Kumi Koda, Kazuya Kamenashi enter Best Jeanist "hall of fame"Tue, October 5, 2010 (10:09am EDT)The 27th annual Best Jeanist awards ceremony was held on Tuesday. This year the awards, which help promote the jeans industry by highlighting celebrities who look good wearing jeans, were given to singer Kumi Koda (27) and KAT-TUN member Kazuya Kamenashi (24) for the fifth consecutive year.72,153 votes were submitted, and both Koda and Kamenashi won by wide margins. Kamenashi took 29,000 votes in the men's category, nearly triple the tally for Arashi's Masaki Aiba. Koda, on the other hand, received close to 13,000 votes.Public Selection Category - Male 1. Kazuya Kamenashi - 29,118 2. Masaki Aiba - 10,696 3. Jejung - 3,932 4. Tomohisa Yamashita - 1,872 5. Koji Iwasawa (Yuzu) - 1,696 6. Kiyoshi Hikawa - 1,458 7. Jun Matsumoto - 1,186 8. Satoshi Ohno - 973 9. Jin Akanishi - 908 10. Hiroki Uchi - 672Public Selection Category - Female 1. Kumi Koda - 12,961 2. aiko - 5,456 3. Namie Amuro - 5,219 4. Meisa Kuroki - 4,935 5. Becky - 3,580 6. Keiko Kitagawa - 3,056 7. Karina - 2,066 8. Kaela Kimura - 1,905 9. Yukie Nakama - 1,796 10. Anna Tsuchiya - 1,321With five wins, both Koda and Kamenashi are being placed into the "hall of fame," making them ineligible for future awards. This is the first time that both the male and female winners have entered the "hall of fame" in the same year. Only three other people have achieved that milestone: Takuya Kimura, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, and Ayumi Hamasaki.In addition to the Public Selection category awards, committee selection awards were given to actor Kenta Kiritani (30), AKB48 member Tomomi Itano (19), and talento Ai Haruna (38). The newly established "global" award went to professional soccer star Keisuke Honda (24), who currently plays for CSKA Moscow and accepted the award through a video message.
It has probably been noted elsewhere on this site, but earlier this summer, the singer Keisuke Kuwata had surgery for early stage cancer of the esophagus. Let's all offer our prayers or best wishes for his recovery- he has provided many many fans with wonderful, thought provoking, funny, touching, rousing music.