BoA topped the charts this week with her new album "THE FACE," selling more than 110,000 copies. With this, she has now achieved #1 with all 6 of her original albums in Japan. This puts her in second place for the record of "most consecutive #1 original albums starting with the debut album." She currently trails Ayumi Hamasaki (8), but she has separated herself from The Checkers, Hikaru Genji, and KinKi Kids (all at 5).

A couple of foreign releases made the top 10 - Celine Dion's "Complete Best" was #3 and Janet Jackson's "Discipline" was #9. Meanwhile, Janet's brother Michael remained in the top 10 right behind her with his "Thriller 25."

On the other side of the charts, NEWS' 8th single "Taiyou no Namida" had 230,000 in sales. Similar to BoA's achievement, they are now in second place for the record of "most consecutive #1 singles starting with the debut single" (tied with Hikaru Genji), though they are far behind the current record of 26 set by KinKi Kids.

EXILE and YUI also sold well, taking #2 and #3 on the charts, respectively. Also in the top 10 were idol groups C-ute (#6) and AKB48 (#10), while DREAMS COME TRUE's "One Piece" tie-in fell between them at #8.

One of the bigger stories is still Jero, the black enka singer from Pittsburgh who debuted the previous week. His "Umiyuki" fell only one spot to #5, though it actually rose about 1,000 in sales. Not counting artists that originally were in a group or who had a comeback, enka's last debut single to spend two consecutive weeks in the top 5 was the re-re-release of Akio Kayama's "Hisame" in the early '80s. However, Jero is the only one in history to have his initial single make the top 5 in its first two weeks.