Sakurazaka46‘s “The growing up train” shoots to No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, on the chart released March 18.

The track sold 597,740 copies to top the sales metric, while also coming in at No. 9 for downloads, No. 18 for streaming, and No. 37 for radio airplay. It’s the group’s third title to surpass half a million copies on its pre-release day, following “Jigoujitoku” and “Unhappy Birthday Koubun,” and their ninth No. 1 on the Japan Hot 100.

“Make or Break”
“UDAGAWA GENERATION”
“I want tomorrow to come”
“Shoninyokkyu”
“Samidare yo”
“Nagaredama”
“BAN”
“Nobody’s fault”
“The growing up train”

Koshi Inaba’s “Touch” follows, rising 21-2. A cover of the Yoshimi Iwasaki pop classic from the ‘80s, the track was tapped as the Netflix official support song for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. Having launched digitally on March 6, the song surges from No. 21 to No. 2 this week with 42,231 downloads to claim No. 1 on the metric, alongside No. 3 for video views, No. 10 for streaming, and No. 2 for radio. Past catalog titles “Hane” and “Stray Hearts” have also seen daily streaming figures roughly double since Mar. 6, according to Luminate, pointing to a wave of new listeners coming.

Also debuting this week in connection with the WBC is Fujii Kaze’s “My Place” at No. 32. The track appears on 2026 World Baseball Classic, the first official soundtrack in WBC history, and opens at No. 4 for radio, No. 25 for downloads, and No. 92 for streaming.

Arashi’s “Five” slips to No. 3. Though overall numbers are down from its debut frame, the track holds at No. 1 for both video and streaming, while placing No. 2 for downloads and No. 9 for radio. M!LK’s “Bakuretsu Aishiteru” and Kenshi Yonezu’s “IRIS OUT” follow at No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.

In other chart moves, Remioromen’s seasonal staple “Sangatsu Kokonoka” (March 9th) soars 46-11, with downloads up approximately 2.5 times week over week, streaming up roughly 1.9 times, karaoke up 1.6 times, and video up 5.2 times.

Note: A discrepancy exists between the streaming rankings and play counts for this week’s No. 4 and No. 5 titles. This is because free-tier and paid-tier plays are tallied separately for certain streaming services and different multipliers being applied when calculating points. This is not an error.

The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data.

See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from Mar. 9 to 15, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English X account.