TRIGGER achieves #1 on Oricon Weekly with “REGALITY”: Set new record in the seiyuu business

TRIGGER
TRIGGER

TRIGGER just wrote history today! The unit that recently topped Billboard’s Weekly Album sales chart, has clinched the coveted #1 on Oricon Weekly! TRIGGER are now the record holders of highest ranking album on Oricon among not only 2.5D idol units but also bands and seiyuu units alike.

#1 Weekly Album Sales on Billboard
#1 Weekly Album Sales on Oricon (after 5 straight days as #1 on Oricon Daily)

TRIGGER had a fantastic sales week, showing their popularity and prowess against popular acts such as BUCK-TICK, Glay or Hiroyuki Sawano. On Oricon, TRIGGER presented one of the smoothest runs we’ve ever analyzed by a 2.5D/seiyuu unit.

TRIGGER REGALITY
TRIGGER REGALITY Regular edition

They immediately clinched #1 as soon as the album was released, then went for 5 consecutive days run as #1 on Oricon Daily, on the 6th day they ranked in second place, and now, they clinched the coveted, record-setting #1 spot on the Weekly Album sales chart on Oricon. The previous record belonged, ironically, to IDOLiSH7 with their first album “i7“.

This is the cherry on top of the cake for TRIGGER, unit that debuted in 2015 that counts with what we consider three of the most dynamic and powerful vocals in the business: Soma Saito, Wataru Hatano, and Takuya Sato.

REGALITY” sold 31.723 copies (updated/fixed sales figures by Oricon) on its first week of sales. The weekly chart results aren’t still out there – going to be unveiled closer to 8/9 p.m JST – but a specific article on Oricon already confirms this record.

Seiyuu Wataru Hatano and Takuya Sato went to Twitter to express their surprise as well as to thank everyone for supporting TRIGGER.

Wataru Hatano wrote “TRIGGER’s album ” REGALITY ” is in first place on Oricon Weekly. I’m so happy about this news! Congratulations TRIGGER! I hope everyone will continue to support (the game) “IDOLiSH7″.”

Takuya Sato struggled with finding the right words to thank everyone but still wrote a rather formal thank you note: “Hello. Wow, it’s amazing. I don’t think my vocabulary works at all (he’s speechless), but I think it’s all thanks to the people who love our work, characters, and songs. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to you as a member involved in the work.”

For those that have been following 2.5D idols/seiyuu units or the ones curious about a little of seiyuu unit history:

STARISH (debuted in 2010) are the first-ever popular 2.5D idol group, but they never clinched an Oricon weekly chart #1 in their career, nor released an album. QUARTET NIGHT is one of the most successful among 2.5D/seiyuu units and the only ones to ever score a #1 on Oricon’s weekly chart with “God’s S.T.A.R.”- single category -, but they also never released an album.

TRIGGER is the only 2.5D/seiyuu unit that this year is performing at such a high level on all major charts in Japan. TRIGGER wasn’t/isn’t competing on the “anime” chart (like Idolmaster for example) so this feat is even more impressive than usual.

Currently, this is the top for male Seiyuu/2.5D units/bands Top ranking Albums on Oricon:

  1. TRIGGER “Regality” #1
  2. IDOLiSH7 “i7” #2
  3. GRANRODEO “Karma to Labyrinth” #3
  4. OLDCODEX “A Silent, within The Roar“ #5
  5. B-Project “S Kyuu Paradise BLACK” #5
  6. フェロ☆メン(Feromen) “Magic Mirror” #8
  7. TRIGNAL “One Step Forward” #11
  8. Hiroshi Kamiya + Daisuke Ono “Stories” #12
  9. D.A.T “BEST ALBUM SUITE” #22
  10. MARGINAL#4 “THE BEST「STARCLUSTER 2」” #22
  11. ELEKITER ROUND 0 “Maria” #27
  12. SolidS “White” #32
  13. LAGRANGE POINT “THE BEST「Lagjuliet」” #35
  14. 3 Majesty “Triple Road” #42
  15. Liar-S “ROUND AND ROUND” #57
  16. QUELL “Believer- inori” #59
  17. Rêve parfait “Vocal CD vol 3.” #62
  18. GROWTH “STAR SAIL” #68
  19. KYOHSO “Vocal CD 3” #70

Our take on this news:

As everyone might have noticed, we at The Hand That Feeds HQ have been following this release quite closely. Regardless of people being or not fans of this unit or the seiyuu involved, the fact is that TRIGGER wrote history this week, setting records and showing impressive sales power all while competing against everyone not only anime/2.5D releases.

Few 2.5D units have this kind of popularity and sales power together. Although TRIGGER‘s sudden explosive popularity might not interest those that aren’t fans of the IDOLiSH7 franchise, the fact that a 2.5D unit is going head-to-head with established musicians/bands (Buck-Tick, Glay, Hiroyuki Sawano, etc) not only will draw some interest and attention to other units in the business (that “who are them?” factor) but is also worthy of congratulations of all kinds. They broke IDOLiSH7‘s record, set last year in August. Critically acclaimed bands such as GRANRODEO and OLDCODEX sit behind them right now. This is not a drill, TRIGGER wrote a fantastic piece of history today with an album that is close to perfect.

If you still haven’t checked their music or if you’ve been out of the loop or simply want to jam to their new album, here’s the music video for their promotional track “DAYBREAK INTERLUDE” and a digest of the album.

REGALITY” is available for purchase on CDJAPAN for all overseas fans. (all sales on CDJAPAN count towards ORICON charts)

APPLI GAME [IDOLISH7] TRIGGER 1ST FULL ALBUM / TRIGGER [Ten Kujo (Soma Saito), Gaku Yaotome (Wataru Hatano), Ryunosuke Tsunashi (Takuya Sato)]
TRIGGER [Ten Kujo (Soma Saito), Gaku Yaotome (Wataru Hatano), Ryunosuke Tsunashi (Takuya Sato)]
APPLI GAME [IDOLISH7] TRIGGER 1ST FULL ALBUM (TBC) / TRIGGER [Ten Kujo (Soma Saito), Gaku Yaotome (Wataru Hatano), Ryunosuke Tsunashi (Takuya Sato)]
TRIGGER [Ten Kujo (Soma Saito), Gaku Yaotome (Wataru Hatano), Ryunosuke Tsunashi (Takuya Sato)]
APPLI GAME [IDOLISH7] TRIGGER 1ST FULL ALBUM (TBC) / TRIGGER [Ten Kujo (Soma Saito), Gaku Yaotome (Wataru Hatano), Ryunosuke Tsunashi (Takuya Sato)]
TRIGGER [Ten Kujo (Soma Saito), Gaku Yaotome (Wataru Hatano), Ryunosuke Tsunashi (Takuya Sato)]

SOURCE: ORICON (1)

For media, PR, and business enquiries, please email me at: info@handthatfeedshq.com

Vanessa Silva
Vanessa Silvahttps://www.handthatfeedshq.com
The Hand That Feeds HQ founder, content creator, and music reviewer. Basically, the only person managing everything at The Hand That Feeds HQ. Stumbling upon Mamoru Miyano's "Orpheus" in 2011 was the start of this journey. If music is thought-provoking or deep, you may find her writing almost essays (not limited to, but it happens a lot with Soma Saito's music). She's the producer and host of the male seiyuu-centric podcast, SEIYUU LOUNGE (see Spotify link in this profile).
  1. I’m a huge TRIGGER fan and while this is undisputedly a huge milestone for them and for seiyuu units in general, I don’t understand the point in comparing Oricon ranks across units. They depend immensely on what the releases for that week are. You should at least add the number of copies sold so we can grasp the big picture and make a fairer comparison.
    For instance, REGALITY actually sold 30% less than IDOLiSH7’s i7 (which didn’t get #1 because it was up against Kimi no Na Wa, of all things).
    As much as reaching #1 can bring prestige and further recognition and exposure to potential new fans, I’m sure the industry cares more about how much money they were able to earn.
    It’s great to commemorate this achievement and being excited for what the future holds but it’s important to not make a bigger deal out of it than it is, or being misleading in the way you present data.

    • First off, thanks for your comment.

      But you got something wrong about our article: what we compared weren’t the sales (you’re free to re-read our article as many times as you want, we wrote “Highest ranking albums” and never edited that part), we compared the rankings those releases achieved on Oricon, hence there’s nothing unfair in our comparison (at the end of the day what matters are the ranks hence Japanese media is all over their feat – Billboard and Oricon news as well as overseas media ANN for example). A small note: a high rank doesn’t mean good sales as well as good sales don’t mean a top rank. That doesn’t take away the merit from any of the situations.

      Sales and rankings are two separate things and while we talked about them selling over 30.000 copies we didn’t compare sales figures with anyone nor did we say they sold more than anyone on the list (1st: because some artists don’t have their sales figures unveiled on Oricon, 2nd: because that was not even our point to begin with).
      It was a “Top ranking Albums on Oricon” ranking comparison we made by the end of the article and there, TRIGGER are clearly #1 regardless of sales figures.

      Of course the industry cares about the money – the biggest example is the Utapri franchise that keeps selling – reason why the franchise, although slowly dying, is still being kept alive (as long as it sells it doesn’t matter to those execs if the quality is there or not, but since the franchise still sells more than most otome franchises they’re alive for the time being). But the fact that the industry only cares about the sales doesn’t take away the prestige that the group and its members earn along the way. If we were to care about that too much then every single artist is only there to sell, nothing more. We can’t be like that and only see the side that is most convenient to an argument. A group/unit like this or a band – coming from a seiyuu background – earning this kind of recognition and putting their name on the map helps not only the franchise earn more money and exposure but it also helps the seiyuu part of those projects get their name out there, regardless of sales figures.

      Now, from what I understood from your comment, if you want to say that TRIGGER achieving #1 doesn’t have that much worth and we shouldn’t overhype it because you think they were up against weak competition (which they weren’t) or because they sold less than the actual #2, IDOLiSH7, than that’s your opinion which I fully respect. Just don’t take away the merit of their feat like you just did with your comment nor try to find anything misleading when what actually happened was that you didn’t pay attention to what was written and ended up making a big deal over that.

Comment (remember to be respectful)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Articles

More articles