Honestly, I'm leaning towards questioning their low sales in Japan bc the group is so popular there. I just got back from Japan, and NewJeans are just everywhere especially in Tokyo. Their songs are probably the most popular Kpop songs there right now; I heard them all the time suprisingly even in some rural areas. My sister and I had to visit tons of stores in Tokyo to find their new album because it was always sold out. Their pop-up store was super popular too.
If they can pull in over 100k people for their concerts, even if those are just casual fans, it makes no sense that their album sales are that low? And from their concert today, it's clearly show that they really selling out those seats and not just another media play. Buying an album is way cheaper than going to a concert, which costs like 3-4 times more. That's why only dedicated fans usually spend that much for their faves. In almost all case, the sales will be higher than the concert attendees number.
I don't know if maybe Weverse sales don’t count towards Oricon as this album is not specifically targeting towards Japanese market like the usual Japanese released so the way it counted is different or something happens, but it really doesn't add up, no matter how critical you are of the group. Their charts there are great, their songs are doing well, they're constantly going viral in Japan media and suddenly only sold that much? That's fishy