JE Still Owning the Oricon

So the Oricon half year charts are finally out. Out of the top 100 singles, the Johnny’s releases are:

Arashi - One Love

Arashi’s next single “One Love” is the theme song to the Hana Yori Dango Final movie. It will be released June 25th, right before the June 28 release of the movie.

“One Love” rounds off the trio of Hana Yori Dango songs the group releases for the franchise. “WISH” did very well, while “Love So Sweet” became a giant success. What about “One Love”?

Matsujun and Higuchi Shinji - at USC!

On Sunday, April 27, University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts will be hosting the Los Angeles premiere of the remake of Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess. After the movie, to appear at the Q&A (this is a school after all) afterwards are director Higuchi Shinji, special guest Anthony Daniels, and lead actor Matsumoto Jun.

Okay, I’ll be honest: Higuchi Shinji (Evangelion, Lorelei: the Witch of the Pacific Ocean, Sinking of Japan) is the bigger star of the show here, as is Anthony Daniels (Star Wars). But I’m an Arashi fan, and let me be glad that this is yet another step for Arashi (and Johnny’s Entertainment, and Japanese stars as a whole) to get into American entertainment.

I don’t understand the choice for the event too much, as I’m not familiar with films - why a premiere instead of just a showing? Why USC? Why this choice of guests? Subtitles? How is Anthony Daniels related to this at all? Is my guess that USC is filthy rich and thus can invite everyone and get a premiere just because they want to correct? - but this event should be interesting.

As I’m probably unable to hop on a plane down to LA that weekend (I am very sad about this), I haven’t looked up tickets and how to obtain them, but all information regarding the event is here for any interested parties.

The Secret in Arashi’s Pants

Remember hearing about Arashi’s new prime time variety show? The one that will focus on “social and cultural topics” that tokyograph made it sound all serious and stuff?

“Himitsu no Arashi chan” will start airing on TBS in April. They’ve held a press conference for the show. Now, I don’t know if they will be talking about social and cultural topics… but what I do know is, their promotional poster consisted of member’s secrets that you can get… by unzipping their pants.

Arashi’s surprising first week…

If there’s one thing we all know about Japan, it’s that Japan is insane and however integrated and educated of their pop culture we are or think we are, we’re still all dumb gaijin and will never really know what they like nowadays.

Seriously.

Sure, we know that Johnny’s fangirls have cash to burn, Koda Kumi albums will always top the charts, KinKi Kids will get #1 on Oricon. These are expected. If anything changes (KinKi’s record of number 1 singles finally stops, people actually really start to dislike Koda Kumi’s music) it’d be shocking.

But did anyone anticipate that a temporary duo formed for a school drama with two Johnny’s idols that integrated Spanish into cheesy lyrics (Shuji to Akira’s “Seishun Amigo”) would become one of the country’s top singles, two years in a row? Would you have bet good money that, after years of the top yearly single being pop artists like SMAP, KAT-TUN, Hirai Ken, and Ayumi Hamasaki, that 2007’s top selling single (”Sen no Kaze ni Natte”) would be classical, from a tenor?

Arashi - Step and Go

“Step and Go” is a new release from Arashi to be released 2/20. Its B-side was the song for C-1000 Lemon Water, of which Arashi advertises.

My first thought when this started playing was “oh my god, it’s so retro.” And by retro, I mean both sounding 80’s inspired and Arashi-retro - it reminds me of some of their earlier discography, although I can’t put my finger on a specific song it resembles.

Johnny’s 2008 Calendars

Johnny’s Entertainment 2008 school calendars (April 09 - March 09) for most of its groups will be released in early March. The calendars all differ in type from year to year, group to group. And, granted, they’re not as much calendars as photos in formats that happen to have dates stamped somewhere that are expensive and come with some extra goodies, so I thought I’d give an overview.

Oh yeah, for your reference, here’s the paper sizes.

Arashi is releasing theirs in A5 size - not that big, but what makes their’s the most interesting is that their extra is a cookbook. And after all those Arashi variety shows where they make and eat foods, a cookbook does seem fitting, not to mention extremely intruiging.

Ohno Satoshi Art Exhibit

Arashi leader Ohno Satoshi was always known as being an artist in his spare time, but now you’ll be able to see his works because he is holding a personal exhibition. From February 21st, the showcase will last nine days in Tokyo.

This isn’t the first time a Johnny’s artist has reached out to other activities, but definitely is the first time one has held an exhibition. Since this is the guy who is one half of hilariously random comedy duo Ohmiya SK, has a transvestite alter-ego Sammi, and is known for his absentmindedness and self-deprecation, it’ll be nice to see if his art is as random and unique as his self.

Johnny’s Entertainment Shows No Signs of Slowing

After a massively successful 2006 (releasing the #1, 3, and 4 singles of the year), an almost equally successful 2007 (releasing half of the yearly top ten singles), and a penchant for releasing something from one of its groups almost weekly and seeing them shoot straight to the top of the Oricon chart, you’d expect Johnny’s Entertainment to slow down on its hectic releases.

Or, not. Maybe they really do want to take over the world with their flashy costumes and Swedish-written pop.

Already less than two weeks into the new year, NEWS has already made headlines by holding shows in Tokyo Dome due to popular demand on a weekday, the first in Johnny’s to do so.