At the start of each year, the singles sales charts sees a rush of older songs that regained in popularity due to performances at Kohaku Uta Gassen. This year the "Kohaku effect" was in full force, taking over the top three spots.

SMAP's "Dangan Fighter" likely needed no help from its Kohaku appearance, as it retained its #1 spot from two weeks ago. Masato Sugimoto's "Waremokou" jumped up four spots to #2, while Masafumi Akikawa's "Sen no Kaze ni Natte" climbed back into the top three.

Other songs that got a significant boost included Kobukuro's "Tsubomi" (from #46 to #15), Toshihide Baba's "Start Line ~ Atarashii Kaze" (from #141 to #40), Mika Nakashima's "LIFE" (from #94 to #59), and Ataru Nakamura's "Tomodachi no Uta" (from #144 to #63).

On the albums chart, Kobukuro stayed on top with "5296," which sold 455,000 copies over a two-week span. It barely edged out Ayumi Hamasaki's "GUILTY" (432,000 copies), which was at a disadvantage since it just went on sale on New Year's Day.

In #3 was EXILE's "EXILE LOVE," selling 315,000 copies. This puts its total sales at more than 1.23 million, making it the group's third million-seller. It is the first album to sell a million since Kumi Koda's "Black Cherry" reached that milestone in June of last year.