The Shounen Club 21 January 2011 review

This episode continues to give us new faces on the program, some more familiar than others.

Things start off with the younger Juniors performing Stand Up. It is a remixed version of the song but still a nice energetic song to kick things off with.

We get a few Juniors introduced and one that I recognize that has not been seen on the program yet, though he is one of the regulars of the current episodes, Kishi Yuta. While he gets a proper introduction he is not seen much for the rest of the episode and nothing more than a back dancer.

The theme of the episode is Yell. The hosts and the three Hey! Say! JUMP supporters briefly talk about the theme before moving on to the next performance.

The following performance is with the guest of the episode, Hey! Say! 7. The do two unit songs before they are joined by Arioka Daiki and Takaki Yuya to perform Arigato ~Sekai no Doko ni Itsumo~. I have gotten so used to seeing HS7 as a four member unit it is strange to see them back when they were five.

HS7 then get an MC segment where they are asked about times that they yell. Such as, Nakajima Yuto says it is when he is practicing on his drum set and Yamada Ryosuke when arguing with Okamoto Keito.

The Juniors then perform the theme medley for the episode. With the amount of A.B.C-Z featured it can be assumed that they probably will not have a solo group performance this episode, which they do not.

You no Otegami Yomitai desu! is next with Nakajima Kento and Kikuchi Fuma getting to read the letters. The first seemed to be about love and the other about going on a trip with a friend.

The present members of HSJ then perform a Rock Medley with Question? Of course they have a couple of their own members play instruments, like Nakajima on drums and Okamoto on guitar when they cover an Otokogumi song. It was nice to see Question? actually perform as a group for a change.

Following this is a Gekkan Koyamaru segment where Koyama Keiichiro shares a photo and a story about going on a trip to the beach with Masuda Takahisa.

There is then a Junior performance with the ungrouped Juniors, which includes Kyomoto Taiga, Masuda Ryo, Yasui Kentaro, Casey Anderson, Kawashima Noeru and Takada Sho. They perform I ZA NA I ZU KI, which makes this a rather NEWS heavy episode for the songs performed.

The game segment is a JUMPING Paradise version which only uses the members of HSJ that are present as participants. They get to play the song introduction game. It is probably best whenever they use a Hey! Say! JUMP song just to see the mad rush of the members to press the buzzer so they can answer.

Kitayama Hiromitsu and Fujigaya Taisuke get an MC segment together. This is mainly because they were in a drama together around this time, Misaki No. 1. They are asked to do self introductions, which of course come off as odd seeing as that is the kind of thing that is asked of new Juniors.

Kis-My-Ft2 then perform a medley of their group songs, starting with My Love before moving onto FIRE BEAT. Bit of an odd mix but I can only assume that they wanted to have them perform something newer along with one of their more popular songs for this.

There is a sudden shift to a VTR segment which focuses on NYC practicing for their performance on Kohaku Uta Gassen. Probably the most interesting thing about it is that we get to see them with Arashi as they go over their part in the programming as the group will be hosts that year.

Though not as fun as TOKIO more or less photo bombing the group as they head to the stage.

We return to the live stage part of the program again for Morimoto Shintaro with Hip Hop Jump performing the Junior song 1 for YOU. It is one of those Junior songs that I wish the Juniors would perform more often, and as it was never really a group song I cannot see why it is not used much.

The episode then ends with the older Juniors performing Kibou ~Yell~. Honestly I would have been quite disappointed if this song was not performed at some point during the episode considering its theme. And it made me happy to see Koyama join in part way through.


I do quite like the fact that we are back to having Fresh Juniors being introduced on the program, especially as there are some faces that I recognize since they are currently active as Juniors. Even if they are not getting much screen time at the moment it is nice to see that they are finally on the program and thus in the agency.

For the next few weeks I will have episode reviews twice a week as these are the ones I did while I waited for my laptop to be fixed. So all I have to do is check them over and do any editing that may be needed since I did write them months ago. Then it will go back to once a week when I get through those.