J-pop boy band Kis-My-Ft2’s “ENDLESS SUMMER” debuts at No. 1 on this week’s Billboard Japan Hot 100, dated Sept. 14 to 20, selling 180,763 copies in its first week. The septet’s 26th single leads physical sales and look-ups, while also performing well in Twitter mentions (No. 3) and radio airplay (No. 27).
Arashi’s new single “Whenever You Call” — an all-English R&B ballad produced by Bruno Mars — dropped digitally last Friday (Sept. 18), and the highly anticipated track racked up 58,989 downloads in just three days to blast in at No. 1 for the metric this week. The song also buzzed on Twitter (No. 1) and fared well in video views (No. 9), bowing at No. 6 on the Japan Hot 100.
This week sees two other acts besides the two Johnny’s boy bands debuting in the top 10, which is rare. At No. 9 this week is Perfume’s “Time Warp,” leading radio airplay and collecting points in a balanced way in other metrics as well: No. 2 for sales, No. 4 for look-ups, No, 7 for Twitter and No. 18 for downloads. The other song is veteran pop-rock band Mr. Children’s “turn over?,” which fared well in downloads (No. 2) and radio (No. 6). Both songs, plus Arashi’s “Whenever You Call,” have room for improvement in streaming, so depending on how they improve in this metric through media exposure will affect the songs’ chart performance in the coming weeks.
BTS’s “Dynamite” overtakes YOASOBI’s “Yoru ni kakeru” this week in streaming with 10,318,739 streams over the latter’s 9,735,951, taking the top spot for the metric again after two weeks. Meanwhile, the J-pop duo’s “Yoru ni kakeru” tops video views, continuing to maintain over 2 million more weekly views than the South Korean pop stars’ latest single. The close race between the two songs in these two metrics will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
