Talento Yuka (29) has been cast in next season's TV Asahi drama series "My Girl." She will play the girlfriend of Arashi member Masaki Aiba (26).

Unveiled earlier this month, "My Girl" is Aiba's first starring drama role. The show is based on Mizu Sahara's manga of the same name, which tells the story of a young man (Aiba) who learns about the death of his former girlfriend (Yuka) who left him six years earlier. He also finds out that she secretly gave birth to his daughter (Momoka Ishii, 6), whom he takes in and starts to raise.

Although the main story takes place after the girlfriend's death, the character will still appear in every episode during flashback scenes. Yuka's last regular role in a full drama series on a commercial network was in 2002's "Zoku Heisei Meoto Jawan." However, she did appear in several episodes of last year's hit drama "Maou."

"My Girl" starts in October, airing Friday nights at 11:15pm.

As part of a recent survey, Oricon asked a thousand men and women to identify female music artists that they admired for their way of life. Namie Amuro ranked #1, noted for being a top artist while overcoming various challenges in her personal life, including being a divorced, single mother.
Namie Amuro
Ayumi Hamasaki
Kaori Kawamura
YUI
Ringo Shiina
Miwa Yoshida (DREAMS COME TRUE)
Seiko Matsuda
Yumi Matsutoya
Anna Tsuchiya
Ayaka

Oricon recently ran a small summer survey, asking 800 men and women in their teens and twenties to name celebrities who look good in swimwear. Gravure idol Aki Hoshino (32) topped the rankings, along with actor Mocomichi Hayami (24).

Men voted for Hoshino mainly for her nice body, while some women commented on Hoshino having a very youthful cuteness and style even at her age. Idol Akina Minami (20) was ranked #2 on the women's list, followed by model Yuri Ebihara (29).

On the men's list, the top-ranked Hayami received many comments about his athletic body and his stylish appearance in swimwear. Actor Kenji Sakaguchi (33) ranked second, and comedian Yoshio Kojima (28) ended up in third.

Women:
Aki Hoshino
Akina Minami
Yuri Ebihara
Yukina Kinoshita
Miwa Asao
Ayumi Hamasaki
Masami Nagasawa
Yoko Kumada
Haruka Ayase
Becky
Men:
Mocomichi Hayami
Kenji Sakaguchi
Yoshio Kojima
Hayato Ichihara
Hiro Mizushima
Takuya Kimura
Teppei Koike
Hiroshi Tamaki
Hiroki Narimiya
Tomohisa Yamashita

The highly anticipated "Gokusen: The Movie" opened on 409 screens in Japan this past weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, more than 402,000 fans saw the film in theaters, earning "Gokusen" close to 490 million yen.

According to a statement by distributor Toho on Monday, the movie is projected to gross more than 4 billion yen by the end of its run.

In comparison, the "ROOKIES" movie opened several weeks ago on 428 screens, and it earned over 1.2 billion yen in its first two days.

Arashi's 27th single, "Everything," took #1 on the charts this week with over 342,000 copies sold. With this, Arashi has the three best first-week single sales of 2009: "Ashita no Kioku / Crazy Moon" (502,487), "Believe / Kumori Nochi, Kaisei" (501,988), and "Everything" (342,070).

TVXQ's new single also did well at 182,000 in sales, taking the #2 spot. flumpool, C-ute, Gackt, and John-Hoon also made the top ten with new songs.

In the album charts, Masaharu Fukuyama easily captured #1 with "Zankyo," his first original album in close to three years. "Zankyo" sold 261,000 copies, far more than the latest from the band SID, who landed at #2 with 71,000 in sales. The rest of the top ten was fairly quiet, with only Toshihide Baba breaking in at #10 with a new album. Unsurprisingly, Michael Jackson's "King of Pop" compilation surged up to #4.

Meanwhile, Hayao Miyazaki made some news on the DVD charts, as "Gake no Ue no Ponyo" moved a little more than half a million copies in its first week. This is not unusual for Miyazaki, whose movies have now topped the DVD charts seven times. "Ponyo" also happened to be the top grossing film of 2008, taking in roughly 15.4 billion yen at the box office.