The episode starts off with the Juniors dancing to, and I still can't believe this is the song, Will Smith's Wild Wild West. I really have to wonder what in Earth Yamapi is wearing as it looks so odd. But all the Juniors are introduced by their individual names, except for FiVe, who are the band playing in the background. It's strange to see a Shounen Club with so little Junior units after seeing so many SC episodes where the only featured Juniors tended to be the ones in units.
Considering the year of the show I'm surprised not to see Takizawa or Tsubasa anywhere in site, but I guess they wanted to focus on the younger Juniors on this program from the looks of things. The main host is Yamashita Tomohisa (who gets the most focus) and Hasegawa Jun and Jimmy Mackey are assistant hosts. Yokoyama Yuu is there too as a guest commentator to help out the younger ones with hosting. The actual guests of the program are Arashi. What's interesting about this part is that it is done in a studio set unlike the live stages which they're actually in front of an audience, though the do employ a laugh track, which seems a bit lame and is quite obvious with the male voices used in it. The studio looks so cheap and you can hear the squeaking of the seats when they're moved. They start off by listing things that they will be covering on the program before cutting to another live stage.
This live stage is Yamapi and Johnny's Jr. singing Sawarenai. And right now I'm going to apologize if I mess up a song or person's name as I have limited knowledge of Japanese, I can read katakana and hiragana just fine but kanji is a problem for me. But another thing I've noticed with the this episode of SC is that you get to see quite a bit of KAT-TUN before they were KAT-TUN. In this performance alone you get to see Tanaka, Taguchi and Akanishi singing and dancing with Yamapi. And I'm pretty sure one of the dancers in the black shirts is Ueda. In fact Kamenashi and Nakamaru are the only members I didn't spot at all. Either that or I just didn't recognize them.
After the performance it's back to the studio, this time to do a segment called Club News. They start by introducing the episode's guest, Arashi. They do a little report with two Juniors that I don't recognize the names of at all that go check out Arashi at dance practice. Then move on to talk about acting roles some of the Juniors currently have. I'm very glad Yokoyama is there as he seems to be the only one really relaxed in his role and his goofing off is amusing to see as the rest stumble through their parts.
Then Arashi performs a live stage of their own, singing SUNRISE NIPPON. As this is back in 2000 everyone is still pretty young looking, which really makes this feel like it's pretty old. One thing that hasn't changed is that Matsumoto Jun is a camera whore. And another sign that this was very low budget is the floating mic that showed up on screen above Sakurai during the performance.
It's back again to the studio to be the bridge to the next segment, Junior Face Fight. Which is just a glorified staring contest. I don't know who the little Junior is but I recognized the taller one as KAT-TUN's Ueda. It's overall rather boring and I hope they dropped this segment quickly.
It's then a return to the studio to see Yokoyama making out with a Domo-kun, the NHK channel mascot, plushie. Well maybe not making out but after the bore that was the last segment it comes off as rather cute and amusing. Though it only serves as a quick bridge to the next live stage which features Musical Academy performing Romantic Time, as in actually singing and dancing instead of just dancing as they did for the most part before they were recently dissolved. And as much as it scares me to think about it but I think those flower print suits that they're wearing are still being used, or at least the pattern for them.
It goes right into the next live stage, Suki ni Natteku Ai Shiteku performed by the Juniors, with Tanaka Koki and Hasegawa Jun on the lead vocals.
The Juniors leave the stage and Arashi comes back on to sing Ai no Arashi. I'm kinda curios to why Sakurai has a different shirt on than the rest, but I don't think that's something I'll ever know. Ninomiya is rather cute playing guitar for this as he looks so serious while doing it. And I don't anyone is surprised that somehow Matsumoto manages to undo his shirt so he can show his bare chest during the performance.
Ikuto Toma really should have been made one of the assistant hosts, as he seems like a natural host. His studio segment looks like the forerunner to the Junior ni Q segment of SC. It's just without any Juniors there to ask about their answers but it has the board where they paste their answers to the episode's question up. Not sure what the question is though, other than it's a 'yes or no' answer to it.
After that it's the end of the program. The last song is Love Letter sung by Yamapi and Johnny's Jr.
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