"sakanaction" chart performance and sales

sakanaction's self-titled 6th album has clinched the top spot on Oricon Weekly Charts for the first time since the band started! For the week of 11 March to 17 March, it has taken first place for album sales.

Congratulations to sakanaction! This is their best selling release to date, and also their highest ranking, breaking the record of 2011's DocumentaLy which got a 2nd place ranking. It's also a whopping increase of 78% in sales as compared to DocumentaLy, no doubt helped along by better exposure and more tie-ups this time round. Also, there wasn't very strong competition for the week.

By the way, single-wise, Aruku Around still remains their highest ranking single with a 3rd place ranking in weekly charts.

See below for the comparison charts.

[Feature] Digest of Power Push inteview on 6th album

sakanaction's frontman Yamaguchi Ichiro did an interview on their latest album, with the Natalie.mu website for their Power Push feature over here.

It's a total of 14,000 words which would be too crazy for me to translate, but there are some really interesting things you can pick up from the interview, so here I present a translated digest of points picked out from article.

sakanaction bags BEST ARTIST award at the MVA

The winners of the Space Shower Music Video Awards (MVA) were announced earlier today and once again, sakanaction took home an award for the third year running.

Unlike in 2011 and 2012 where they snagged the MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR award for Aruku Around and "Bach no Senritsu wo Yoru ni Kiita Sei desu." respectively, this year they were awarded BEST ARTIST.

The representative works for sakanaction were the music videos of Boku to Hana and Yoru no Odoriko.

The below is MVA's comment:

"Of the two works in 2012, Boku to Hana was by veteran Yamaguchi Yasuyuki, and Yoru no Odoriko was by Tanaka Yusuke who was involved in last year's winner of MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR, "Bach no Senritsu wo Yoru ni Kiita Sei desu." In addition to both of these works being highly accomplished, because they provided discussion by attempting to live telecast the state of shooting Boku to Hana's MV through Ustream, and are constantly working seriously in regards to visual expression, it was decided that we would present the prize of the most outstanding artist of the year to sakanaction."

And the following is vocalist Yamaguchi Ichiro's comment on winning:

"To give such an award to countryside people like us, really thank you so much. On top of that, we're honoured that it is the third consecutive year we are receiving an award. We would like to continue to work hard so as to not shame the name of 'BEST ARTIST'."

Source: Space Shower MVA Website

[Feature] Members' blog posts on 6th album

One more day left to the release of the new album! In commemoration and as well as in the hope that it will spur those still wavering over purchasing the album, I've translated a few blog posts of the members that talked a bit about the album.

This goes in chronological order.