Japan’s Oricon has released the Top 100 Japanese albums/singles charts for 2008.
Pop band EXILE dominates the album chart with three albums in the Top 10, while the singles chart is ruled by the Johnny’s boybands, i.e. Arashi and KAT-TUN etc.
Pop group TVXQ is the only Korean artist(s) that made it into the singles chart, with “Beautiful You” at 73rd spot… known as Tohoshinki in Japan, the K-pop group has another two singles at 78th and 91st spots respectively.
Top 10 best selling Japanese albums of 2008
1. EXILE Love (EXILE)
2. Best Fiction (Namie Amuro)
3. 5296 (Kobukuro)
4. EXILE Catchy Best (EXILE)
5. Heart Station (Utada Hikaru)
6. EXILE Ballad Best (EXILE)
7. B’z The Best “Ultra Pleasure” (B’z)
8. A Complete: All Singles (Ayumi Hamasaki)
9. And I Love You (Dreams Come True)
10. A, Domo. Ohisashiburi Desu (GReeeeN)
Top 10 best selling Japanese singles of 2008
1. Truth (Arashi)
2. One Love (Arashi)
3. I Am Your Singer (Southern All Star)
4. Kiseki (GReeeeN)
5. Shuchishin (Shuchishin)
6. Hanabi (Mr. Children)
7. Soba ni Iru ne (Thelma Aoyama ft Soulja)
8. Don’t U Ever Stop (KAT-TUN)
9. Lips (KAT-TUN)
10. Beautiful Days (Arashi)
Utada Hikaru tops Japanese magazine Oricon Style’s annual Favourite Artist Chart for the second year in a row. A total of 20758 votes were cast by the magazine subscribers for the 2008 poll.
The top 20 Oricon favourite artists in 2008 are…
1. Utada Hikaru 2. Kobukuro 3. aiko 4. Mr Children 5. Dreams Come True 6. Southern All Stars 7. Namie Amuro 8. B’z 9. Spitz 10. Arashi 11. Masaharu Fukuyama 12. Kou Shibasaki 13. EXILE 14. Porno Graffiti 15. Ayaka 16. YUI 17. Ken Hirai 18. YUKI 19. Kuwata Keisuke 20. Yuzu
Kindly note that artists in Japanese terms often refers to musicians but not actors.
Japan’s Count-Down-TV [Jp] has concluded their annual poll for “the most wanted artist as girlfriend/boyfriend” in 2008… with YUI and Jin Akanishi topping the girlfriend and boyfriend category respectively.
Top 20 Japan’s most wanted girlfriend 2008
1. YUI 2. Kaori Mochida 3. Ayumi Hamasaki 4. Ai Otsuka 5. aiko 6. Ai Takahashi 7. Ai Kawashima 8. Kiyoe Yoshioka 9. Maimi Yajima 10. Yui Aragaki 11. Nocchi 12. Namie Amuro 13. Ayaka 14. Kaela Kimura 15. Kumi Koda 16. Misako Uno 17. Hiroko 18. BoA 19. Mai Kuraki 20. Reina Tanaka
Top 20 Japan’s most wanted boyfriend 2008
1. Jin Akanishi 2. Kazuya Kamenashi 3. Hyde 4. Jun Matsumoto 5. Tomohisa Yamashita 6. Takahiro 7. Takahisa Masuda 8. Jaejoong 9. TAKUYA∞ 10. Sho Sakurai 11. Koichi Domoto 12. Akihito Okano 13. Kentaro Kobuchi 14. Ryo Nishikido 15. Yusuke Kamiji 16. Yuya Tegoshi 17. Masaki Aiba 18. Haruichi Shindou 19. Teppei Koike 20. DAIGO
It seems like only singers are being short-listed for this poll. Korean stars BoA and Jaejoong (from TVXQ) are the only two non-Japanese celebs that made the list.
[Update] The video was taken down unfortunately.
