On December 24, ‘Nodo Jiman the World!’ was broadcast on Japanese television. In this Japanese TV program foreigners compete with each other singing Japanese pop songs in Japanese. This year, 15 people representing 11 countries took part in the competition.

The program has been very popular since it began on NTV back in 2011. It even launched the singing career of Chris Hart from America after he won the championship in the spring round of 2012. Since then he has released an album and will be appearing in this year’s Kohaku— an annual music program shown on New Year’s Eve with the most popular music artists of the year. It is considered a great honor.

Chris Hart was in the final round this time too. He earned an impressive 399 points out of 400 for his signing of the song ‘Ai’ by Motohiro Hata. However, it was Todd Spitz, also from America, who won the championship this time. He scored a perfect 400 points with his singing of “Fuyu ga hajimaruyo” by Noriyuki Makihara.

Is this the birth of a new star? It will be interesting to see what will happen next for Todd.