Kame Best



Kazuya Kamenashi (亀梨和也) (b. February 23, 1986 in Edogawa, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese singer-songwriter, actor, television personality, sportscaster, radio host, producer and occasional model. He joined Johnny & Associates in 1998 and became a member of popular J-pop group KAT-TUN in 2001. The group officially debuted in 2006 and has 18 consecutive number ones on the Oricon album and singles chart to their name. He is also one half of the temporary group, 修二と彰, whose only single sold over 1 million copies and was Japan's best-selling single of 2005. Kamenashi is the KA of KAT-TUN and one of the more popular members of the group. Although he is the youngest of the five, he is often considered their unofficial front-man due to his skill in public speaking. He often acts as MC for KAT-TUN on television programs and concerts. He is also one of the few artists to have million-selling certified singles that went on to be the best-selling singles of the year for two consecutive years to his name. Kamenashi has also established himself as an actor with award-winning roles in Nobuta wo Produce, the second season of Gokusen, Kami no Shizuku and Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, and has regularly appeared in various television dramas since 2005. He was also a co-host of KAT-TUN's late-night NTV variety/talk show, Cartoon KAT-TUN until its end in February 2010, and a radio host with his own program, Ks by Ks, which was aired by Nippon Cultural Broadcasting every Friday night. After Ks by Ks ended on September, 30th 2011, Kamenashi hosts a new radio show called HANG OUT broadcasted by FM NACK5 and the show officially starts on October 1st, 2011. He has also dabbled in modeling having walked the runway for Hermès in Tokyo in 2008 and has won awards for his fashion sense having being named Best Jeanist along with 倖田來未 (Kumi Koda) for five years in a row (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010). After his win in 2010, he and Koda were both entered into the Best Jeanist's Hall of Fame and is no longer eligible for future awards. He is also recognised and credited as a producer for his work on special segments with NTV's Zoom-In!! Super, an entertainment news show. In 2010, Kamenashi was named a sportscaster and special correspondent for baseball for NTV's late-night sports entertainment show, Going! Sports & News. In 2005, Kamenashi co-starred in the television school drama, Nobuta wo Produce, with Tomohisa Yamashita (山下智久 of NEWS). The opening theme for the show, Seishun Amigo, was released as a single under the name 修二と彰 (Shūji and Akira), after the names of their respective characters. Seishun Amigo was a massive hit debuting at number 1 upon its release on November 2, 2005 and sold more than 1 million copies in less than 4 weeks. It went on to spend 34 weeks in the Oricon weekly singles chart and became the best-selling single of 2005 in Japan. The song also continued its lengthy chart run into early 2006 and became the third best-selling song of 2006. Kamenashi also wrote and performed a song entitled Kizuna for the second season of Gokusen which was one of the B-sides on the Seishun Amigo single, a song called Special Happiness which was recorded as a duet with bandmate, 田口淳之介 (Junnosuke Taguchi), for their debut album Best of KAT-TUN and more recently, a solo song co-written with Satomi and Yuka Kawamura entitled Aishiteiru Kara which was performed during KAT-TUN's summer 2009 arena tour and during Dream Boys 2009. His other known solo songs are 00:00:16, 1582, Hasanaide Ai de, Natsu no Owari,Someday for Somebody, w/o notice?? , PLASTIC TEARS and BAD DREAMS. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.