The Shounen Club 7 May 2010 review

It looks like I have a solution for my issue with getting access to these episodes to review. So regular reviews shall start again and then in a few months there will be a bit of a surge as the later episodes I have reviewed will be posted then.

This episode starts off with what is basically a Hey! Say! JUMP medley but mostly featuring the younger Juniors, like Morimoto Shintaro and B.I. Shadow.

About halfway through we get members of HSJ, Arioka Daiki, Nakajima Yuto and Takaki Yuya, joining in. Takaki though also has the Kansai Junior group B.A.D. join him for the final song of the medley, Jitabata, which was basically a song for this trio.

During the opening talk B.A.D. get introduced as guests for the episode and the theme is introduced, Boom. Boom in this context more or less translates to something that you are interested in. So the program really can pick anything to go along with that theme.

B.I. Shadow get to perform their group song Ima Sugu ni next. Again it is with Nakajima Kento and Kikuchi Fuma starting it off by themselves with Matsumura Hokuto and Kochi Yugo coming on stage part way through the performance. Despite that though the camera time for the members is not horribly out of balance though Nakaken and Fuma definitely get more than the other two, and the performance is good and energetic.

The following MC segment is with Kis-My-Ft2. Kitayama Hiromitsu leads the talking for the group and I believe he talks about since they were doing a concert touring showers have become popular with the members of the group. I am assuming that it is taking showers over the more traditional baths.

The conversation moves to talk about the concerts and we are treated to seeing some of the footage from them. Sadly only the group's third concert tour had a DVD release for it so this is about all there is video footage-wise for this first one.

The group then performs a song that had only been performed during concerts before, Kis-My-LAND, which uses some props with each member having a "ticket" that is color coordinated with the colors assigned to each member. This is a song that is much better enjoyed watching live than recorded as it plays to the audience quite a bit and it really seems to have been written for the concert tour.

The next segment is the You no Otegami Yomitai Desu! segment and this time the ones hosting it are Kawai Fumito, Kitayama Hiromitsu and B.A.D. The first letter I believe asks about what they think they are best at. The second letter asks for advice on getting a present for an parent.

There is then a Morimoto Shintaro medley, as he is still riding high from starring in the Snow Prince movie. In the medley he is backed by members of Snow Prince Gasshodan and Hip Hop Jump. Nakamura Reia and Kishimoto Shintaro get their names shown on the screen during this which I think is worth noting if just for the fact that Reia seems to be one of the Juniors that is actually getting some focus nowadays.

For the game segment this episode gives us something called Jumping Paradise. It just involves the three members of HSJ on the show this month as the hosts, Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi. The "game" is for the HSJ members to rank the members of their group by who owns the most pairs of sneakers. I think it would have been more interesting to have had the HSJ members host the segment with Juniors having to do the guessing about rank.

The Junior ni Q segment is with the Kansai Juniors and the topic is about something they want to say to someone else. Akito seems to have decided that he will be a host to the segment as he interjects into the conversation every chance he gets to help choose who will be called up to talk.

Nakama Junta is first up and has something to say to Miyata Toshiya of Kis-My-Ft2. It seems like he had something to say about his wota-dance from what I could gather.

Hamada Bunichi gets called up next with something he wants to say to Hamada Takahiro. It is the usual awkwardness that comes with Bunichi.

The next Junior that gets called up is Fujii Ryusei who has something to say to his then fellow group member Takemoto Shinpei. I believe he wanted to bring something up about his hair.

Then finally it is the last Junior to be called up for the segment, Muro Ryuta, who has something to say about his older brother, Muro Tatsuki.

Then Question? gets to perform and sing the song Precious Memories. By now it is safe to assume that Goto Hiromi is officially a part of the band. This song I find rather lackluster and generic, which is disappointing as I know the band has better.

Butokan, for four out of five of the members of the group, show up and have an MC segment. They each get to talk about something that they recently became interested in and most revolve around dancing.

They then perform a special medley. Watching them perform made me realize that there is not a current Junior group that is regularly featured on the show. It is a shame as these groups tend to always give visually interesting performances, especially a group like Butokan that has someone like Yara Tomoyuki in it.

This is followed by an MC segment with B.A.D. The duo get to talk about some of the calls that they receive from the audience when they do they say certain lines/words during concerts.

B.A.D. then performs their unit song, V.I.P. It is not a favorite song of mine for the duo but it is a song that lends itself to an energetic performance.

The episode then closes out with the Juniors with the HSJ members there to perform the HSJ song Yumeiro. It is a bit weird for them to be performing this song as it was not released on CD at that point and even when it did get a CD release it was on a compilation CD for the anime series it was used as a theme song of. That aside I do like the song and I am happy to see it being performed. Though not surprised the older Juniors are missing from this performance.


With the members of B.A.D. debuting in Johnny's WEST this episode takes on a different view for me. It is now an episode to watch to see a part of the road the two had to go on to reach their dream of a debut and I know overall I have become more aware of the Kanjuu in these older episodes. I think with this there does seem to be a move to give them a bit more screen time, which should be seen throughout this season as the Kanjuu get featured more in the Junior ni Q segment but of course it was really only in the past year that they got proper screen time. But still this is more than likely one of the early steps towards the members of JWEST debuting.

It also makes me curious about what will happen with the songs from the Junior units the members of JWEST came from. I would like to see some of them make it onto a CD, perhaps as a bonus disc for their first album or something. But I guess time will tell what will happen with that.