Hey! Say! JUMP 11JUL2008 Music Station

I wanted to post this much earlier but my schedule was thrown off today because of those around me had delays. But I really wanted to do today's post for this and decided that I would be selfishly stubborn and do a late post today. I am leaving out a subject I wanted to talk about, but as it's not Hey! Say! JUMP related I figured that at least could be carried over to tomorrow.



One of the reasons I kept the opening talk was to help show how Takaki seems to have been promoted to spokesperson with him starring in Gokusen 3. I think it's a bit important to note this because Johnny's doesn't just randomly pick the one or two members of a group that get to do the talking on shows like this. It's usually the members that are the most popular or the ones that JE wants to promote. Not to mention that those that end up in the spokesperson role also tend to be the group leaders.

When Hey! Say! JUMP debuted it was Yabu and Yuto that got to be the group spokespeople, which seemed inevitable as Yabu was Ya-Ya-Yah's group leader and Yuto seemed to fill the group leader role for the original Hey! Say! 7 unit. And it remained that way until Gokusen 3 was on air and then it switched over to Takaki and Yamada. I see this as a reflection of the popularity of the group members. There's little doubt that Yamada is the most popular HSJ member as concert reports always talk about the large amount of Yamada uchiwas in the crowd. Takaki had a boost of fame/popularity with Gokusen 3 so I think it's a partial popularity and part pimping that has him taking on the spokesperson role. I think it'll be most interesting to see if they keep these positions. Though I find it hard to think of either as group leaders.

On the performance itself two things really stood out to me. One is the dance as it looks rather impressive and the fact that it was about equal screen time for everyone.

I think if you're going to have a group as large as HSJ, this is the kind of thing to do with them. I don't think a smaller group could really pull off a performance like this as well as it has so many moving parts happening all at once or very close in sequence.

And even though it looked like almost all the group members got equal time in the camera's spotlight it seemed to stay on Yamada and Takaki a bit longer than the rest, IMHO. And I'm not sure if it is because he usually lacks screen time but I felt that Daiki got a bit of the spotlight treatment. Not as much as Takaki and Yamada but I noticed him more in this performance more than usual. Of course it probably helped him that he made up the front row with Takaki and Yamada instead of being shuffled to the back row like usual. I'm rather pleased by that though as Daiki is one of the HSJ members that I really think needs more love and I hope JE gets him in acting roles again soon as I think he's one of the better actors of the group.

Also on another note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Kato Shigeaki!