In the history of the
Oricon weekly albums chart, which started in January 1970, only 280 out of all of the charting albums have sold more than one million copies, a feat mostly achieved by domestic acts. This is a list of the top-selling albums in Japan, based on data compiled by Oricon. Prior to January 1987, the domestic albums chart was separated into
LPs (created in 1970),
cassette tapes (introduced in 1974) and
compact discs (launched in 1985), until their unification, which remains the current form. It is worth noting that Oricon only takes into consideration physical sales for its charts, meaning that digital purchases are excluded. The best-selling album is
First Love (1999) by non-binary solo artist
Hikaru Utada, which sold over 7.5 million copies by the end of that year.
Ryuichi Kawamura's
Love (1997) topped the album chart with sales of 1,021,000 copies, making him the only male solo artist to have an album sell over one million copies in its first week in Oricon history.
Love went on to sell 2,788,000 copies, and holds the record as the best-selling male solo album of all time. Whereas,
Mr. Children's
Atomic Heart (1994), still remains its position as the top-selling original studio album by a male band.
Message, originally released in 2001 by Okinawan punk band
Mongol800 became the first album in Oricon's history to sell more than one million copies despite being released on an independent label. == List of albums ==