Kenshi Yonezu’s “M87” rises a notch to No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, released May 18, after debuting at No. 2 last week.
The theme of the movie Shin Ultraman ruled downloads and look-ups this week, and also excelled in physical sales (No. 2), streaming (No. 4), radio airplay (No. 2), video views (No. 3), and Twitter mentions (No. 6). The CD launched with 241,867 copies, about 80,000 more than the 31-year-old hitmakers previous single “Pale Blue” (161,252 first-week copies), showing significant synergy between the blockbuster film it’s featured in.
BE:FIRST’s “Bye-Good-Bye” returns to the top 10, soaring 41-2 on this week’s chart. The former No. 1 single remained in the top 100 for 11 weeks since topping the chart released on March 16, and returns to the upper ranks powered by sales and look-ups following the released of the CD version (162,492 copies).
While “Bye-Good-Bye” was the most-streamed track this week with 9,997,340 weekly streams, it’s listed at No. 3 for the metric of the Japan Hot 100’s methodology. The track falls under a new rule that sets a separate coefficient to tracks whose stream counts on a particular platform deviate significantly from the average balance of the overall market due to measures promoted by said streaming service. As a result, beginning from the chart released May 11, the ranking of the streaming metric for the Japan Hot 100 may differ from the ranking on Billboard Japan’s Streaming Songs tally.
AKB48’s 59th single called “Motokare desu” (He’s my ex) sold 418,710 copies to top sales this week, bowing at No. 3 on the Japan Hot 100 after coming in at No. 7 for look-ups, No. 9 for Twitter, No. 18 for radio, and No. 52 for downloads. Sales are down by about 10,000 copies compared to the girl group’s previous single, “Ne mo Ha mo Rumor.”
The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, Twitter mentions, YouTube and GYAO! video views, Gracenote look-ups and karaoke data.
For the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from May 16 to 22, click here.
