After promising about getting back to reviewing
Shounen Club I have finally found the time/motivation to do so. Right now I am just going to try to review an episode a month, posting on the last day of every month. I may speed up a bit if I am able to work ahead of that schedule but I want to stick with something I feel is rather doable and right now once a month is that.
This episode is the first back at the usual NHK Hall stage for the episode filming after the more subdued episodes of the previous month. The March Tohoku earthquake/tsunami is of course still a fresh subject and the show is affected by it with really pushing an emphasis on being uplifting. This is also the first episode that uses what will be the usual set up for hosts with three members of the group being the hosts.
The show kicks off with one of the three
Hey! Say! JUMP hosts,
Arioka Daiki, announcing the theme of the episode, Kibou (hope). He then announces that the first song to be performed is
Kibou ~Yell~.
Of course being the first song we get introductions to the main Juniors of the show. Starting with
B.I.Shadow who are sporting outfits that I recognize from being one of the standards for
KAT-TUN back when they were Juniors.
Sanada Yuma and
Nozawa Yuki get introduced together. This is definitely around the time they were getting split off from
Mis Snow Man but have yet to become the duo,
noon boyz.
Then there are the ungrouped Juniors. Of course it will not be too much longer when most Juniors are ungrouped and I know for me it becomes so much harder to try to keep track of them.
Then there is
Morimoto Shintaro with the usual tiny Juniors that are paired with him. So basically
Snow Prince Gasshoudan though I cannot recall if they are still counted as a group at this point and none of them get their names on the screen even though they are highlighted.
Hip Hop Jump get introduced next while
Shintaro is still on stage so there is no good full group shot that I could get of the six. But it does seem to be a sign of
Shintaro shifting from being with the tiny Juniors to
HHJ.
You can then tell that we are nearing the end of the performance as the senior Junior groups start showing up with
A.B.C-Z up first.
And of course to round it out is
Kis-My-Ft2 as they are on track to debut at this point, even though it was delayed because of the Tohoku quake. And that finishes the first performance and we launch right into the next afterwards.
The guest for the episode gets a rather impactful introduction by singing the song
Kizuna a cappella at the start until the lights reveal that it is of course
Kamenashi Kazuya. I love this song so I will rarely complain about a performance of it.
We then finally get to the introductory talk segment where the hosts,
Daiki,
Yaotome Hikaru and
Nakajima Yuto introduce themselves.During the talk
Kame asks
Hikaru about Sendai (one of the areas hit by the Tohoku quake) as he is originally from that area and thus had family and friends in the area.
This is then followed by the theme medley which starts with a performance of
Snow Prince by
Shintaro with the usual tiny Juniors. It seems odd now to look back and see how much
Shintaro was pushed. I really wonder if the underage smoking scandal of his brother
Ryutaro hurt his chances that much.
After the ungrouped Juniors perform
Arashi's
Kimi no tame ni Boku ga Iru it is
B.I.Shadow up. It is interesting to watch the group at this point as it does feel like
Nakajima Kento and
Kikuchi Fuma are on another level to
Kochi Yugo and
Matsumura Hokuto at this point but the later two have improved quite a bit since then.
After that we get a bunch of the Fresh Juniors performing
Yuuki 100%, including two familiar faces,
Matsushima So and
Sato Shori. Still waiting for
Marius Yo to show up so then all of
Sexy Zone will be accounted for in these pre-debut days.
Then things wrap up with
Original Smile being performed by just about all the Juniors featured in the medley.
There is the debut of the Junior Youbin corner, which is basically the usual letter corner that has been in the program since the early years of the show. But it has a new name so they still roll it out as something new.
Nakaken and
Kitayama Hiromitsu are the hosts this time. The first letter is from a fan from Miyagi and the other is from a fan of
Yugo.
Another new corner is then introduced, Gekkan! Ki ni naru J, where they spotlight a Junior. For this first one it is
Kuramoto Kaoru, who is no longer in the Juniors. He is joined by
Yugo to help the segment along.
A.B.C-Z get to perform next and perform their song
Dream ~Itsutsu no Negai~. It is a nice ballad for the song. They each give a message around the mid point of the song about hope, to directly tie into the theme of the episode.
The guest interview has the three hosts talking to
Kame, mostly about the theme of the episode. But they do also bring up
Kame doing sports casting as he just begun to do so around this time.
Kame performs his solo song someday for somebody, which for this has a longer introduction than the CD version. The performance has a nicely worked outfit change in the sense that it does help the performance stand out while being rather low key. I think it helps show that
Johnny's is still trying to keep things cost/energy conservative as the nation was still being affected by the after effects of the quake.
Kitayama and
Fujigaya Taisuke do the talk segment with the hosts before
Kisumai perform for the episode. They mostly stick with the theme for the talk segment until near the end when it switches so they can talk about their debut a bit.
Kisumai perform a medley of two of their Junior songs,
Brand New Season and
Try Again. I am currently on a renewed
Kisumai kick so I loved the performance, especially since both songs are done on roller skates, which I feel the group is already transitioning away from. As gimmicky as they are I do love the cheesiness of them and it was an easy way to let the group stand out.
The Junior ni Q segment is hosted by
Kawai Fumito and
Fujigaya. The topic is in relation to miso, I believe it is about what food you like to have with it. All the Juniors featured in this one are still around, which I do not think there will be too much more of as Juniors can come and go so easily.
First up is
Kikuchi Fuma whose answer is in regards to some kind of meat.
Tanaka Juri's answer seems to be more about a time he likes to have it and not so much another food. They do ask him about his older brother (
Tanaka Koki), but he answers that he does not know.
Then it is
Nakaken who has a list of foods for his answer, one of them being kimchi.
The final Junior they talk to for the segment is
Kyomoto Taiga, who they call over as "Kyo-sama". His answer is sashima which he gets to explain about.
The
HSJ trio then get to perform a remixed version of the
HSJ song
Arigato ~Sekai no Doko ni Itemo~ with question after they read a letter from a fan in Taiwan who expresses their want to help support Japan after the quake. They are also joined by three of the bilingual Juniors to translate messages, with
Jesse being the only one still with
Johnny's as sadly
Casey Anderson recently left the agency.
The shows ends with a performances of
Can do! Can go! so it ends on an energetic note. Of course it is also one of those perfect songs to have the younger Juniors perform as it is one of the first songs they learn and it is rather simple.
So the show is returning to form even though it is a different one simply because it has begun a new season so all the changes that come with that are now able to be implemented. But this is now the era of
Hey! Say! JUMP hosting and there are three debuts coming up in quick succession of each other, starting with
Kisumai's.
Watching this does remind me that I have fallen behind in general with following the Juniors. I think I may need to do some catching up with that, though honestly I just have not been interested in them as a whole for a while outside of a few that I have been a fan of for years. So I am curious if my interest will be renewed or not, though I do know I am getting closer to when
SC is more about recently debuted groups than Juniors so who knows.
