Interest
Anime Characters to Feature in This Year's Red & White Song Contest
posted on by Eric Stimson
This year's Kōhaku Uta Gassen, or Red & White Song Contest, an annual song contest that pits male and female teams against each other on New Year's Eve, will feature an anime song segment for the first time. The category will honor anime characters who have "enchanted and moved children from the postwar period to the Heisei Era [modern times]." This includes characters from Astro Boy, Kyojin no Hoshi, Gegege no Kitarō, Yatterman, Mobile Suit Gundam, Fist of the North Star, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Like their live-action counterparts, the contestants will be sorted into Red and White teams — the former for female characters, the latter for male ones. The Red team will be hosted by Maruko of Chibi Maruko-chan, while Whisper of Yōkai Watch will host the White team. They will be joined by Yoshihiko Inohara and Haruka Ayase, who host the live-action Red and White teams.
Whisper and Maruko
The Kōhaku Uta Gassen has been a fixture of Japanese New Year's since 1951. The White team has a lead over the Red team with 36 wins versus 29. The songs and singers chosen for the contest broadly reflect national trends, and anime songs have been making inroads in recent years. Yōkai Watch's Jibanyan and Captain Bully performed at last year's contest and Linked Horizon sang "Guren no Yumiya" from Attack on Titan at the 2013 contest. This year, the μ's from Love Live! will take the stage.
[Via Cinema Today]