Oshi-Katsu Chronicle 2018: Namie Amuro's Retirement and "Lemon," the Streaming Shift, Hanyu's Olympic Repeat

In 2018, streaming overtook downloads in Japan’s digital music market for the first time, marking a shift from purchasing and saving individual tracks to listening through flat-rate subscription playlists and viral hits.

At concert venues, fans across Japan sent off Namie Amuro on her final tour and her September 16 retirement, while movie theaters saw repeat-viewing phenomena around Toru Amuro in Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer, the indie sensation One Cut of the Dead, and Bohemian Rhapsody. The year also brought the debut of King & Prince, Hypnosis Mic, the launch of Nijisanji, and Yuzuru Hanyu’s second consecutive Olympic gold medal at Pyeongchang.

Streaming Overtakes Downloads in Music Sales

According to the Recording Industry Association of Japan, domestic music distribution sales in 2018 rose 13% year on year to ¥64.5 billion (roughly $430 million). Within that total, subscription and ad-supported streaming reached ¥34.9 billion (up 33%), overtaking single-track and album download sales of ¥25.6 billion for the first time. Announcement by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (in Japanese)

These figures compare formats within digital music distribution; streaming did not outsell the physical CD and music video market as a whole.

On November 14, Google’s music streaming service “YouTube Music” and paid membership plan “YouTube Premium” also launched in Japan, letting subscribers play music videos and official audio ad-free, keep playback running in the background with the screen closed, and download tracks for offline listening. YouTube’s guide at launch (in Japanese)

Namie Amuro Finishes Her Last Tour and Retires in September

Having announced her retirement the previous year, Namie Amuro launched her final tour namie amuro Final Tour 2018 Finally at Nagoya Dome on February 17. Drawing a record 750,000 fans for a female solo artist across 17 shows at Japan’s five major domes and roughly 800,000 across 23 shows including Asia, she concluded the tour at Tokyo Dome on June 3, and the concert DVD/Blu-ray released on August 29 became the first music video release in history to top one million copies (exceeding 1.7 million total). Record of the tour’s final show (in Japanese)

Immersive exhibitions titled “namie amuro Final Space” were also held in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Okinawa, before she gave her final live performance at a music festival in Ginowan, Okinawa on September 15 and retired on her 25th debut anniversary on September 16. Article on the Okinawa show (in Japanese)

Record of the final show’s songs and stage (in Japanese)

Pia Research Institute estimated that year’s domestic live entertainment market at ¥586.2 billion, up 13.8% from the previous year, propelled by Amuro’s dome tour along with major tours by 30th-anniversary B’z, 40th-anniversary Southern All Stars, Arashi, and Tohoshinki. Pia Research Institute’s final figures (in Japanese)

“Lemon” and “U.S.A.,” King & Prince’s Debut, and Hypnosis Mic

Kenshi Yonezu wrote “Lemon” as the theme song for the TBS Friday forensic drama Unnatural, starring Satomi Ishihara. Released digitally on February 12 and on CD on March 14, its lyrics mourning the loss of a loved one reached listeners across generations, surpassing 2.11 million combined CD and download sales by October before Yonezu gave his first-ever live television performance on New Year’s Eve from the Otsuka Museum of Art in his home prefecture of Tokushima on NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen. TBS’s theme song page (in Japanese) / Report on sales as of October (in Japanese)

In July, an exhibition displayed costumes and props from the drama alongside character illustrations drawn by Yonezu. TBS’s exhibition guide (in Japanese)

On June 6, DA PUMP released “U.S.A.,” their first single in nearly four years. Its Eurobeat cover and one-legged thumbs-up “Iine Dance” (“Like Dance”) sparked a “uncool-yet-cool” (dasa-kakkoii) revival, including the “All Japan Iine Dance Championship” in December. Avex’s announcement of the event (archived) (in Japanese)

Among idol groups, the six-member Johnny & Associates group King & Prince made its CD debut on May 23 with “Cinderella Girl,” the theme song of the drama Boys Over Flowers Season 2 (Hana Nochi Hare) co-starring Sho Hirano, selling 577,000 copies in its first week as fans adopted the name “Tiara.” Meanwhile, the 12-voice-actor character rap project Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle launched its first “Battle Season,” where fans voted for the Ikebukuro, Yokohama, Shibuya, and Shinjuku divisions using ballots enclosed in CDs, and at the 60th Japan Record Awards Nogizaka46 won their second consecutive Grand Prix with “Synchronicity.” Universal Music Japan (King & Prince) (in Japanese) / Hypnosis Mic official (in Japanese) / Japan Composers Association’s record of the awards (in Japanese)

Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer, One Cut of the Dead, and Bohemian Rhapsody

In cinemas, repeat viewings and word-of-mouth hits defined the year. Opened on April 13, Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer centered on the “triple-face” character Toru Amuro (Public Security officer Rei Furuya / Black Organization member Bourbon) and grossed ¥9.18 billion; fans who returned to theaters again and again to “be enforced” and push his box-office total past ¥10 billion were dubbed “Amuro’s women” (Amuro no onna), selling out issues of Weekly Shonen Sunday and his spin-off manga Zero’s Tea Time. Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (in Japanese)

On June 23, director Shinichiro Ueda’s ¥3 million indie zombie comedy One Cut of the Dead (Kamera wo Tomeru na!), featuring an opening 37-minute single take and a second-half behind-the-scenes payoff, opened at just two small Tokyo theaters before word of mouth on social media expanded it to over 350 cinemas nationwide and ¥3.12 billion at the box office, while Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku) won the Palme d’Or at the 71st Cannes Film Festival and grossed ¥4.55 billion.

Then on November 9, the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody opened, drawing longtime rock fans and young viewers alike to “cheer screenings” where audiences clapped and sang along during the 20-minute Live Aid recreation and ranking first among films released in Japan in 2018, with ¥13.10 billion in the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan’s updated figures. Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (in Japanese)

A Typhoon Cancels the Show, and X JAPAN Streams Live Without an Audience

From September 28 to 30, X JAPAN scheduled three days of arena concerts at Makuhari Messe, X JAPAN Live in Japan 2018 Kurenai ni Somatta Yoru Makuhari Messe 3Days. On the final day, September 30, the approach of Typhoon Trami (Typhoon No. 24) and planned train suspensions forced the cancellation of the in-person show for audience safety.

Immediately afterward, YOSHIKI and the band performed the entire full-scale concert before 33,000 empty seats, streaming the whole show live on Niconico Live’s “YOSHIKI CHANNEL” and WOWOW Members On Demand to more than one million viewers online. WOWOW’s record of the show (in Japanese)

It was a pioneering empty-arena live stream carried out two years before the COVID-19 pandemic made no-audience livestreams a staple across the music industry.

BTS’s Dome Tour of Japan, and PRODUCE 48, Where Japanese and Korean Contestants Compete

Having scored two consecutive #1 albums on the US Billboard 200, BTS launched their first four-dome tour of Japan, BTS WORLD TOUR ‘LOVE YOURSELF’ JAPAN EDITION, at Tokyo Dome on November 13 and 14, drawing 380,000 fans across nine shows at Tokyo Dome, Kyocera Dome Osaka, Nagoya Dome, and Fukuoka Yahuoku! Dome through February 2019. BTS official tour schedule

From June 15 to August 31 of the same year, the joint Japan-Korea audition program PRODUCE 48—featuring 39 members of Japan’s AKB48 Group and 57 trainees from Korean agencies—aired simultaneously on Mnet in Korea and BS SKY PerfecTV! in Japan. AKB48’s broadcast guide (in Japanese)

The finale produced the 12-member global girl group IZ*ONE, including HKT48’s Sakura Miyawaki and Nako Yabuki and AKB48’s Hitomi Honda from Japan, though viewer voting (“National Producer” voting) was open only from within Korea. Official announcement of the debut members (in Japanese) / Report on the voting method at the time (in Japanese)

Nijisanji Launches, and New Characters Appear in Anime Too

On February 8, Ichikara Inc. (now ANYCOLOR Inc.) launched the first wave of eight official virtual livers of “Nijisanji” (including Mito Tsukino, Kaede Higuchi, and Rin Shizuka), combining the iPhone X’s face-tracking camera with 2D Live2D avatars. Whereas earlier 3D VTubers had mainly posted edited short videos, Nijisanji established a live-streaming culture of long daily talk and gaming streams built on real-time banter with viewer comments. Operating company’s announcement that day (in Japanese)

On December 6, Cover Corp. announced the launch of “hololive Gamers,” a unit within the female VTuber group hololive centered on game streaming, pairing first-generation member Fubuki Shirakami with newcomer Mio Ookami (later joined by Okayu Nekomata and Korone Inugami). Announcement by Cover (in Japanese)

In TV anime, Season 1 of Umamusume: Pretty Derby aired from April, portraying girls inspired by real thoroughbred racehorses like Special Week and Silence Suzuka Ahead of the 2021 smartphone game launch, and in October the original anime Zombie Land Saga sent fans on pilgrimages to Saga Prefecture to visit landmarks featured in the zombie idol group Franchouchou’s story. Announcement of the anime’s start (in Japanese) / Season 1 official site (in Japanese)

Yuzuru Hanyu’s Olympic Repeat, and Words That Got People Talking During Competition

At the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics from February 9 to 25, Yuzuru Hanyu—returning directly from a right-ankle ligament injury suffered the previous November—skated his free program “SEIMEI” to win his second consecutive Olympic gold medal in men’s figure skating, the first repeat in 66 years since Dick Button, while teammate Shoma Uno won silver to complete a historic one-two finish and fans rained Winnie-the-Pooh plush toys onto the Gangneung Ice Arena rink, alongside gold medals in women’s speed skating by Nao Kodaira (500m Olympic record) and Nana Takagi (team pursuit and the inaugural mass start). Results from the Japanese Olympic Committee (in Japanese)

In women’s curling, Japan’s Loco Solare (LS Kitami) from Kitami, Hokkaido—skip Satsuki Fujisawa, Chinami Yoshida, Yumi Suzuki, Yurika Yoshida, and Mari Motohashi—won the country’s first Olympic curling medal with bronze, endearing themselves to viewers nationwide with their cheerful Hokkaido-dialect strategy exchanges of “Sodane~” (“That’s right, isn’t it?”) and half-time fruit-and-sweet snack breaks dubbed “Mogu-mogu time” (which caused Tokachi confectionery “Akai Silo” cheesecake to sell out across Japan).

In Major League Baseball, Shohei Ohtani joined the Los Angeles Angels from the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and dazzled baseball fans in both countries as a genuine two-way player with four pitching wins and 22 home runs, earning the American League Rookie of the Year award in November. Report on the award (in Japanese)

Key Events of the Year

The Year’s Words and Buzzword Awards

The grand prize went to women’s curling phrase “Sodane~,” while the top ten included “esports,” the FIFA World Cup Russia soccer catchphrase “(Osako) Hanpanaitte” praising striker Yuya Osako, and the TV Asahi Saturday late-night drama Ossan’s Love starring Kei Tanaka, Kotaro Yoshida, and Kento Hayashi, whose pure romantic-comedy triangle trended #1 worldwide on Twitter and drew massive crowds to official exhibitions and filming locations. 2018’s award-winning words (in Japanese)

In 2019, the era name changes from Heisei to Reiwa, Arashi announces a hiatus and opens social media accounts, and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and the Rugby World Cup in Japan captivate the country. On to Oshi-Katsu Chronicle 2019.