AKB48 is scheduled to release their first single under King Records on October 22, titled "Oogoe Diamond." The song is still being worked on, but a version of it has been leaked onto the internet. The group's staff posted a statement on the official blog on Wednesday, saying that they are preparing to take legal action against the source of the leak.

AKB48's management was tipped off by fans who discovered that the song had been uploaded to a certain site. Given that the song is still incomplete, there is a strong possibility that someone involved with the company was responsible for the leak.

Half-British, half-Japanese singer MiChi will be making her leap from indie to major this October. Her first single is titled "PROMiSE."

Only 23, MiChi has been active as a singer for the past four years. This past June, she released an album called "MiChi Madness," and it became a big hit on iTunes. With her music ranging from dance to rock to electro, three of the album's songs took the top three spots on iTunes' dance charts, an unprecedented achievement. The album also made it to #2 on the overall charts.

"PROMiSE," on sale October 22, is an up-tempo number with English and Japanese lyrics. It will be available as a chaku-uta starting on September 17, and it has been given a tie-in with the commercial for au Smart Sports. That commercial series helped the new duo Kimaguren reach #1 on the Oricon album charts earlier this year.

Actor ARATA will appear in his first television drama, taking the starring role. The show is an NHK special titled "Saigo no Senpan," revolving around the internal conflict of a WWII officer who is ordered by his superiors to commit war crimes.

"Saigo no Senpan" also features Mitsuko Baisho, Seiichi Tanabe, and Sachie Hara. NHK will air the episode on December 7.

Thelma Aoyama's hit "Soba ni Iru ne" is currently the best-selling song as a full mobile download (chaku-uta) in Japan. That title has now been officially recognized by the Guinness World Records, and Aoyama has been presented with her certificate.

"Soba ni Iru ne" was released in January and had been downloaded to mobile phones 2 million times as of July, when the application was filed with Guinness. The song currently stands at a total of 8.2 million downloads across various formats, including 3.55 million chaku-uta downloads and 2.15 million chaku-uta full downloads. The CD release was the top-selling single for the first half of 2008.

Kenichi Matsuyama's next starring role in a movie will be in Satoko Yokohama's tentatively-titled "Ultra Miracle Love Story." The story is set in Matsuyama's native prefecture of Aomori, and all of his lines will be spoken in the difficult Tsugaru dialect from that area.

Matsuyama plays a young man living an agricultural life in Aomori. He falls in love for the first time with a woman who has come from Tokyo (Kumiko Aso). The supporting cast includes Misako Watanabe, Yoshio Harada, and Yumiko Fujita.

Filming starts on the 13th and is expected to last a month. The movie opens next year.