The winners for the 27th Nikkan Sports Film Award/ Ishihara Yujiro Memorial Awards were announced. The award ceremony will be held on December 28 at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo.

The Nikkan Sports Film Award are film-specific prizes awarded solely by the Nikkan Sports. Last year, Matsuda Ryuhei and Maki Yoko won the Best Actor and Best Actress awards respectively, while “The Great Passage” won Best Movie and Koreeda Hirokazu for “Like Father, Like Son” won Best Director.

Find out this year’s winners below.

Back in November it was announced that Momoiro Clover Z were cast as the stars of Oriza Hirata’s “Maku ga Agaru” (The Curtain Rises) movie and stage play adaption. The story follows the members of a small drama club in high school, and chronicles their struggles and challenges as they head off to the national tournament. 

A new trailer for the movie has just been released, featuring Momoiro Clover Z’s new song “Link Link”, and clips from the upcoming movie.

The movie is set to be released on February 28, 2015 and the stage version is scheduled to run in May 2015.

Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think!

(via Natalie )

SKE48 – 12gatsu no Kangaroo

JUJU – ANNIVERSARY

Kanjani8 – Gamushara Koushinkyoku

Sandaime J Soul Brothers – O.R.I.O.N.

miwa – Gesshoku ~winter moon~

Ken Hirai – Sore Demo Shitai

Kaela Kimura – sonic manic

It was reported last week that actress Kitagawa Keiko, 28, and singer DAIGO, 36, have been in a relationship since spring.

The two first met in 2011 on the set of the drama “LADY~Saigo no Hanzai Profile~”. DAIGO played a guest role in the first episode.

It was not until they appeared on a variety show together in January that they became closer. Kitagawa laughed at DAIGO’s strange way of abbreviating of the word shinsen as SNSN. DAIGO said he was happy to get a nice reaction from Kitagawa.

Their mutual friend Kanjiya Shihori fixed them up after that, and they have been dating since sometime around March.

Netizens of Girls Channel have mostly reacted positively to the news, congratulating the couple.

The new single “Gamushara Koshinkyoku” (Reckless March) is the third single in Kanjani8’s 3 month successive release, which dropped last December 3. Currently serving as theme song to “Jigoku Sensei Nube” starring member Maruyama Ryuhei, the song carries a message in Kanjani8’s style and packs in 100% of Kanjani8’s devil-may-care-attitude.

The music video starts off with the members introducing their teacher selves in their own ways to an indifferent class, before everything bursts in commotion. A huge part of the PV was filmed in a long “one take” shot that moves the scene of the group with the students from the classroom, library, hallways and the gym. The single was released in 2 editions. Check out the full PV and single details below.

Acid Black Cherry’s official youtube channel has uploaded the full video for his latest track “INCUBUS”.

“INCUBUS” will be included on his upcoming 4th studio album “L”, due out for release February 4th. As we previously reported Acid Black Cherry will also be hitting the road for a 3 month long nationwide tour in support of the album. Check out the emotional 7+ minute long PV below the cut!

The covers for Ayumi Hamasaki‘s latest single Zutto… / Last minute / Walk have been released. This is Ayumi’s first winter ballad single since 2009’s “You Were…/BALLAD”.

For this single Ayumi worked with three different producers, creating a different type of ballad with each one.  Kunio Tago created the “classic winter ballad” “Zutto…”, Tetsyua Yukumi on the “rock ballad”  “Last minute”, and Tetsuya Komuro used his classic “TK ballad” formula for “Walk”. The single will be released in one standard CD only version, a fanclub version, and three “music card” editions.

“Zutto…/Last minute/Walk” will be released December 24th.

Nishino Kana has released a new music video “Koisuru Kimochi” (The Feeling Of Love), a song off her new album with Love released last November 12. The video was produced by charismatic female art director Kiyokawa Asami. The shiny parts of love in  “Koisuru Kimochi” are accentuated with her 3D flower motif. In the video, Nishino sits on a swing in front of a 3D flower backdrop as she sings about the growing feeling of love towards a close friend.

Nishino and Kiyokawa met for the first time on the set of the music video. Check out her new PV below.