJ OZMA and comedic duo Tunnels (Kinashi Noritake / Ishibashi Takaaki) playing the roles of a former nude Las Vegas showgirl Margaret Camellia and her two daughters, Naomi and Strawberry.
The scariest thing about this is not the hideous wigs, nor the tight showgirl outfits, it’s not even the big guy with hairy armpits playing 11yr old Strawberry … the scariest thing is that the song is actually pretty good *hides under rock*. It’s quite a funny, catchy tune and for a comedic song it ticks all the right boxes.
This song needs the PV to get the full impacts, it’s hilarious! Enjoy:

*lol* I crack up every time Strawberry is on screen. Too funny!

So there we have it. An original, yet slightly disturbing idea and they’ve come up with a surprisingly good release. I almost want to dress up in drag and frolic around town singing this song! Don't give me that look ... I said almost! -_-

Rating: 9/10 ... What? It's FABULOUS darlings!