Koda Kumi (24) has showed again that she is in the top bracket of female J-pop stars. Her live DVD “Secret – First Class Limited Live” has finally overtaken Hikki to sell the most copies by a solo artist. The over 300,000 copies sold has outpaced Utada Hikaru’s DVD of her 2000 debut concert series. Koda’s DVD performances are from last summer’s concert at Tokyo’s Shinkiba Studio Coast. Released last September, it features the raunchy style thaqt is common among foreign artists but for which the Japanese had to create a new adjective – “erokawaii” (erotic cute). The DVD went to No.1 in the oricon charts last October and has stayed in the Top 100 for 42 weeks.
• Backstreet Boys member Brian Littrell (31) performed for 1,000 invited fans at a store event in Tokyo yesterday. The event was in support of his recently released debut solo album. He performed four tunes from “Welcome Home” and introduced his 3-year old son Bailey on stage.
• Fashion model Mori Izumi (23) is to make her acting debut. She will appear in next Tuesday’s episode of NTV’s weekly “Drama Complex”, entitled “59-banme no Puropozu” (59th Proposal), in which she plays a supporting role to star Fujiwara Norika (35). The grand-daughter of world famous fashion designer Mori Hanae (80), the half-American Izumi has benefited from the recent trend for fashion models to make the move to television. She has been a regular co-presenter on NTV’s talk show “Oshare-ism” since last year, though her role has been mostly decorative.
• “Goth Lolita” fashion leader Kitade Nana (19) is make her U.S. debut. She will perform at the Otakon anime festival, to be held in Baltimore on August 4-6, as well as in San Francisco, New York and Boston. The live dates, somewhat grandiosely called “Nana Tea Party World Tour”, are in support of her debut album “18”, which goes on sale in the U.S. today and has sold over 100,000 copies here. Her connection with anime is that she performed the theme song for the series “Fullmetal Alchemist”, commonly known in Japan as “Hagaren”. Last year, she was the first Japanese to perform at the Hong Kong Comics Festival.