NEWS

ARASHI

2011/01/1

Arashi is a popular Japanese idol group consisting of five members formed under the Japanese talent agency Johnny & Associates. The group was officially formed on September 15, 1999 in Honolulu, Hawaii and made their CD debut on November 3, 1999. The group was initially signed to Pony Canyon and released one studio album and six singles—beginning with their 1999 eponymous debut single—before moving to the Johnny’s subsidiary label J Storm in 2001, which was initially set up for their succeeding releases. [1] While their debut single debuted atop the Oricon weekly chart selling a little over half a million copies, the group subsequently faced slowly declining sales.
With the release of their eighteenth single “Love So Sweet”, Arashi began gaining commercial success as “Love So Sweet” was used as the opening theme song for the high-rating drama Hana Yori Dango 2,[2] making it one of the top five best-selling singles of 2007 in Japan and the group’s first single to exceed 400,000 copies sold overall in nearly seven years.[3] For the next two years, Arashi gained a number of achievements and records as they became the first artist to place the top two rankings on the Oricon singles yearly chart for two consecutive years with their singles “Truth/Kaze no Mukō e” and “One Love” in 2008 and “Believe/Kumorinochi, Kaisei” and “Ashita no Kioku/Crazy Moon (Kimi wa Muteki)” in 2009,[4] simultaneously topped the 2009 Oricon singles, album and music DVD yearly charts, and became the third artist in Oricon history to monopolize the top three best-selling singles of the year.
Official Website: http://www.johnnys-net.jp/j/artists/arashi/
Johnny’s & Associates. Official Website: http://www.johnnys-net.jp/


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