嵐

Arashi (嵐, lit. Storm) is a Japanese boy band consisting of five members formed under the Johnny & Associates talent agency. The members are Ohno Satoshi, Sakurai Sho, Aiba Masaki, Ninomiya Kazunari, and Matsumoto Jun. Arashi officially formed on September 15, 1999, in Honolulu, Hawaii, and made their debut CD on November 3, 1999. 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 sold close to a million copies, the group took a mixture of pop and alternate/contemporary approach to its music which attracted core followers, but subsequently faced commercially slow sales. With the release of their eighteenth single "Love So Sweet", Arashi began to gain commercial success as it was used as the opening theme song for the high-rating drama Hana Yori Dango 2 whose protagonist is played by Matsumoto Jun, 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. As of September 2019, the group had sold over 54 million copies of albums, singles and videos and became the best selling boy band in Asia. Since then, Arashi has continued to release chart-topping singles and albums, perform in sold-out concert tours, host a number of variety shows, and remain an influential figure in Japanese media. On January 27, 2019, Arashi announced that group activities would pause from December 31, 2020.