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LiSA's Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Film Theme Wins Song of the Year in Japan

LiSA's "Homura" song, the theme song for the Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train film, won Song of the Year at the 62nd Japan Record Awards on Wednesday. This is the first time in four years that a female solo artist won it, since Kana Nishino won in 2016. LiSA thanked composer Yuki Kajiura, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba manga creator Koyoharu Gotouge, the anime studio ufotable, the production company Aniplex, Sony Music, and the fans during her acceptance speech.

The Japan Record Awards had announced in November that Koyoharu Gotouge's Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba won one of the Special Achievement Awards, which honor people or works that have garnered widespread attention or captured the zeitgeist. The other Special Achievement Award winners this year were Uru, NiziU, Seiko Matsuda, and Kenshi Yonezu.

The award ceremony aired in Japan on TBS.

LiSA's "Homura" song has ranked #1 on Oricon's weekly digital singles ranking chart for 11 consecutive weeks. It has surpassed Kenshi Yonezu's 2018 single "Lemon" as the longest-running #1 single on the chart. "Homura" sold 31,363 downloads from December 21 to 27 for a new total of 770,556.

Last week, "Homura" returned to the #1 spot in Oricon's weekly streaming chart after three weeks, with 10,632,183 downloads for a new total of 132,986,137. It has been in the #1 spot for a total of eight weeks since its release, and it is the first song to be streamed over 10 million times a week for nine straight weeks.

The song also sold 56,149 physical copies during the same week to rank #5 on the CD singles chart, and now has sold 1,004,879 physical copies. It is the first single to sell one million physical copies this year, and LiSA's second single to accomplish this feat after "Gurenge."

Earlier this month, Billboard Japan's streaming song chart recorded the song with 100 million times streamed since its October 12 release.

The song is the third ever single to rank #1 on Oricon's weekly digital singles ranking chart for at least six consecutive weeks, after Kenshi Yonezu's 2018 single "Lemon" and 2019 single "Uma to Shika" accomplished the feat. LiSA is also the first female artist to accomplish this feat.

The "Homura" single shipped on October 14, and sold 68,000 CD copies in its first week. LiSA is the first artist to rank #1 for three straight weeks in 12 years and 10 months, since the band SMAP achieved the feat with their "Dangan Fighter" single in January 2008.

Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train began screening in 38 IMAX theaters in Japan on October 16. The film has now sold a total of 24,049,907 tickets to earn 32,478,895,850 yen (about US$314 million) in 73 days — thus making it the highest-earning film ever in Japan.

LiSA's earlier single "Gurenge" (the theme song for the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba television anime) became the third most-downloaded song in the history of Oricon's digital single ranking chart in June. As of July, the single has been in the top 10 ranking for at least 27 consecutive weeks, and has been in the top 10 at least 44 weeks since the song's digital debut in April 2019. In the April 20-26 week, it rose from the fifth to the fourth most downloaded song in the history of Oricon's digital single ranking chart. In the April 27-May 3 week, the single recorded its fifth week at #1 in the ranking (including two consecutive weeks in May 2019, one week in December 2019, and the April 20-26 and April 27-May 3 weeks).

Sources: Japan Record Awards, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web