She's the only artist who has ever won it 3 consectutive times (as well as 3 times in total I think
). She has won it for Dearest (2001), Voyage ('02) and No Way To Say ('03).
After 2003's No Way To Say I think she decided to decline all awards from the Taisho Awards and kind of 'retired' from them. She commented that after winning it 3 times in a row, an achievement no ones done before, she felt that other artists deserve this award as well or something like that.
Which explains why she hasn't recieved any award at all from the taisho grand pix since 2003
Neither has utada really... makes you think. Utada hasn't won the grand award ever which really raises outbrows!
ORANGE RANGE won it in 2004 for hana I think, and koda kumi won it last year for Butterfly. I didn't see THAT one comming
I'm sure Ayu could've got the award for STEP you or HEAVEN if she was still in the running XD 'course, I'm glad Koda won it
Especially since butterfly is like, the first upbeat song to have won it in ages.