After starring in the TBS drama series "Maou" last season, Arashi's Satoshi Ohno is back with his second starring TV role. This time, he will lead the TV Asahi comedy series "Uta no Oniisan," which will air on Friday nights at 11:15pm this winter. This is said to be his first comedy role, including his performances in film and theater.

The story revolves around an unconventional children's show called "Minna de Utao!" Ohno plays Kenta, a young musician whose band breaks up and who gets dumped by his girlfriend. To top it off, his own family labels him as useless. Unexpectedly, he becomes an "uta no oniisan," a singing character on the children's show.

The show begins filming on the 18th of this month and premieres on January 16.

Last month, Ai Kago wrote in her blog that she was diagnosed with the possibility of Meniere's disease, a disorder of the inner ear. On Friday, she announced with relief that further examinations have determined that she does not have the disorder, and that her earlier symptoms were simply caused by fatigue.

On Saturday, Kago attended a release event for her "Kago Channel" DVD. At the event, she disclosed some details about her imminent return to music. She stated that she will be writing the lyrics for a new song, while Keizo Nakanishi is handling the composition. The song is scheduled to be released next year.

The 13th Kaneto Shindo Awards and the 4th SARVH Award were presented on Friday. This year, the SARVH Award was given to actor Masahiro Motoki. While the prize is normally given to film producers, Motoki was recognized for his involvement in the planning behind Yojiro Takita's award-winning "Okuribito," which he also starred in.

For the Kaneto Shindo Awards, the Gold Award went to director Shotaro Kobayashi for "Kazoku no Hiketsu," while the Silver Award went to director Yoshitaka Mori for "Hyakuhachi."

The famous composer Minoru Endo died at a Tokyo hospital on Saturday morning due to a heart attack. He was 76. Known for creating more than 5,000 songs over almost the past 60 years, Endo was one of the most important forces behind the contemporary music scene.

Sources said that Endo collapsed at a party in October, and he received a heart bypass surgery the next day. This was his second bypass surgery, as he previously had one done in 1988. Since the operation in October, he had been undergoing rehabilitation, but his condition worsened on Friday night.

Endo was born in Tokyo in 1932, but was raised in Niigata. Because his family was poor, at the age of 14 he found work in a factory instead of going to junior high school. At the time, he had dreams of becoming a singer, so he ran away from home in 1949 to pursue the dream in Tokyo. He began teaching himself composition, but early on he found little success either as a singer or composer. However, he achieved his first hit in 1957 composing Takeo Fujishima's "Otsukisan Konbanwa."

Endo's career took off from there, and he made music for many top artists, including Hibari Misora, Saburo Kitajima, Masako Mori, Chiyoko Shimakura, and Kazuo Funaki. One of his better known songs is Mori's "Sensei," which he reportedly composed in mere minutes after seeing the song's lyrics.

Yoshiyuki Kato (30) of the a cappella band RAG FAIR is getting married, it was learned on Saturday. His fiancee is a 24-year-old Tokyo resident who has done some acting in small theaters. The couple met in May when Kato was doing recordings in the city, and the woman was working part-time at a store near the studio. They got to know each other through Kato's frequent shopping, and they started dating in the summer.

Kato will be the second member of the group to marry. Bass singer Takamasa Kano has been married since 2003.

Karaoke machine company Daiichikosho (maker of the DAM series) has published its Top 20 lists for the most popular songs and artists of 2008, based on data from its machines.

For individual songs, GReeeeN took two of the top three spots, with "Kiseki" taking #1 and "Aiuta" taking #3. EXILE's "LOVERS AGAIN" was between them at #2.

This year, the top artists (by total number of song requests) were EXILE, Kumi Koda, Kobukuro, Ayumi Hamasaki, and Mr.Children.

With the winter season setting in, Oricon conducted a survey last month asking 500 women, "Which male celebrity would you want to embrace you tightly on a cold night?" The #1 choice was a familiar face to all popularity surveys: singer and actor Masaharu Fukuyama.

Young actor Hiro Mizushima ranked 2nd, followed by Koichi Domoto and Tsuyoshi Domoto, in that order. Yusuke Kamiji tied with Teppei Koike at #5. Shun Oguri, Junichi Okada, Hiroshi Tamaki, and Tomohisa Yamashita rounded out the top ten.