SMAP’s 41st single, “Dangan Fighter,” sold 110,000 copies this past week to rank #1 on the sales charts. This is their 8th consecutive chart-topping single.

Far behind SMAP, the “Kamen Rider Den-O” theme song “Climax Jump DEN-LINER form” made #2 with 66,000 copies, coming close to doubling TVXQ’s “Together” (#3) and more than tripling Kazuya Yoshii’s “Bakka” (#4). Rina Aiuchi also entered the top ten, ranking at #8.

On the albums chart, Kobukuro’s “5296″ (391,000 copies) won a close race against BUMP OF CHICKEN’s “orbital period” (381,000 copies). The former is Kobukuro’s 3rd consecutive #1 album, while the latter is BUMP’s 3rd consecutive Top 10 album.

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Popularity: 6% [?]

Lots of celebrities in Japan have their own blogs. Oricon tapped public opinion to see which celebrity bloggers gained in popularity this year, and found that otaku idol Shoko Nakagawa was ranked #1 across all age groups. Similarly, Chinatsu Wakatsuki was ranked second by all groups.

Other popular bloggers this year were comedian Lou Oshiba, actress Saeko, boxer Shinji Takehara, comedian Hiroshi Shinagawa, actress Rie Tomosaka, talento Kaori Manabe, actor Yusuke Kamiji, and pop star BoA.

The survey was conducted in early November, before idol Yui Aragaki launched her blog, which quickly secured a spot near the top of the Ameblo rankings.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Video Research Ltd. has published a top 10 list of the highest-rated television dramas this year. The list includes both tanpatsu and renzoku dramas, though only the top episode counted for the latter.

#1 was the final episode of “Karei Naru Ichizoku” (30.4%), which starred Takuya Kimura and other popular celebrities. TBS ran the show during the winter, the same season it aired “Hana Yori Dango 2,” which ranked #2 with its finale (27.6%). NTV also had a hit that season with “Haken no Hinkaku,” whose closer was third on the list at 26.0%.

“Dondo Bare” was #4 (24.8%), slightly ahead of the “Galileo” opener (24.7%). #6 was the first part of the Seicho Matsumoto adaptation “Ten to Sen” that marked Beat Takeshi’s return to TV drama.

In August, NTV aired “Kimi ga Kureta Natsu” as part of its “24 Hour Television” charity program, and the starring pair of Hideaki Takizawa and Kyoko Fukada brought in ratings of 23.3%.

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Popularity: 8% [?]

Singer/actor Ryu Si-won has topped a Japanese music album chart in the Asian category. Ryu’s fourth album “With You,” which was released in Japan in May, was found to have topped the music chart according to the largest music record chain HMV’s annual album sales rankings.

The singer’s agency, Rs Company, said the feat attests to Ryu’s success in Japan as a singer.

“With You” topped HMV’s album booking chart when it was just released, and took the second spot on the Oricon daily chart. In June, the singer successfully gave a concert at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.

Ryu is also popular as an actor in Japan. Since October this year he has been appearing on the TBS weekend drama “Woman Detective” opposite young Japanese star Yukie Nakama.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

A few theme songs for next season’s television dramas were recently announced.

Tatsuro Yamashita is providing “Zutto Issho Sa” for Fuji TV’s “Bara no nai Hanaya,” which stars Shingo Katori and Yuko Takeuchi. With a scheduled release date in early March, it will be his first single since 2005.

Actress Alisa Mizuki, on the other hand, will release her first single in five years. The song, called “ENGAGED,” will be used as the theme for the NTV series “Saito-san,” which she stars in. Recording for the song actually began two years ago, but it was constantly being rewritten. The single goes on sale February 6.

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Popularity: 8% [?]