Oricon once again ordered a survey to find out about the most anticipated drama of the upcoming season. This fall we will see the return of the highly popular “Aibou” series as well as the third season of the suspense medical drama “Iryu”, but there will be tough competition with several new and original stories lead by big names. Shinohara Ryoko will make her return as a drama starring actress in “Ogon no Buta”. Kanno Miho and Tamaki Hiroshi will team up for “Guilty” and Oguri Shun will turn into a veterinarian for “Jyuui Dolittle” co-starring Inoue Mao.

There is still more to look forward to. Fuji TV’s Monday dramas always aimed for the drama crown, but recently their stories failed to deliver that certain unique element. This season they will put their hope on Takenouchi Yutaka and Ueto Aya. The drama “Freeter” starring Ninomiya Kazunari, Karina and veteran actress Asano Atsuko seems to have all the ingredients to become a hit as well. Other interesting dramas such as “SPEC” (Kase Ryo, Toda Erika), “Himitsu” (Shida Mirai, Sasaki Kuranosuke) and “Reinoryokusha” (Ishihara Satomi, Tanihara Shosuke) might have it more difficult with the average drama viewers in Japan, but they all still have the potential of becoming a hit. The young cast of “Q10″ (Sato Takeru, Maeda Atsuko) will probably get a lot of fans as well and a lot of women are going to be interested in the story of “Second Virgin” starring Suzuki Kyoka and Fukada Kyoko. [...]

Oricon Style asked 500 men and women with young children which summer movie they would like to see together as the whole family. The survey only included movies that are about to open in the middle of August, so don't be surprised if you can't find an "Arrietty" or "Toy  [ Read More ]

Oricon Style asked 1000 men and woman again to pick the celebrity they think looks best in a swimsuit/bathing trunks. It's the 3rd such ranking on Oricon and model-turned-actress Sasaki Nozomi (22) managed to get on the first place in the female category. In the male category it was once  [ Read More ]

Oricon release the newest TV commercial popularity ranking and Softbank Mobile managed to secure the first place for the 8th consecutive time.   The survey started back in late December and reached until June. Every month they've asked a representative group of the average TV audience about their favorite commercial  [ Read More ]

Oricon made two survey to find out the most anticipated summer drama as well as the most anticipated movie people want to watch during their summer holidays. Here are the results:   Most Anticipated Summer Drama 01 – Hotaru no Hikari 2 02 – GOLD 03 – Unubore Deka 04  [ Read More ]

As usual Oricon checked through all the drama series of the past 6 months again and ranked them according the highest TV ratings (for a single episode) they had achieved throughout their seasons.   Drama Ratings Top 10: 01 – 24.4% – Episode 05 of "Ryoma den" 02 – 22.4%  [ Read More ]

In Oricon's most recent survey they asked female high-school students about which actress they think had the biggest breakthrough throughout the first half of 2010. The Top5 doesn't really consist of absolutely newcomers in the industry but actresses who never really had that much of a major following before 2010.  [ Read More ]

Most spring dramas started in April and are already getting close to their climax. Thus it was time for Oricon's print magazine "Oricon Star" to announce the "Spring Drama ☆ AWARD 2010". A total of 1050 readers participated in the survey and most of them chose "Shinzanmono" (TBS) as their  [ Read More ]