BE:FIRST rules the latest Billboard Japan Hot 100 with “Bye-Good-Bye,” dominating every metric the song charted in this week.
On the chart dated March 16, tallying the week ending Mar. 13, the theme of the morning short-drama series Fantastic 31 Days racked up 13,547,052 streams in its first week, a record high for the group and also the record for most streams in a week so far this year.
“Bye-Good-Bye” also topped downloads, Twitter mentions, video views, and radio airplay and towers over the other contenders on the Japan Hot 100 this week. The CD version of this single is due May 18, so how the audition-born, seven-member boy band with an active, loyal following keeps this momentum going until then is worthy of note.
SKE48’s “Kokoro ni Flower” debuts at No. 3 on the Japan Hot 100. The girl group’s 29th single, its first in about six months, sold 274,744 copies in its first week to rule physical sales. The track didn’t perform as well as expected in the other metrics — No. 18 for look-ups, No. 15 for Twitter, No. 93 for radio — and falls short of a No. 1 debut, but the figures for sales increased by about 40,000 copies compared to the group’s previous single (“Ano koro no kimi wo mitsuketa,” 234,600 first-week sales), an accomplishment in itself considering the general decline in the CD market this year.
J-pop band Remioromen’s “Sangatsu kokonoka” (“March 9”), a classic graduation-related number from 2005 that climbs the chart every year around this time, is back again at No. 19 on this week’s tally — better than last year’s peak at No. 33. This week it comes in at No. 8 for radio, No. 12 for downloads, No. 51 for streaming, No. 19 for Twitter, No. 14 for video, and No. 12 for karaoke, proving its timeless popularity. Though the type of data used back then differed from today, this song re-entered the top 10 in the early 2010s every year, so while the more recent resurgence isn’t quite on par with the momentum of those years, the chart action can still can be said to be representative of a seasonal favorite.
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 March 7 to 13, click here.