The official list of artists who will attend the 61st Kouhaku Uta Gassen

[Polyrhythm]

Red Team
aiko
Angela Aki
Ikimonogakari
Sayuri Ishikawa
Kana Uemura
AKB48
Miyuki Kawanaka
Kumiko
Kumi Koda
Natsuko Godai
Sachiko Kobayashi
Fuyumi Sakamoto
Yoshimi Tendo
DREAMS COME TRUE
Mitsuko Nakamura
Kana Nishino
Ayumi Hamasaki
Perfume
Ayaka Hirahara
Nana Mizuki
Akiko Wada

White Team
Arashi,
Hiroshi Itsuki
HY
EXILE
NYC
Yuzo Kayama
Saburo Kitajima
Hiromi Go
Kobukuro
SMAP
TOKIO
Hideaki Tokunaga
AAA
Kiyoshi Hikawa
FUNKY MONKEY BABYS
Masaharu Fukuyama
flumpool
Takashi Hosokawa
Porno Graffitti
Shinichi Mori
Yuusuke
L'Arc~en~Ciel

http://www9.nhk.or.jp/kouhaku/artists/index.html

Yay for Perfume and congrats Kana Nishino.

Ikimonogakari? Kana Nishino? AKB48? Red team has it in the bag. Seriously, if they don't finally win this year I'll be like.....wtf -_-

Also, there was some fake news floating around a while earlier. Good thing that got cleared up.

NHK has just announced the performer lineup for this year's Kohaku Uta Gassen. A total of 44 artists have been invited, with an even split of 22 on the Red Team and 22 on the White Team. 5 of them will be making their first appearance on the show, including Kana Nishino and AAA.

Some early news reports proved to be wrong: artists such as BIG BANG, KARA, and Masahiko Kondo did not make the final list.

Artists are listed in Japanese alphabetical order. The performance has not yet been announced.

http://www.tokyograph.com/news/id-7046