The popularity of five-man pop group SMAP shows no sign of abating. After recently kicking off their first national tour in two years, their new single and album releases both entered the Oricon charts at No.1, a first for the group (fellow Johnny’s Jimusho artists Kinki Kids did it for the second time in January, and Hamasaki Ayumi (26) has also pulled it off twice). The single, “Bang! Bang! Vacance!” is their 37th consecutive Top 10 entry, puting them in joint first place with The Alfee. The album, “Sample Bang!” is their first in two years and is a 3-CD set that includes a disc of solo releases and another of remixed hits in addition to the new material. The tour kicked off at the Sapporo Dome on July 30 and will continue across the country until Septemebr 29. By that time, they’ll have played 21 shows for over a million fans.
• And SMAP’s popularity has rubbed off on a previously unknown group. Moldovan pop unit O-Zone’s annoyingly infectious song “Doragostea Din Tei” has featured for several weeks in a segment of the “SMAPxSMAP” show on Fuji TV. Sung in Romanian, the Europop song has made No.5 in the Oricon singles chart and spawned its own “Japanese” soundalike lyrics (with the Japanese subtitle of “Koi no Myahii”) and an animation featuring a partying cat.
• Rock band Mr. Children will release “I Love You,” their first new album in a year, on September 21 and back it up with the first 5-dome tour. They will play domes in Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo and Nagoya before finishing up at Fukuoka Yahoo! Dome on Christmas Eve. They are just the fourth band to play the five domes, following (of course) SMAP, B’z, and Southern All Stars. Vocalist Sakurai Kazutoshi (35) took an extended break from the group following a brain haemorrhage in the summer of 2002, and a planned tour was cancelled. But last summer, the band played their first national tour in three years. And Sakurai played 12 hours on stage over a recent 3-day festival event, so his health doesn’t seem to be a concern anymore.