The final results for NHK 紅白スキウタ is revealed on the NHK site this evening and Akina achieved the following results (in descending order of votes) – and there are some interesting and surprising choices:
雪の花 – 1 vote
二人静 – 1 vote
ブロンド – 1 vote
中森明菜ヒットメドレー – 1 vote (???)
初めて出逢った日のように – 1 vote
華-HANA- 1 vote
椿姫ジュリアーナ – 1 vote
秋桜 – 1 vote
カバー曲傘がない – 1 vote
あなたへのレポート – 1 vote
TOKYO ROSE – 1 vote
I hope so – 1 vote
LIAR – 1 vote
Dear Friend – 1 vote
fire starter-stock – 1 vote
マリオネット – 2 votes
月華 – 2 votes
原始、女は太陽だった – 2 votes
The Heat ＾musica fiesta＾ – 2 votes
ラボエム (LA Boheme) - 3 votes
瑠璃色の地球 – 4 votes
トワイライト – 4 votes
サンドベージュ – 3 votes + (sandbeige 砂漠へ) – 1 vote Total: 4 votes
days – 4 votes
ジプシークィーン – 5 votes
禁句 – 5 votes
水に挿した花 – 6 votes
少女A – 9 votes
帰省 – 9 votes
愛撫 – 9 votes
サザンウィンド – 11 votes
十戒 – 11 votes
tattoo – 12 votes
tangonoir – 24 votes
スローモーション – 25 votes
セカンドラブ – 53 votes
難破船 – 266 votes
赤い鳥にげた – 254 votes
赤い花 – 387 votes
Akina’s Top 3 Songs:
(3) ミ・アモーレ – 434 votes
(2) 飾りじゃないのよ涙は – 6915 (紅14) – No. 14 in poll
(1) DESIRE – 7267 votes (紅11) – 11th in poll
Now let’s look at the Top 10 and see who’s been invited from the list:
(1) ＬＯＶＥマシーン – モーニング娘 (invited and singing this song)
(2) 涙そうそう – 夏川りみ(invited and singing this song)
(3) さくらんぼ – 大塚愛 (invited but not singing this song)
(4) ハナミズキ – 一青 窈 (invited and singing this song)
(5) Yeah!めっちゃホリディ – 松浦亜弥 (invited but not singing this song)
(6) Jupiter – 平原綾香 (invited but not singing this song)
(7) 地上の星 – 中島みゆき (not invited)
(8) 川の流れのように – 美空ひばり (deceased)
(9) 雪の華 – 中島美嘉 (invited and singing this song)
(10) いい日旅立ち – 山口百恵 (retired)
So far so good. I’m not so pissed off yet but now let’s look at some other singers who were invited instead of Akina:
(12) カブトムシ – aiko
(13) やさしいキスをして／DREAMS COME TRUE (invited and singing this song)
(16) 天城越え – 石川さゆり (invited and singing this song)
(21) 赤いスイートピー – 松田聖子
(25) My Revolution – 渡辺美里 (invited and singing this song)
(26) LOVE LOVE LOVE – DREAMS COME TRUE (invited and singing this song)
(61) あなたに逢いたくて～Missing You～ – 松田聖子
(71) 青い珊瑚礁 – 松田聖子
(75) 二輪草 – 川中美幸 (invited and singing this song) – This is ridiculous!!!
NHK has some serious explaining to do here. Akina has done extremely well to have not only 2 songs in the Top 100, but the only female singer with 2 songs in the Top 15, and she is being overlooked in place for singers who scored lower than her!!!
I sincerely hope that newspapers will start picking up on this fact and demand some justice be made towards Akina and her fans!! This clearly reflects their total disregard for the poll, which makes it irrelevant in the first place …
The only consolation is that she did so much better than Seiko, who is voted by HMV as the 7th Best Japanese Singer of All Time …
Thanks for compiling and sharing the results, Jamez!
I share your disappointment over the lost opportunity to see Akina perform. She certainly deserved to have a place on the show.
Perhaps NHK did invite her, but she declined (as we speculated earlier)?
As for the songs the voters selected, even though several of them didn’t receive very many votes, it’s still great to see that Akina garnered such a favorable response!
Just out of curiousity, and for comparison purposes, how many votes did the top songs receive?
Thanks James for looking through all the 13 pages in that Kouhaku website…a lot of eye-work!! Domo Arigatou!
I read from BBS that Akina mentioned in her DS that she was never approached by NHK this year in anyway. So, the news about her rejecting the offer is false.
I am very proud of Akina’s results being 11th and 14th. This simply shows that ppl want to hear her on TV for those 2 songs at least!
Anyway, I taped this year’s kouhaku and watched it. Really a disappointment. Dreams Come True was said to reject being the last singer as the lead singer is too nervous to take on the task…but they did well by singing acapella for やさしいキスをして….
the rest were really boring…
Can you imagin if Akina had less hit? Her Desire and 飾りじゃないのよ涙は would have been even higher. I would not trade that though because it would mean that we have less wonderful songs from her.
I’m a big fan of Miwa Yoshida and Dreams Come true up to album ‘Love Limited, I believe. I think their new work sounds very dated. Miwa Yoshida’s Beauty and Harmony is rated one of top quality jpop album for me.
Thanks Ranbi, for clearing up that rumor. It’s probably more likely that Akina would have accepted the invitation, if she had received one.
While it was disappointing for us fans who would have loved the chance to see her perform, I honestly can’t say that it is a knock against Akina that she wasn’t invited.
Plenty of other worthy performers also were not invited. It seems NHK is stuck in a rut. Kouhaku has really lost whatever appeal it had years ago. Ever notice how some of the same faces show up year after year as if they have some sort of lifetime contract?
We’ll just have to look for other opportunities in the future.
Ha! Ha! CJ, that’s really funny. A lifetime contract.
It just shows that NHK isn’t really listening. According to my Japanese friend, he said that NHK received many similar looking mail from "fans" voting for the same songs, so they discounted parts of the poll as being slightly skewed. I could understand this because look at the Top 10. There are so many younger artistes … but for Akina!!! She doesn’t even have an active marketing team behind her. So, why discount her votes then?
Anyway, I would like to watch the Kohaku for old times sake but I am only going to pay attention to DCT, Misato and Yuming, the only worthy "new" performers I want to see. It is indeed disappointing that DCT turned down the tori position.
I guess we can all forget about Akina ever appearing again on Kohaku. Let’s hope that the viewership is down, so that they realise that people are disappointed with what they have promised but not delivered.