The awards ceremony for the 21st Japan Gold Disc Awards was held on Tuesday at the Akasaka Prince Hotel in Tokyo. Pop star Kumi Koda showed up in a green dress to accept her second consecutive Artist of the Year award. This past year, she sold approximately 20 billion yen in CDs, DVDs, and downloads.

Ayaka won New Artist of the Year, while Kobukuro's "ALL SINGLES BEST" earned Album of the Year. KAT-TUN's "Real Face," which sold over a million copies, took the title for Single of the Year, but Koda's "Koi no Tsubomi" stood on top for Song of the Year by Download.

The complete list of awards will be posted in the forums.

Johnny's idol group SMAP will be appearing in a new series of commercials for sports drink Pocari Sweat. Each of the commercials will feature a SMAP member in some form of physical activity. The first two will show Goro Inagaki climbing 15 steep sand hills and Shingo Katori traveling 9 meters across trapeze rings. Both commercials begin airing on the 17th. The remaining ads are currently in production.

Idol/talento Sayaka Isoyama will soon take on her first regular role during golden time. Starting on the 19th, she will become the new assistant on the TV Tokyo medical program "Shujii ga Mitsukaru Shinryojo," which airs on Mondays at 7:00pm.

HAIR COLORING SPLASH 2007 was held on Tuesday in Tokyo. The event is sponsored by Hoyu, Japan's largest hair dye manufacturer, and is a showcase for the latest in hair fashion. As part of the event, a general ballot is held to determine which celebrities had the best hair coloring during the previous year.

The Grand Prix in the Hair Coloring Awards this year went to former pro baseball player Tsuyoshi Shinjo. This is the first time a male has won the award in the event's nine-year history. Three additional awards were presented to Makiko Esumi (Actress Category), Jun Natsukawa (Idol Category), and Mie (Model Category).

Natsukawa has recently been a subject of gossip due to a tabloid's report that she is actually 28 years old instead of 23. She denied the claims on TV a couple days ago, and she repeated the denial on Tuesday when the question came up again during the awards.

Oricon Style recently published a survey asking women, "Whose makeup and hairstyle would you want to copy?" A total of 800 women were surveyed, 200 from each of the major age brackets (10s, 20s, 30s, 40s). For the second year in a row, actress/model Nanako Matsushima ranked #1. She was followed in order by Ryoko Shinohara, Yuri Ebihara, Hitomi Kuroki, Kumi Koda, Mika Nakashima, Ayumi Hamasaki, Misaki Ito, Namie Amuro, and Yukie Nakama.

Among women ages 10-19, Nakashima ranked first. Women in their 20s preferred Ebihara, while Matsushima and Kuroki were favored among the 30s and 40s, respectively.

On Monday, Sports Nippon announced the winners of its 15th Sponichi Art & Culture Awards. The Grand Prix was awarded to NHK Fukuoka's "Nekketsu! Oyaji Battle." The event is essentially a "battle of the bands" where the average age of the participants is over 40. Last December, the project celebrated its 10th competition.

Additional awards were given to "Akasaka Hinokicho Texas House" (a book co-authored by photographer Shoji Otake and TV writer Rokusuke Ei) and to singer Chiyuki Asami. The awards ceremony will be held on April 10.

Chikako Takagi, a popular newscaster on Fuji TV's "Mezamashi Saturday," is currently seeing someone, according to weekly magazine FLASH. Last month, the magazine spotted Takagi going to the movies in Shibuya on a weekday afternoon. She was accompanied by a good-looking man (who is said to resemble actor Satoshi Tsumabuki).

Takagi's agency commented that the man, an ordinary office worker, is just a friend of Takagi's whom she has known for a while.

Actress Yuka Itaya, who just got married last month, has been appointed as the image character of a new publication. The magazine, titled "Nikkei EW," is aimed at an OL audience. The "EW" in the title stands for "Elegant & Executive Woman."

The "Death Note" movie set went on sale on March 14 in Japan. The set includes both "Death Note" films, a bonus DVD, a music CD, and a special booklet.

In anticipation of high demand, a total of 500,000 units shipped for the initial release, which translates into 1 million copies of the movies. This initial shipment is the largest so far of all domestic films released in 2006.

Aya Ueto's newest commercial features her eating Lotte's SOH ice cream at a car show. Yahoo! has video footage and an interview. The commercial begins airing on the 19th.