JO1’s fourth single “Real” blasts in at No. 1 on the latest Billboard Japan Hot 100, dated Aug. 16 to 22, selling 368,948 copies in its first week. The 11-member boy band ruled physical sales and Twitter mentions, while also coming in at No. 2 for look-ups to top the Japan song chart this week.
The group also scored the highest first-week CD sales since their debut, with “Real” outselling all three previous releases including its first single “Protostar,” which launched with 344,299 copies sold — the best the band had done until now.
Bowing at No. 2 this week is the new boy band BE:FIRST’s “Shining One,” logging 30,459 first-week downloads to rule the metric. The seven members of the brand-new group was chosen through auditions organized by AAA member and solo rapper/singer-songwriter SKY-HI. “Shining One” also launched at No. 1 for video with 3,429,707 weekly views, while also performing well in streaming (No. 2, 8,875,584 streams) and Twitter (No. 3).
Back Number’s “Suiheisen” (“Horizon”) rises 14-4 this week, breaking into the top 10 for the first time. This song was written last year after the Inter-High School (Athletic) Championships were canceled for the first time due to the pandemic, and was released only on YouTube at midnight on Aug. 18, 2020, the day the opening ceremony was originally scheduled to take place.
The track was digitally released a year later on Aug. 13, racking up 16,453 downloads to come in at No. 2 for metric, 7,840,975 streams to come in at No. 5, and also fared well in radio airplay (No. 6), video (No. 21), and karaoke (No. 13).
When the video was released on YouTube last year, the song launched in the top 100 for video but fell out of the ranking after a few weeks, then returned in early October. Since then, it’s been charting in the top 100 for video for 46 weeks until now, while also charting in the top 100 for karaoke since mid-December (36 weeks). The song was already a long-running hit before it dropped digitally this year, and it’s no surprise that the highly-anticipated release has powered it to the upper ranks of the Japan Hot 100 at last.
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.
See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, dated Aug. 16 to 22, here.
