嵐

嵐 (Arashi), which means "storm" in Japanese, debuted in 1999 as part of Johnny's Entertainment. They debuted in Hawaii, US under the label Pony Canyon, but soon switched to JStorm, which is a label created especially for them. They consist of 5 boys whose musical style covers a wide range, which includes pop, hip-hop and influences of rock. Arashi's members are: 相葉雅紀 (Aiba Masaki) 松本潤 (Matsumoto Jun) 二宮和也 (Ninomiya Kazunari) 大野智 (Ohno Satoshi) 櫻井翔 (Sakurai Sho) Over the years the members have grown in popularity - both individually and as a group, leaving behind a string of successful TV shows, dramas and stageplays as well as their music. In 2008, they had a extremely successful year with the group achieving the Top 2 spots on the Oricon Yearly charts with truth/Kaze no Mukou e and One Love. Apart from that, they were the 3rd artist from Johnny's to hold concerts at 5 major domes in Japan and also, the 3rd artist to perform at the National Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. On December 18, 2009, Oricon announced that Arashi topped the annual singles, albums and music DVD rankings for 2009 in Japan. All of the group's 2009 singles ranked within the top five placings on the Oricon singles charts: Believe/Kumorinochi, Kaisei at number one, Ashita no Kioku/Crazy Moon: Kimi wa Muteki at number two, My Girl at number three and Everything at number five. With monopolization of the top three spots on the singles chart, Arashi became the first artist in twenty-one years and the third artist in history - after Pink Lady in 1978 and Hikaru Genji in 1988 - to do so. Furthermore, the group became the first artist in history to monopolize the top two spots on the singles charts for two consecutive years and to have four releases in the top five. Their compilation album, "All the Best! 1999-2009", became the best-selling album of 2009 in Japan by selling over 1.43 million copies, making it the first time the group has topped annual album charts. As for their music video collection DVD - 5x10 All the Best! Clips 1999-2009 and live concert DVD - Arashi Around Asia 2008 in Tokyo, both claimed the number one and two spots on the annual music DVD charts respectively, making it the first time they have also topped annual music DVD charts. Due to their high sales for 2009, Oricon declared Arashi the best-selling artist of the year and awarded them the "Artist Top Sales" (ATS) award with 14.46 billion Japanese yen (approx. US$161.25792 million) worth of total sales in the singles, album, music DVD and music Blu-ray categories. As a result of having dominated three separate charts and emerge as the best-selling artist of the year, the group became the first artist in the forty-two years of Oricon's history to have such a record in the same year.