There are a variety of chart data sources in Japan. Oricon has been the major official provider since the late 1960s, with the RIAJ providing shipping certifications since 1989 (and digital market certifications, backdating to the beginning of the digital market). Alternative charts come from SoundScan (pure sales, since 1995) and Billboard Japan (Japan Hot 100, sales+airplay). The RIAJ formerly listed the top monthly ringtones from 2006–early 2009, and currently lists the top weekly digital songs.

Oricon

Oricon (est. 1967) has been the major provider of Japanese charting data since the late 1960s, tracking physical album sales in most CD sales outlets (and occasionally from special events, such as signings). Their online sites will list positions since the late 1980s (i.e. the messy period when Oricon charted both LPs and cassettes and lately also in CDs). Rankings up until December 2002 will list the position within the top 100, and after this date will list positions in the top 300. Album sales in any given week where the album does not chart are not added to the album's sales total.

Oricon charts album positions in four main charts: daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Only weekly and yearly are archived, though archives can be created through Webcitation. Oricon also has two genre charts: Non-Japanese albums and Independent albums, but similarly they are not archived.

Looking up a specific release

For http://ranking.oricon.co.jp

• Type your artist's name into the box labelled アーティスト and press the red 検索. Do the same for タイトル if you are looking for a specific album release.

• The search's drop-down to the right side's options are ではじめる (begins with), で終わる (ends with), が一致する (exact match, fairly useless), が含まれている (features in the middle, fairly useless)
• The artist's name should generally be as it is on their Japanese Wikipedia article. For example, Christina Aguilera -->ja:クリスティーナ・アギレラ, Kishidan -->ja:氣志團. Spaces are generally not used in names (i.e. for Yumi Matsutoya, 松任谷由実 not 松任谷 由実)

• A search will bring up all physical single/album/DVD releases. Some of them are re-releases, and these will not list sales data. Look for the album listed closest to the actual date it was released in Japan. If there are multiple listings for that day, it means that it was released in different formats (CD+DVD, CD Only) and it does not matter which is picked.

• To permanently link to an artist's page, click the underlined name of the artist under each release. For example, a クリスティーナ・アギレラ search will be permanently linked to such as here.

• After clicking on the release's page, go down the bottom to >>> ランキングデータへ and click.
• On the non-subscribers version, three things are listed: 最高順位 (highest position), 登場回数 (weeks on chart) and ランキング日付 (the specific weeks the album charted for, listed in a column below). The subscribers version fills in the 推定累積売上枚数 (total sales), 推定初回売上枚数 (first week sales) and 順位 (position for x week) columns.

For http://www.oricon.co.jp (as of July 2010, layout changes frequently)

• In the blue box at the top, select オリコン芸能人事典 and type in the artist's name and press the blue 検索. For a search of クリスティーナ・アギレラ, four different results come up (クリスティーナ・アギレラ / クリスティーナ・アギレラ，リル・キム，マイア，ピンク / ディディ / ネリー), listing the potential artist/s and collaborations they have done. Go to the regular one (i.e. クリスティーナ・アギレラ, unless you are looking for the collaboration "Lady Marmalade," then go to the longer one). Not all collaborations singles/albums will be listed separately, some will be listed as a separate artist, while others will be filed into the major artist's discography page.
• Look for the first row of light blue tabs. Tab 作品's sub-tab リリース一覧 will exhaustively list the artist's works in reverse chronological order, with date (xxxx年xx月xx日発売), highest position (過去最高 x位) and weeks on chart (登場回数 x回). Tab ランキング will rank the artist's releases by the highest selling to the lowest, currently with シングル(singles) アルバム(albums) and DVDs. Most sales will be skewed towards the 1990s, when sales were at a peak.
• Earlier releases can be accessed with the 次へ button (and later with the 前へ button).

Looking up a specific week

Oricon keeps an archive of the top 30 back until 1997 on its main page, with sales listed. Occasionally the figures will be absent, as the putting up of figures on the main page is a work in progress. To access these:

• Go to http://www.oricon.co.jp/music/#
• In the blue box at the top, select 過去ランキング. Then select シングル (singles chart) or アルバム (albums chart). Select the year (xxxx年), month (xx月) and week of that month (第x週). The week is counted from the Tuesday of each week (when each chart was published), for example, an archive of 2010年06月第3週 lists sales from June 5-June 12, 2010.

SoundScan

SoundScan has also been ranking weekly album sales separately from Oricon since 1995. PhileWeb has a top 20 archive of top 20 releases dating back to March 2001, and Billboard has a top 100 archive dating back to August 2009. The PhileWeb archive ranks each separate version differently (e.g. CD+DVD pressing, CD Only pressing) and also lists sales figures, whereas the Billboard archive does not.

Billboard

As Billboard's albums chart is exactly the same as SoundScan's, they should not be listed. However, Billboard does list several genre charts that date from August 2009 onwards: Classical, Jazz, and Independent. (The independent chart lists physical single sales and album sales together.)

Oricon

Oricon's singles chart archives are accessible in the same way as the albums chart. Several things of note:

• Only physical sales count for the chart, much like the Oricon albums chart.
• Pre-1990s singles will not be ranked on their website.
• Most recent Western singles will not be listed, as they were not released as physical singles. If they are, they most likely did not chart, or charted very lowly.
• Rankings before December 2002 were the top 100, and afterwards became the top 200.
• Prior to the 2000s, different formats charted separately (for example, Hikaru Utada's "Movin' on Without You" 12cm version reached #1, and the 8cm version reached #5 (week shown here)).
• Non-archived genre charts that can be cited through Webcitation include independent singles, enka/kayōkyoku singles and karaoke songs (songs most popular to be performed at karaoke, completely separate from single sales).

Billboard

Billboard Japan began ranking singles in Japan in March 2008, though created back-archived for late January/February 2008.

• Physical sales from SoundScan and radio airplay data from Plantech are combined to create a top 100 chart. Digital sales from the Japanese iTunes began counting in December 2010, however no other PC music retailers or cellphone retailers count to the total.
• Four charts can be used in Wikipedia articles: the Hot 100 (January 2008—), as well as genre charts Adult Contemporary Airplay (August 2009—), Digital and Airplay Overseas (December 2010—) and Hot Animation (December 2010—). Hot single sales/airplay charts are considered component charts, and should only be added if the song did not chart on the Hot 100.
• To reference a Billboard figure, you must navigate from the current week back to the relevant week with the < 前の週へ button, and then archive that page with Webcitation.
• Non-domestic artists will chart generally highly on the chart, if their songs receive major airplay.
• In earlier 2008 charts, artists with Roman letters in their names were written in a JASCII "ｄｏｕｂｌｅ　ｂｙｔｅ　ｆｏｎｔ" that will not appear in a search for the artist's name in a regular font.
• Occasionally, artists are listed with spaces between their last and first names.

RIAJ

The RIAJ has been publishing charts for the digital market in several ways since 2006. No artist profiles are created, however, so each peak much be searched for through raw data.

Monthly ringtone chart

From 2006 to early 2009, the RIAJ charted ringtones (着うた（R） chaku uta) in a monthly top 100 chart. To access these:

• Go to their chart/certification page.
• Select a month in the dropbox, up until February 2009.
• Click on the 【通称】レコ協チャート（「着うた（R）」） link.
• Non-domestic artists will chart on this chart at a mid-level (#40 and below, generally).

Weekly cellphone download chart

From March 2009, the RIAJ has been charting so-called full-length ringtones (着うたフル（R） chaku uta furu), or paid downloads of songs to cellphones, in a weekly top 100 chart. To access these.

• Go to the weekly chart page.
• If you want a recent chart (between now and either the closest second Friday in January/July), click 最新の音楽配信チャート. If you want something older, go to the drop box. The charts are broken up into half years, 2009年上半期 is for January-June 2009, and 2009年下半期 is for July-December 2009.
• From here, choose the week you desire from the dropbox next to 集計期間指定.
• To archive a week, right-click on the 51位～100位 link. This will take you to a static URL site beginning with http://satsuki.musicdb.gr.jp. From here, you can navigate back to the 1位～50位 page if desired.
• Occasionally, artists are listed with spaces between their last and first names.
• Non-domestic artists will chart on this chart at a mid-level (#40 and below, generally).

RIAJ hosts both physical certifications and digital certifications on its website. Certifications are broken down into ゴールド (gold, 100,000+ copies), プラチナ (250,000+ copies) ダブル・プラチナ (double platinum), トリプル・プラチナ (triple platinum) and million (ミリオン, 1,000,000+ copies). After this point, the release is certified by how many subsequent million physical copies it sells, marked as ２ミリオン, ３ミリオン, etc.

• Physical certifications since of January 2003 can be sourced from here.
• When navigated to, certifications will be separated into 邦楽［アルバム］(domestic album) 邦楽［シングル］(domestic single) 邦楽［ビデオ］(domestic VHS/DVD) 洋楽［アルバム］(overseas album).
• Million-selling releases since 1989 can be sourced from here.

Digital certifications

RIAJ certified three digital mediums: ringtones (着うた（R） chaku uta), full-length cellphone downloads (着うたフル（R） chaku uta furu) and PC downloads (PC配信(シングル) pasokon henshin (shinguru)). In September 2006 the first certifications were released, certifying downloads from five sources (Dwango, Mora, Mu-Mo, music.jp and Recochoku). The first month featured all previous data from these companies, from when downloads began. As of July 2010, data from 17 companies adds to these certifications, though when new companies are added, retrospective sales previous to this date are not added to certification totals.

• Digital certifications can be sourced from here.
• After February 2009, you will be automatically linked to the page. Prior, you must click on the second link on the page, 【通称】認定（「着うた（R）」他）　.
• The certification levels are the same as for physical sales, starting from gold (100,000). However, due to how popular the medium is, ringtones are only certified at double platinum (500,000) onwards.
• The release dates listed are for when the release was first released to cellphones as a ringtone/full-length ringtone, or to PC download services such as iTunes. These may differ to actual release dates or physical release dates.
• No certifications for albums downloaded digitally currently exist. According to the RIAJ, the market has almost doubled between 2006–2009, however figures are tiny compared to its rival digital certifications (2.555 billion digital albums purchased in 2009, as opposed to 42.511 billion PC song downloads, 269.102 billion ringtones and 142.896 billion full-length cellphone downloads).