Music

1) Enka (Japanese traditional songs)

Enka (演歌) is a popular Japanese music genre considered to resemble traditional Japanese music stylistically. Modern enka, however, is a relatively recent musical form which arose in the context of such postwar expressions of modern Japanese nonmaterial nationalism as nihonjinron, while adopting a more traditional musical style in its vocalism than ryūkōka music, popular during the prewar years.

Modern enka, as developed in the postwar era, is a form of sentimental ballad music. Some of the first modern enka singers were Hachiro Kasuga, Michiya Mihashi, and Hideo Murata. The revival of enka in its modern form is said to date from 1969, when Keiko Fuji made her debut.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)

2) Kyu Sakamoto

Kyu Sakamoto (坂本 九 Sakamoto Kyū, born Hisashi Oshima (大島 九 Ōshima Hisashi), 10 December 1941 – 12 August 1985) was a Japanese singer and actor, best known outside of Japan for his international hit song "Sukiyaki", which was sung in Japanese and sold over 13 million copies. It reached number one in the United States Billboard Hot 100 in June 1963.

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3) Hibari Misora

Hibari Misora (美空 ひばり Misora Hibari, May 29, 1937 – June 24, 1989) was an award-winning Japanese enka singer and actress. and was the first woman in Japan to receive the People's Honour Award, which was awarded posthumously for her notable contributions to the music industry. Misora recorded 1,200 songs, and sold 68 million records. After she died, consumer demand for her recordings grew significantly, and by 2001 she had sold more than 80 million records. Her swan-song "Kawa no Nagare no Yō ni" (川の流れのように) is often performed by numerous artists and orchestras as a tribute to her, including notable renditions by The Three Tenors (Spanish/Italian), Teresa Teng (Taiwan), and Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan (Mexico).

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4) Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一 Sakamoto Ryūichi?, born January 17, 1952) is a Japanese musician, composer, record producer, writer, singer, pianist, and actor, based in Tokyo and New York. He began his career in 1978 as a member of the pioneering electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), where he played the keyboards and occasionally sang the vocals. The band was an international success, with worldwide hits such as "Computer Game / Firecracker" (1978) and "Behind the Mask" (1978), the latter written and sung by Sakamoto. At around the same time, he began pursuing a solo career in pop music, debuting with an experimental electronic fusion album The Thousand Knives of Ryūichi Sakamoto (1978), and later released the pioneering electro music album B-2 Unit (1980), which included the electro classic "Riot in Lagos".After YMO disbanded in 1983, he produced more hit solo records, including collaborations with various international artists, through to the 1990s.

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5) Joe Hisaishi

Mamoru Fujisawa (藤澤 守 Fujisawa Mamoru?), known professionally as Joe Hisaishi (久石 譲 Hisaishi Jō, born December 6, 1950), is a composer and director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981.

While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic, European classical, and Japanese classical. Lesser known are the other musical roles he plays; he is also a typesetter, author, arranger, and head of an orchestra.

He is best known for his work with animator Hayao Miyazaki, having composed scores for many of his films including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Porco Rosso (1992), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008). He is also recognized for the soundtracks he has provided for filmmaker 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Dolls (2002), Kikujiro (1999), Hana-bi (1997), Kids Return (1996), Ocean Heaven (2010) and Sonatine (1993).

(Quoted from Wikipedia)

6) Utada Hikaru

Hikaru Utada (宇多田 ヒカル Utada Hikaru, born January 19, 1983), known by her stage name Utada (English /uːˈtɑːdə/) in America and Europe, is a Japanese-American singer, song writer, arranger, and producer. Since the release of her Japanese debut album First Love, which went on to become the best-selling album in Oricon history, Utada has had three of her Japanese studio albums in the list of Top 10 best-selling albums ever in Japan (number 1, 4, 8) and six of her albums (including one English-language and one compilation) charting within the 275 Best-Selling Japanese albums list. Utada has had twelve number-one singles on the Oricon Singles chart, with two notable record achievements for a female solo or group artist: five million-sellers and four in the Top 100 All-Time Best-selling Singles. Utada has an estimated more than 52 million records sold worldwide.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)

7) X Japan

X Japan (エックス ジャパン Ekkusu Japan) is a Japanese heavy metal band founded in 1982 by Yoshiki and Toshi. Originally named X (エックス), the group achieved their breakthrough success in 1989 with the release of their second album Blue Blood. They started out mainly as a power/speed metal band, but later gravitated towards a progressive sound with an emphasis on ballads.

Besides being one of the first Japanese acts to achieve mainstream success while on an independent label, the group is widely credited as one of the pioneers of the visual kei movement. They were known in their early years for their excessively large hairstyles, but toned these down in later years. In 2003, HMV Japan ranked the band at number 40 on their list of the 100 most important Japanese pop acts.

After sixteen years, four albums, and selling out the 55,000 seat Tokyo Dome 18 times, X Japan disbanded in 1997. However, in 2007, the band reunited and recorded a new song. After performing several concerts from 2008 to 2009, including their first overseas show in Hong Kong, the band held their first North American tour from September 25 to October 10, 2010. In 2011, X Japan went on their first world tour throughout Europe, South America and Asia. They also plan to release their first studio album in more than 14 years in 2011.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)

8) SMAP

SMAP is a Japanese boy band formed by Johnny & Associates. While originally consisting of six members, the current group members are Masahiro Nakai, Takuya Kimura, Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, and Shingo Katori. The group's name is an acronym standing for Sports Music Assemble People.

SMAP debuted their first CD in 1991 and has since released over forty singles and twenty albums. Approximately half the singles and a third of the albums reached the top of the Japanese Oricon music charts. In recent times, the interval between the band's single CD releases has become longer, and are now released approximately once a year.

The members of SMAP have also pursued careers outside of music, including involvement in television variety shows, dramas, commercials, and movies, making them one of the most popular Johnny's groups. Largely due to their popularity, Johnny & Associates became the most successful agency in Japan, with earnings of almost three billion Japanese yen in 1995. Their fanbase consists primarily of Japanese women.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)

9) Arashi

Arashi (嵐, literally Storm) is a popular Japanese boy band consists of five members formed under the Japanese talent agency Johnny & Associates, which announced the formation of the group on November 3, 1999 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The group was initially signed to Pony Canyon and released one studio album and six singles—beginning with their 1999 eponymous debut single—before moving to the Johnny's subsidiary label J Storm in 2001, which was initially set up for their succeeding releases. While their debut single debuted atop the Oricon weekly chart selling a little over half a million copies, the group subsequently faced slowly declining sales.

With the release of their eighteenth single "Love So Sweet", Arashi began gaining commercial success as "Love So Sweet" was used as the opening theme song for the high-rating drama Hana Yori Dango 2, making it one of the top five best-selling singles of 2007 in Japan and the group's first single to exceed 400,000 copies sold overall in nearly seven years. For the next two years, Arashi gained a number of achievements and records as they became the first artist to place the top two rankings on the Oricon singles yearly chart for two consecutive years with their singles "Truth/Kaze no Mukō e" and "One Love" in 2008 and "Believe/Kumorinochi, Kaisei" and "Ashita no Kioku/Crazy Moon (Kimi wa Muteki)" in 2009, simultaneously topped the 2009 Oricon singles, album and music DVD yearly charts, and became the third artist in Oricon history to monopolize the top three best-selling singles of the year. In 2010, all six of Arashi's singles ranked within the top ten of the Oricon singles yearly chart, and their million-selling studio album Boku no Miteiru Fūkei was named the best-selling album of the year in Japan.

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10) AKB48

AKB48 is a Japanese female idol group produced by Yasushi Akimoto.

The group has achieved enormous popularity in Japan. Its ten latest consecutive singles topped the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart. "Beginner" and "Heavy Rotation" placed, respectively, 1st and 2nd in the list of Japan's best selling singles for the year 2010, while "Everyday, Kachūsha", "Sakura no Ki ni Narō", and "Flying Get" lead the 2011 rankings so far. The group has sold over ten million records.

AKB48 is named after Akihabara (Akiba for short), the area in Tokyo where, on the 8th floor of a Don Quijote store, the band's own theater is located. Akimoto's idea, later advertised as "idols you can meet", was to create a theater-based idol group whose fans could see the girls live daily. AKB48 still performs at the theater every day, although, due to great demand, tickets are now distributed only via a lottery.

AKB48 holds the Guinness World Record for being the world's "largest pop group". Currently, it consists of four teams: Team A, Team K, and Team B with 16 members each and Team 4 with 11 members, summing up to a total of 59 members as of September 2, 2011. Additionally, there are a number of aspiring members, who are called "kenkyūsei" ("trainees"). Each team produces a new own concert show each theatrical season.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)

11) Perfume

Perfume is a Japanese all-girl trio from Hiroshima, Japan, consisting of Ayano Ōmoto, Yuka Kashino, and Ayaka Nishiwaki. They debuted locally in 2001 and made their transition to a major label in 2005, focusing more on electropop. As of April 2011, the group has released twelve major label singles.

Since 2003, Perfume has been produced by Yasutaka Nakata, founder of the group Capsule and the Contemode label. The group's original post-Shibuya-kei sound made a sharp transition to electronic, dance and pop music taking on Auto-Tune, vocoders and electro house upon their signing to a major label.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)

12) Onyanko Club

Onyanko Club (おニャン子クラブ Onyanko Kurabu, lit. "Kitten Club") was a large all-girl Japanese pop idol group in the 1980s. The group gave a new approach to the idol formula with its 52 official members and three unofficial members. Some members of the group participated in several subgroups such as Nyangilas, Ushirogami Hikaretai, and Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi, with the latter two groups providing most of the soundtrack to the popular 80s anime series High School! Kimengumi.

The group debuted on 1985-04-01 on their own Fuji TV variety show Yūyake Nyan Nyan with eleven high school girls selected from participants in the Fuji TV All Night High School Girl Special (オールナイトフジ女子高生スペシャル Ōru Naito Joshi Kōsei Supesharu) aired in February that same year. The group disbanded on 1987-09-09 with a final concert. There have been several reunion appearances, including one on a recent episode of Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ. Several big-name idols stemmed from the group, one of the best known being Shizuka Kudō.

(Quoted from Wikipedia)