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.
[2][3][4][5] 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.
[8] Whereas, Mr. Children's Atomic Heart (1994), still remains its position as the top-selling original studio album by a male band.
[9] This is the list of the albums that have shipped over 1,000,000 copies and been certified Million by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ).