YAMASHITA TOMOHISA

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YAMASHITA TOMOHISA

Profile

  • Name: 山下智久 (やました ともひさ)
  • Name (romaji): Yamashita Tomohisa
  • Former name: 青木智久 / Aoki Tomohisa
  • Nicknames: Yamapi, Tomo-chan, TomoPi, Pi, P-chan
  • Profession: Actor and singer
  • Birthdate: 1985-Apr-09
  • Birthplace: Chiba, Japan
  • Height: 175cm* (http://i18.tinypic.com/4z0te7t.jpg)
  • Weight: 60kg* (http://i18.tinypic.com/4z0te7t.jpg)
  • Star sign: Aries
  • Blood type: A
  • Family: Mother (Naomi) and younger sister (Rina)
  • Talent agency: Johnny's Entertainment
Tomohisa Yamashita (山下 智久 Yamashita Tomohisa?, born April 9, 1985), also known as Yamapi (山P?) is a Japanese idol, title="Singer-songwriter">singer-songwriter and an award-winning actor. He has been a member and leader of the popular J-pop group NEWS since 2003 and has also achieved success as part of Shuuji to Akira and as a solo artist. Yamashita graduated in September 2008 from Meiji University's faculty of commerce with a degree in marketing.[2]

Biography

He entered Johnny & Associates when he was 11 years old and is affectionately called YamaPi (short for Yamashita and the colour pink) by his friends, which is a nickname given to him by Hideaki Takizawa. His closest friends call him by the name "Pi", which was first used by his best friend Jin Akanishi, who is part of the group KAT-TUN.

Johnny's Junior

Since joining Johnnys, he has been a member of Jr. groups B.I.G., Four Tops, and most recently NEWS. Yamashita began to appear in television dramas soon after he joined Johnnys. In 2000, at age 15, his performance in Ikebukuro West Gate Park earned him an award for "Best New Comer". That same year, he was voted first place in the Annual Junior Awards for "Best Boyfriend", "Most Beautiful", to name a few for the first time.

When Takizawa made his debut with Tsubasa Imai as Tackey & Tsubasa in 2002, he left as the leader of Johnny's Juniors. Around the same time, Yamashita and the three most popular Tokyo Juniors Toma Ikuta, Jun Hasegawa, and Shunsuke Kazama formed Four Tops. Four Tops then began to host the Junior television program, The Shōnen Club.

Post-debut

In September 2003, eight other boys from Johnny's Juniors had been chosen to form the group NewS with Yamashita, who became the leader. NewS's formation came as a shock not only to the fans of Four Tops, but to its own members as well. Yamashita later revealed that at the time, aside from Ryo Nishikido, he had barely talked to any of the other group members since they were all juniors in relation to his status within Johnny's. Moreover he had been informed that the group would merely be a temporary one-month unit, formed to cheer for Japan's Women's Volleyball team during the games held in 2003.


Career after Debuting

NewS made its formal debut on May 12, 2004, with the single Kibou ~Yell!~. Since its debut, NewS has had all consecutive #1 singles on the
Oricon Ranking Chart. To date, all 11 singles and albums have debuted at the #1 spot.[citation needed]

In October 2005, Yamashita and Kazuya Kamenashi from KAT-TUN had formed Shuuji to Akira to promote their drama, Nobuta wo Produce. The duo had been named after their characters in the show, Shuuji Kiritani and Akira Kusano. They also released a single, Seishun Amigo, which sold over one million copies in four weeks. Seishun Amigo was the number one best selling single on the Oricon Yearly Singles Ranking for 2005. NewS, however, had been temporarily disbanded and all group activities had been put on hold after the suspension of two of its members, who had both been accused of underage drinking.

In spring 2006, Yamashita starred in Kurosagi, a drama based on the manga of the same name. Yamashita once again worked with U-20 idol Maki Horikita who played Nobuko or Nobuta in Nobuta wo Produce, the chemistry between the characters they portrayed a few months prior having led them to work together on another serial drama. For this purpose, Yamashita recorded his first single as a solo artist.
"Daite Señorita" climbed to the #1 spot in the Oricon ranking, the same award-giving body that awarded him the Artist of the Year award, alongside Tackey & Tsubasa and KAT-TUN. His single was the 4th best-selling single of 2006, selling more than 600,000 records -- twice the amount of NEWS's record sales per single. Much to his success, rumors and speculations have gone around the entertainment industry that Yamashita will be pursuing a career apart from NewS as a solo artist. It was later proven to be untrue, as Tomohisa stated that he still preferred to stay with his group, and not even as their leader but simply as a member. His modesty and well grounded nature is much recognized not only by his band members but throughout the Japanese entertainment world and the fan community as well.

In June 2006, he became part of an unofficial group within Johnny's Entertainment called "No Border", which includes Jun Matsumoto of Arashi, Shingo Murakami of Kanjani8, Atsuhiro Satō of Hikaru Genji, Toma Ikuta of Johnny's Junior's, Koichi Domoto of Kinki Kids, Tatsuya Yamaguchi of TOKIO and Hideaki Takizawa of Tackey & Tsubasa. The group had been formed when the 8 members from different Johnnys groups met up for dinner and decided to name themselves No Border. They are known to interact freely, bypassing the senpai-kouhai relationship that had been imposed in the agency, which is rooted from the differring dates of their entry into Johnny's Entertainment. There is a 7-part round-robin on their jwebs about the formation of the group, and each member has a specific color - White, Black, Red, Pink, Purple, Gold, Blue, Grey. However, who holds which color is still unknown.

In the latter half of 2006, Yamashita and Thai brother duet Golf & Mike teamed up with Hiromitsu Kitayama (Kis-my-ft2), Kei Inoo (J.J. Express, later Hey! Say! JUMP), Shota Totsuka (A.B.C.), and Hikaru Yaotome (Ya-Ya-Yah, later Hey! Say! JUMP), to form a temporary unit called Kitty GYM, (though there had never been a second T). This unit had been put together to cheer on Japan's Women's Volleyball team, and they released a single in August called "Fever to Future", the name "GYM" actually being an acronym for Golf, Yamashita, and Mike.

Yamashita returned as a member of NewS on 31 December 2006 at Johnny's Countdown 2006-2007, where the group had been re-launched as NEWS, shortly after which they had released their 7th single, Hoshi wo Mezashite. The single had debuted at the #1 spot in the Oricon Weekly Singles Ranking.

Early 2007, Yamashita, along with KAT-TUN's Koki Tanaka and Taisuke Fujigaya of Kis-my-ft2, had starred in Byakkotai, a two-part mini-drama for TV Asahi that retells the story of Mineji Sakai and the young samurais of the Byakkotai group.

Kurosagi, a movie that had been spun-off from the successful TBS drama, had premiered on March 8, 2008. Yamashita, who had played the character lead in the television drama, starred in the film, making the film his first movie. With only a budget of 2 million US dollars, the movie had grossed approximately 15.5 million dollars. Such success is expected to result to more movie offerings for Tomohisa.

In August 2008, Yamashita had been cast to play the aloof and level-headed intern flight doctor in the FujiTV drama Code Blue, along with other popular actresses Yui Aragaki and Erika Toda; the two-hour special of which had been aired last January 10, 2009.


TV Shows


TV Show Theme Songs



Movies

  • Kurosagi (http://www.kurosagi-movie.jp) (2008)
  • Shinrei Surfer no Shi (1996)

Endorsements

  • RUSS-K (http://russ-k.com/)
  • LAWSON (http://www.lawson.co.jp/index.html/) (2008)
  • Toshiba (http://dynabook.com/pc/index_j3.htm) Toshiba Note PC
  • Weider in Jelly (http://www.weider-jp.com/index.html)
  • Kikko man (http://www.kikkoman.co.jp/) Rakubeji
  • Misau Home
  • MOW
  • Pringles
  • Kiss Mint
  • Coca Cola
  • TBC Beauty Salon
  • TBC Yoga Classroom
  • TBC 30th Anniversary
  • TBC Dressing Room
  • TBC Summer
  • TBC Live Naturally

Recognitions





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