Yamashita Tomohisa

Yamashita Tomohisa

Tomohisa Yamashita (山下 智久, Yamashita Tomohisa?, born April 9, 1985), also widely known as Yamapi, is a Japanese idol, actor and singer. He is active as a solo artist and as a member of the Japanese boyband NEWS. Yamashita is often referred to as the leader of NEWS but Yamashita himself and other members of the group have stated that he is not the de facto leader of the group


Yamashita joined the Japanese talent agency Johnny & Associates in 1996 at the age of 11 and made his official CD debut with NEWS in 2004. In 2006 he debuted as a solo artist with the hit single Daite Senorita.

Yamashita's recent works include the Summer 2009 series Buzzer Beat and the Winter 2010 series Code Blue 2. Buzzer Beat and Code Blue 2 both aired in Fuji TV's prestigious getsukyu (Monday 9 pm) time-slot in Japan, making Yamashita the first person to have starred in two getsukyus with only a single drama season in between.

Yamashita holds a degree in marketing from Meiji University's faculty of commerce.[8] He released his third solo single entitled One in a million on July 28, 2010. The single debuted on top of the Oricon single charts and was his 20th consecutive number one hit (most were achieved with NEWS).