<figure id="attachment_452338" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-452338" style="width: 661px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3e787a7a"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/12/6a08cea702c6cc96ad76999a5eebe0fa.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-452338" class="wp-caption-text">Seiko Matsuda announced on the 28th that she will participate in the 100th year of broadcasting as the grand finale of the &#8220;Special Program&#8221; for the first time in five years.</figcaption></figure>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> The roots of the &#8220;special program&#8221; date back to 1973.</span></h3>
<p> This year&#8217;s &#8220;Kohaku Uta Gassen&#8221; has also seen an increase in the number of performers since the announcement of the contestants, and the announcement of &#8220;special slots&#8221; and &#8220;special programs,&#8221; which have become commonplace over the past few years, has increased the excitement of the &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; as we approach the big day of the year. This year, too, on the <span lang="EN-US">28th</span>, <wbr></wbr>Seiko Matsuda&#8217;s &#8220;special program&#8221; was announced as the grand finale.</p>
<p> This year&#8217;s &#8220;Kohaku&#8221;, the 76th, marks the 100th anniversary since 1925, when the first broadcast in Japan began. <span class="strongInContent">Masaaki Sakai, who</span> has been a star in the history of &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; as a singer, host, and cheer leader, will perform a medley of his own hit songs, etc. <span class="strongInContent">Kiyoshi Hikawa</span>, a 24-time participant in the past will sing &#8220;Ai Tsan&#8221; by Hibari Misora.</p>
<p> The opening program by the contestants was titled &#8220;100 Years of Broadcasting: Kohaku Special Medley,&#8221; and included the theme song from &#8220;Yume de Aisho&#8221; (Let&#8217;s Meet in a Dream), which started NHK&#8217;s variety song show, &#8220;Sukiyaki&#8221; or &#8220;Ue wo muite aitokou,&#8221; which was born on the show and spread to the world, &#8220;Hikkori Hyottanjima,&#8221; an animation song from the show, and the theme song from the show. The theme song from the anime &#8220;Hyokkori Hyotanjima&#8221;, &#8220;Hana ha Saku&#8221;, which became a reconstruction assistance song for the Great East Japan Earthquake, &#8220;Paprika&#8221;, etc. will be sung.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p><span class="strongInContent">Koji Tamaki</span>, <span class="strongInContent">Yumi Matsutoya</span>, and <span class="strongInContent">Gen Hoshino</span> will also appear as special performers, but the 24th Kohaku in 1973 was the first time in the history of &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; that &#8220;special appearances&#8221; were announced when the members were announced. From that year on, <span class="strongInContent">Hibari Misora,</span> who had been the star of the Kohaku group for many years until the previous year, did not appear on the program. It was also the year that NHK Hall, the venue for the Kohaku program, was completed, and <span class="strongInContent">Ichiro Fujiyama</span> and <span class="strongInContent">Hamako Watanabe,</span> both recipients of the national Medal with Purple Ribbon, sang in a special appearance.</p>
<p> Both singers were veterans who had been singing since the early Showa period, but they appeared five numbers before the last singer and received thunderous applause when they sang &#8220;Nagasaki no Kane&#8221; (Fujiyama) and &#8220;Kuwako (San Francisco) no Chinamachi (Town)&#8221; (Watanabe), which they had both sung in the first Kohaku as the last two singers.</p>
<p> In 1979, &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; celebrated its 30th anniversary, and &#8220;special appearances&#8221; were announced once again. Ichiro Fujiyama sang a medley of &#8220;Over the Hill,&#8221; &#8220;The Bells of Nagasaki,&#8221; and &#8220;Blue Mountains&#8221; for the white group, and Hibari Misora returned to the Kohaku stage for the red group after a seven-year absence. On the day the members were announced, Hibari said at a press conference, &#8220;I declined again this time if it was as one of the singers in the Kohaku competition. But I was asked to appear as a guest singer with a special section, so I gladly accepted the request. 30 anniversaries. I wanted to be a part of the celebration,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p> I think it is fair to say that the reason why Kohaku has become a special program is because Hibari Misora, the greatest singer in Japan, made this program special. It is true that Hibari&#8217;s association with &#8220;Kohaku,&#8221; including her declining to participate, her graduation, the importance of the trio, and her appearances in special quotas, has elevated &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; itself.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The Truth of the Whispered &quot;Censored&quot; Theory"></div>
<div class="expapp-yahoo-paragraph-break"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">The truth about the &#8220;termination theory&#8221; whispered after the 70% collapse in viewer ratings</span></h3>
<p> The next time Hibari would appear in a &#8220;special slot&#8221; would be at the 40th anniversary and the end of the Showa era. However, Hibari celebrated the 40th anniversary and flew away at the age of 52, the year the Showa era turned into the Heisei era.</p>
<p> In fact, for a while after the Heisei era began, there were no singers announced for the special slot. Rather, during that period, singers who would now be considered special appearances appeared as part of both the Kohaku and Haku forces. After 1985, the viewership ratings of 70% or more that had been achieved until then collapsed, and as a means of reworking the situation, the members, who until then had mainly sung songs and pop music, began to broaden their genres from this period.</p>
<p> The program expanded its genres by including operatic singer <span class="strongInContent">Shinobu Sato</span>, who was not yet well-known on TV, minyo singers <span class="strongInContent">Chieko Kishi and</span><span class="strongInContent">Takio Ito</span>, and chansonist <span class="strongInContent">Yukari Kaneko</span>. <span class="strongInContent">Yuki Saori, who</span> had not performed in nine years since the song era, was chosen as a member to represent musicals before children&#8217;s songs and <span class="strongInContent">Masachika Ichimura and others</span> became as well known to everyone as they are today.</p>
<p> However, the show was unable to revive the ratings to 70%, and at the end of the Showa era, there was talk of &#8220;ending the Kohaku around this time. The NHK chairman at the time, who was not from the entertainment field, said, &#8220;We are letting them come up with a program plan that surpasses Kohaku.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> As an alternative, a program featuring &#8220;artists from around the world&#8221; could be considered. <span class="strongInContent">In</span> 1989, the 40th anniversary of the event, <span class="strongInContent">Cho Yong-pil</span> and <span class="strongInContent">Patti Kim</span> from Korea and <span class="strongInContent">Kim Young-ja</span> appeared in chimachogori to sing &#8220;From the Land of Morning,&#8221; the theme song for the Seoul Olympics the previous year, which was still unfamiliar to the Japanese public.</p>
<p> The following year (1990), <span class="strongInContent">Cyndi Lauper and</span><span class="strongInContent">Paul Simon</span>, and the following year (1991), <span class="strongInContent">Andy Williams and</span><span class="strongInContent">Sarah Brightman</span> from &#8220;Phantom of the Opera,&#8221; <span class="strongInContent">The Ventures, who</span> only performed, and <span class="strongInContent">Teresa Ten, who</span> had not performed for a long time, <span class="strongInContent">also</span> made a comeback. Now that would be enough to qualify for a special slot.</p>
<p> The following year, foreign singers would not appear in the festival until the popularity of K-pop music picked up, but in contrast, <span class="strongInContent">Harumi Miyako</span>, <span class="strongInContent">Saori Minami, and</span><span class="strongInContent">Masako Mori</span>, who had retired as singers, participated as one of the singers in the red group, not in a special slot, as &#8220;songs to be passed on to the 21st century. The <span class="strongInContent">Tigers and</span><span class="strongInContent">Pink Lady, who</span> had disbanded, were <span class="strongInContent">also</span> to make a comeback on &#8220;Kohaku.</p>
<p> However, in the name of conveying the message to the 21st century, &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; had selected songs from songs released or hit that year, such as &#8220;Hello Baby&#8221; by <span class="strongInContent">Azusa Michiyo</span>, &#8220;Dokodemo Yume wo Yume&#8221; by <span class="strongInContent">Hashi Yukio, who</span> passed away this year, &#8220;Blue Light Yokohama&#8221; by <span class="strongInContent">Ishida Ayumi</span>, &#8220;Kuchinashi no Hana&#8221; by <span class="strongInContent">Watari Tetsuya, and &#8220;Kuchinashi no Hana&#8221; by Ueda Tetsuya, and &#8220;Kuchinashi no Hana&#8221; by Ueda Tetsuya</span>. The medley of past hit songs such as &#8220;Kuchinashinohana&#8221; by <span class="strongInContent">Tetsuya</span> Watari, &#8220;Kuchinashinohana,&#8221; and &#8220;Sudara-bushi&#8221; by <span class="strongInContent">Ueki, etc.</span>, marked the first time in over ten or twenty years that a singer had appeared on the Kohaku stage.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Eikichi Yazawa&#39;s Secret Surprise"></div>
<div class="expapp-yahoo-paragraph-break"></div>
<figure id="attachment_452339" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-452339" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="096a93d5"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/12/828b3ac381fb3bffac9af6b8be6969c5.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-452339" class="wp-caption-text">Eikichi Yazawa to participate for the first time in 13 years as a &#8220;special program</figcaption></figure>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> The Kohaku in Reiwa, Heisei Era, Became a Festival</span></h3>
<p><span class="strongInContent">Takuro Yoshida</span> and <span class="strongInContent">Yoshi Ogura</span> made their first appearances on the Kohaku in 1994, but they, too, were not invited as special guests. Until then, newspapers and magazines had been decorated with lists of predicted contestants for this year&#8217;s Kohaku in the fall, but the Kohaku of the Heisei period was changing into a Kohaku in which no one knew who would appear.</p>
<p> It was not until the 58th Kohaku in 2007 that a special slot that did not belong to either Kohaku or Kohaku was announced at the same time as the contestants. The &#8220;Special Tribute Live&#8221; segment was held at the end of the first half of the show to commemorate <span class="strongInContent">ZARD&#8217;s</span> Izumi Sakai, who had died in an accident in May of that year, and was mainly a live broadcast of a film concert at NHK Osaka Hall. <span class="strongInContent">Masahiro Nakai</span>, the host of <span class="strongInContent">the</span> Kohaku program, introduced Sakai as &#8220;making his first appearance in Kohaku.</p>
<p> In this year&#8217;s Kohaku, Hikawa sang &#8220;Aisansan&#8221; with the video of Hibari Misora, and in the 58th Kohaku, the song&#8217;s producer, Kei Ogura, sang a duet with Hibari&#8217;s video to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Hibari&#8217;s birth.</p>
<p> In 2009, the 60th anniversary, <span class="strongInContent">Eikichi Yazawa</span> finally participated in &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; for the first time. The announcement was kept top secret until the day of the event, when Yazawa suddenly appeared from the backstage entrance of the NHK Hall during the show. Three years later, he made another appearance, and this year he is scheduled to participate again for the first time in 13 years as a special program.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> In 2011, when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, <span class="strongInContent">Lady Gaga, who</span> immediately after the disaster delivered a large amount of charity money, made a special appearance from New York to cheer the audience on. At the 69th Kohaku, <span class="strongInContent">Saburo Kitajima</span>, who had already graduated from the Kohaku five years ago after 50 appearances, made a special appearance and sang &#8220;Matsuri&#8221; for the &#8220;last Kohaku in the Heisei era. The first time they sang in &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; was in the NHK Hall. Keisuke Kuwata embraced and danced with Yumi Matsutoya, who was participating in the red group, and Yumi kissed Kuwata on the cheek during &#8220;Jikkaku Sinbad,&#8221; the first song sung in the Kohaku program. Kuwata offered the microphone to Saburo Kitajima, another special guest, and all the performers ended the Heisei 30 year with a bang. This style is Matsuda <wbr></wbr>Seiko this time.</p>
<p> The 70th Reiwa also featured Hibari Misora. The 70th Hibari was also performed by AI, who sang a new song titled &#8220;From Then On&#8221; in the voice of Hibari from the past. <span class="strongInContent">Beat Takeshi</span> performed &#8220;Asakusa Kid,&#8221; and <span class="strongInContent">Mariya Takeuchi</span> was added to the special lineup with &#8220;Inochi no Uta&#8221; (Song of Life). In Reiwa 2040, <span class="strongInContent">GReeeeN</span> performed &#8220;Hoshikage no Yale,&#8221; the theme song for the NHK morning drama &#8220;Yale,&#8221; and in Reiwa 2024, <span class="strongInContent">B&#8217;z</span> appeared from the studio to the hall in the middle of the performance, creating a composition and direction that kept the audience&#8217;s attention until the very end. The &#8220;special events&#8221; were all over the place.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Rampant Special Events"></div>
<div class="expapp-yahoo-paragraph-break"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">Is it no longer a &#8220;joint battle&#8221;?</span></h3>
<p> It is true, however, that there are many additional members added to the initial announcement of members, and that the lines between the red group, white group, special appearances, and special project performers have become blurred. The year after they are in the special project slot, they are sometimes in the Kohaku group. Currently, Yonezu Genji, who was in the special group last year, is a member of the white group this year.</p>
<p> Since many of the contestants are special singers, I think it would be a good idea to divide the Kohaku Uta Gassen into Kohaku and White, and return to its original form, in which men and women compete in equal numbers in singing and performance, which is the basis of the Kohaku Uta Gassen.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> Unless it is in memory of a deceased person, such as Hibari&#8217;s AI or ZARD&#8217;s film performance, viewers will still feel that male singers should be in the white group and female singers in the red group, even if they are in the planning stage. Why not conduct a questionnaire survey of &#8220;singers whom the viewers would like to see and hear in Kohaku,&#8221; as was done for &#8220;Kohaku&#8221; when it was considered a &#8220;national event&#8221;? How about negotiating with the top singers according to their ranking, and if they decline or do not participate, the winners will be selected in order from the bottom of the list &#8230;&#8230;?</p>
<p> If this were to happen, it would be easier to understand, for example, last year&#8217;s special program, in which friends <span class="strongInContent">Tetsuya Takeda</span>, <span class="strongInContent">Keiko Takeshita</span>, <span class="strongInContent">Ken Tanaka</span>, and <span class="strongInContent">Shigeru Matsuzaki</span> sang &#8220;If I Could Play the Piano&#8221; in memory of <span class="strongInContent">Toshiyuki Nishida</span>, who passed away. &#8230;&#8230;</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>


 Michito Goda is a writer and president of the Japan Singers Association, and made his debut as a singer/songwriter with Watanabe Productions in 1979 while still in high school. Since then, he has demonstrated his versatility in a variety of fields, including stage and broadcast production, songwriting, and writing. He has written many books, including "The Mystery of Doyo" and "The Mystery of Shrines" series, "The Truth of the Kohaku Uta Gassen" and "Uta wa seiyori ni yoroshiku: 100 years of the Showa Era, Looking Back through Ryuko Uta". His most recent book is "Ano uta, kono uta mo mo genjitsu sengen no uta datta dai douyo, aishou uta no mistery" (Mystery of Children's Songs and Love Songs) (Kasama Shoin), which is based on 80 years after the end of World War II. In 1949, he provided "Koshi no Miyako" to Hiroshi Itsuki, for which he received the Special Jury Prize of the "Japan Poetry Composition Award. He is currently a regular guest on BS TV TOKYO's "Playback Song Festival" and "Song Festival Premium," and on January 2, 2013, "Japan Singers Association New Year 12 Hour Song Festival" will be broadcast from 12:00 pm to 12:00 pm.

 Michito Goda

 Kyodo News

 What are the merits and demerits of the Kohaku "special quota"? From Hibari Misora to Seiko Matsuda, the boundaries of "Kohaku" are changing. The "prescription" for the return of Kohaku, as explained by Michito Goda, and the measures taken in the wake of the collapse of the 70% viewer rating.

 Michito Goda, writer and president of the Singer's Association of Japan, talks about "Kohaku Uta Gassen: That Day, That Time - How do you view the special quota? ～What do you think of the special quota?

No Boundaries Anymore? Michito Goda&#8217;s &#8220;Prescription&#8221; for the Revival of Kohaku: Questioning the Merits and Demerits of the Rampant Rampanting of &#8220;Special Quotas

No Boundaries Anymore? Michito Goda’s “Prescription” for the Revival of Kohaku: Questioning the Merits and Demerits of the Rampant Rampanting of “Special Quotas

Access Ranking