Good! Ayu is on the list.

yay tohoshinki will be there! I'm so excited. This is a great list. Its going to be fun to watch! hope to see it! :) woot!

the RED TEAM is perfect!!

YES, Ayu and Arashi! That's all I wanted to hear! ^.^

But they are not on the same team! -.-''

I'm excited about this Kouhaku, it'll be my second one! I'm happy so see a lot of my favourites performing. I'm going to watch this one in its entirety.
The theme sounds interesting. I wonder what Ayumi will perform. Most likely You were..., eh?

I love male enka singers. XD

So excited about this Kohaku! They better do it grand, last year was AWESOME! And artists always look/sound/perform their best, usually. The great annual J-Pop festivity haha

I really want to see it live this year, (nice time zones that allow me to see it live without being on the middle of the New Year party xD), but I don't know how! I know there's some kind of software you can install to see Japanese TV on your computer, can anyone help with that?

KeyHoleTV?
 

I think it's KeyHoleTV, here's the link:
http://www.v2p.jp/video/english/

(see below)

I'm so happy that TVXQ are gonna perform omfgggg!!!

I'm just wondering again...will this year's Kouhaku use the famous yet complex "ball system" again for this edition, something we used in the 57th (2006)?

I just found out that the official order of artists for the Kouhaku have been released! Take a look: http://www9.nhk.or.jp/kouhaku/artists/index.html

And once again, how will the winner be determined? Will there be the "ball system" again - the first time since 2006 (the 56th edition)?

is the whole show up for download?

^at JPS, yes.

It's MPEG-2, and HD and nearly 30GB.

HD individual performances are also up~~~

Are the ratings already out?

A 4GB .avi version is also up now.

First half 37.1%
Second half 40.8%

First half had 1.4% higher than last year, while second had a 1.3% drop. In conclusion, the Kouhaku ratings are pretty much the same as before. :) I don't know individual performance ratings yet though.

Thanks.^^
That's pretty good, I guess.

Now I'm waiting for the individual ratings.

Can you post the link please? I can't enter the site for some reason D:

^^

http://jpopsuki.eu/torrents.php?id=19382 (30.8GB MPEG2 HDTS + 4.6GB AVI)
http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/viewtopic_81182.htm (3.1GB AVI)

wow..i don't know that kouhaku watched by 40% people at japan...that's HUGE!!!
no wonder that this show is so GRAND and APPRECIATED by singer there...

AKB48's performance was very enjoyable. I normally don't like idol groups and stuff but I love me some AKB :P