YOASOBI’s ‘Idol’ Holds at No. 1, Spitz Returns to No. 2 on Japan Hot 100

YOASOBI’s “Idol” continues to cruise along at No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, dated May 17, extending its stay atop the chart to five consecutive weeks.

It appears there’s no stopping the breakout duo’s latest single. “Idol” is still gaining momentum, with streaming holding at No. 1 for the fifth consecutive week with 25,860,696 weekly streams, up 1.7 percent from the previous week. The track also dominates downloads and video views though the actual figures have declined slightly — the Oshi no Ko opener logs its second week at No. 1 for the former and fifth for the latter, both consecutively. “Idol” also rises 3-2 for karaoke, up 1.4 percent from the previous week.

“Idol” also continues to hold at No. 1 for the third week in a row on the Top User Generated Songs ranking, which tracks the increase in views of videos posted by fans who either sing or dance to a particular song. “Idol” racked up 4,055,093 weekly views, rising 10.5 percent from last week. 

Spitz’s “Utsukushii Hiré” (“Beautiful Fin”) returns to No. 2 on the Japan Hot 100, this time powered by streaming. The theme of the latest Case Closed (Detective Conan) movie Kurogané no Submarine racked up 9,935,557 streams, up 2.5 percent from the previous week and steadily drawing closer to 10 million weekly streams. The veteran four-man pop-rock band will drop its highly anticipated new album Himitsu Studio this week — its first in three and a half years — so the single is expected to stay near the top of the charts for a while.

Kanjani Eight’s new single “Mikansei” (“Unfinished”) debuts at No. 3 on the Japan Hot 100 this week, launching with 218,459 copies. The theme of the drama series starring member Yu Yokoyama, Kotaro Lives Alone Season 2, is the No. 1 song for sales this week, but couldn’t support the lead with other metrics. Nevertheless, the single sold more copies in its first week than the boy band’s previous release, “Kassai” (153,672 copies), indicating the veteran five-man Johnny’s group’s lasting popularity.

“Mikansei” Music Video

The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data.

See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from May 8 to 14, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English Twitter account

Katie Atkinson

Billboard