Korean female idol group Kara's best album released in Japan was recently certified a gold album.

The website for official Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) showed that Kara claimed gold disc status, handed to records which sell over 100,000 copies, with their first best album “KARA BEST 2007-2010” released in the country in late September.

The record, featuring twelve of Kara’s past hit Korean songs such as “Pretty Girl,” “Honey,” “Lupin” and “Mister,” had ranked at No. 2 on the prestigious Oricon daily and weekly albums chart and the most-downloaded album on iTunes Store Pop.

This is not Kara's first recognition by RIAJ -- their song “Mister,” the title track to their Japanese debut single, was certified gold as well in the mobile ringtone category after receiving over 100,000 paid downloads as of September this year.

The single album itself landed at fifth place on both Oricon’s daily and weekly chart upon its release on August 11, the achievement on the singles chart making Kara the first Asian female group to place in the top 10 slots.

Kara, composed of five members Gu Hara, Han Seung-yeon, Park Gyu-lee, Kang Ji-young and Nicole, debuted in 2007 and are well-known in Korea for their hit songs "Mister," "Wanna" and "Lupin."

They expanded their singing career into Japan in August of this year, which took off to a successful start by topping the preorder chart of major Japanese record retailer Tower Record and seeing their DVD "KARA VACATION" reach No. 1 on Oricon's weekly DVD chart.

Most recently, KARA released their second Japanese single “Jumping” on November 10 which immediately claimed fifth place on Japan’s weekly Oricon chart last week. The album was also released in Korea five days later.

Reporter : Heidi Kim heidikim@
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@
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