I just watched both this guy's version and Nikita's. I honestly feel this guy was better. I am a huge Nikita fan but this guy just has a fatter, bigger, more projected sound, and had less error than Nikita. His altissimo range was nearly perfect and his range up and down the horn was smoother. I honestly feel like he didn't get first place because he was the first to perform. The first performer never gets first, because you can give a great audition, and the judges proceeds to go through many other contestants, while kind of forgetting what the first audition sounded like in the process, then finally another good audition comes, and it seems so much greater because of the contrast to the previous auditions. I think if Kohei got to perform later, he would have gotten first place. I just feel like he had a superior performance. Though, I do feel like Nikita's ending do this song was better. You could really feel that it was the ending, in contrast to Kohei's, sounding a bit more awkward, making me feel "is it over? er.. oh, yeah it's over." And Nikita's beginning was also much, much better. Nikita's sense of intonation was a tiny bit better as well, and so was his slap tonging, except towards the end. I guess at a level this high, it's all about interpretation.