AKB48 invited to 61th Kohaku Uta Gassen

     Kohaku Uta Gassen is an annual music show broadcasted by NHK that airs on New Years Eve. It is the biggest and highest rated music event of the year where famous artists are invited to perform. The title of the show literally translates into "Red and White Song Battle" and as the title suggests, participating artists are separated into Red Team (Aka-gumi) and White Team (Shiro-gumi) and they will compete against each other. The Red Team is composed of female artists and the White Team is composed of male artists (in a mixed group the lead vocalist will determine their Team). Kohaku attendance is strictly by invite and only the most popular artists are invited.

     NHK revealed the participants for the 61st Kohaku Uta Gassen 2 days ago. As expected AKB48 has been invited once again to the show, bringing their attendance count up to 3. AKB48 made their first appearance on the 58th Kohaku Uta Gassen in 2008 where they sang Aitakatta and Nantetatte Idol together with artists Shokotan and Leah Dizon. They were absent on the 59th Kohaku Uta Gassen the subsequent year, but were invited again in 2010 to the 60th Kohaku Uta Gassen to sing [RIVER Surprise Kohaku Remix], a medley of RIVER and Namida Surprise.


     There are a total of 44 artists participating, 22 of the Red Team and 22 on the White Team. This year's Kohaku will be hosted by Matsushita Nao and Arashi. The show will start on 7:30PM on 31 December 2010 and will run until 11:45PM.

Official website: http://www9.nhk.or.jp/kouhaku/artists/index.html

     I'm very excited for this. Last year's RIVER Surprise Kohaku Remix performance was very awesome. It was expected but its still a nice feeling to see AKB48 in that list. Wonder who from SKE48 are going to join in this time. I hope none though because I want to see SKE go in Kohaku on their own.

RED TEAM	WHITE TEAM
aiko Angela Aki Ikimonogakari Sayuri Ishikawa Kana Uemura AKB48 Miyuki Kawanaka Kumiko Kumi Koda Natsuko Godai Sachiko Kobayashi Fuyumi Sakamoto Yoshimi Tendo DREAMS COME TRUE Mitsuko Nakamura Kana Nishino Ayumi Hamasaki Perfume Ayaka Hirahara Kaori Mizumori Nana Mizuki Akiko Wada	Arashi Hiroshi Itsuki HY EXILE NYC Yuzo Kayama Saburo Kitajima Hiromi Go Kobukuro SMAP TOKIO Hideaki Tokunaga AAA Kiyoshi Hikawa FUNKY MONKEY BABYS Masaharu Fukuyama flumpool Takashi Hosokawa Porno Graffitti Shinichi Mori Yuusuke L'Arc~en~Ciel