is the 5th studio album recorded by Japanese rock band

Mr. Children , commonly referred to by their contracted nickname , are a Japanese pop rock band formed in 1989. Consisting of Kazutoshi Sakurai, Kenichi Tahara, Keisuke Nakagawa, and Hideya Suzuki, they made their major label debut in 1992. They are one of t ...

, released in June 1996 under the record label Toy's Factory. After their breakthrough in 1994, Mr. Children yielded eight consecutive chart-topping singles. Three of those hits appeared on the album; "Na mo Naki Uta", "Hana (Mémento-Mori)", and "Machine Gun o Buppanase" — while others were reserved for their subsequent release ''Bolero'' in 1997. Kazutoshi Sakurai, the chief singer-songwriter of the band named the album's working title as , which was misheard by his band-mate as "Shinkai" (lit. "deep sea"). Sakurai, who favored the sound of the phrase, decided to change the title of the album. ''Shinkai'' was a sort of

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

, featuring more insightful compositions and harder-edged sound compared to the band's previous materials. The whole album is played gaplessly, though each tracks are separated on CD. They had not anticipated that such an adventurous effort would be a big hit. Contrary to the group's prediction, ''Shinkai'' met with commercial success, although it underperformed its predecessor in cumulative sales. It debuted at number one on the Japanese

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

chart with first-week sales of over 1.5 million copies, becoming the country's fastest selling album at the time. The album spent 46 weeks on the top 100, selling over 2.7 million units during its chart run. Upon its release, ''Shinkai'' was certified double-million by the Recording Industry Association of Japan, for shipments of over 2 million copies.

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 1996 albums Mr. Children albums Albums produced by Takeshi Kobayashi Concept albums Japanese-language albums