Le Sserafim tops sales among rookie artists in Japan in the first half

Le Sserafim's image for its second Japanese single "Unforgiven." (Source Music)

Japan's Oricon named Le Sserafim as the nation's top-selling rookie artist of the first half of the year.

Oricon, the biggest music chart provider in Japan, on Thursday announced that the five-piece topped album sales among the new artists in the local market dated between Dec. 12 and June 11. Since 2018, Oricon has been releasing the ranking based on the compiled sales of the artist's physical singles and albums, as well as streams, Blu-rays and DVDs.

"Le Sserafim logged sales of 1.18 billion yen ($8.19 million) during the tallied period. This is the first time that any female artist has exceeded total sales of one billion yen in the rookie artist ranking," Oricon wrote on its official website.

Le Sserafim, a multinational group consisting of Korean and Japanese members, debuted in Japan this January with its debut single "Fearless," launched first in Korean in May 2022.

With the Japanese version of "Fearless," the girls made a splash, racking up the highest first-week sales by any K-pop girl group's debut album there.

The single topped Oricon's weekly singles ranking and weekly total singles ranking, achieving the feat for the first time as a foreign female artist in over five years since Twice in 2017 with "One More Time."

Le Sserafim went on to earn the "double platinum" recognition from the Recording Industry Association of Japan, making the quintet the first foreign artist to win the award with its local debut single.

The band is making waves in Japan with its Korean albums as well.

The band's namesake title song of its second EP "Antifragile" surpassed 100 million streams in April, while the first full-length album "Unforgiven" debuted atop three major weekly albums ranking with release in May.

The band is gearing up for its comeback in Japan with a second Japanese-language single titled "Unforgiven" on Aug. 23.

"We're always grateful to everyone for listening to our songs and Fearnot (the group's official fandom) supporting us," the band was quoted saying in a statement released by its agency Source Music on Thursday.

Le Sserafim -- consisting of Korean members Kim Chaewon, Huh Yunjin and Hong Eunchae and Japanese members Sakura and Kazuha -- debuted in May 2022 under multilabel company Hybe's subsidiary Source Music.

By Choi Ji-won(jwc@heraldcorp.com)