Korean girl group KARA and boy bands Big Bang and U-Kiss have made it into the top five of Oricon's weekly music chart.
On Thursday, Oricon's chart during the third week of December revealed that KARA's second full-length Japanese album "Super Girl" regained the No. 1 spot after selling a total of 44,260 copies since going on sale on November 23.
Big Bang followed behind the girls with their special album "The Best of Big Bang" which sold 30,443 editions to place in second while U-Kiss took the No. 5 spot on Oricon's singles chart with their debut release "Tick Tack."
KARA, composed of members Gu Hara, Han Seung-yeon, Park Gyu-lee, Kang Ji-young and Nicole, is currently one of the most successful Korean girl groups to break into the Japanese market.
In the meantime, KARA will be taking part in NHK's 62nd music special "Red & White Song Battle" along with Girls' Generation and TVXQ which will take place on December 31.
Big Bang, one of Korea's hottest boy bands, branched out into Japanese pop market in June 2009 with their debut single "My Heaven" which reached No. 3 on the prestigious Oricon daily singles chart and they toured a number of cities in the country which attracted thousands of fans.
They have led a successful singing career in the country, releasing other Japanese singles, taking the main stage at the Japan's prestigious Summer Sonic Festival last year and winning a number of awards.
U-Kiss signed an exclusive contract with major Japanese talenthouse AVEX to manage their singing careers in the country and released the licensed version of their fifth mini-album "Bran New KISS" in August.
They have also promoted themselves in the country with interviews with local media outlets and will take off for their nationwide tour in Japan in March of next year.
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10 아시아 Reporter : Lucia Hong luciahong@
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