The Shounen Club 11 February 2011 review

This episode gives us more chances to learn about the wave of new faces that joined the program.

The episode starts with the usual theme medley with the theme being Tabidachi (setting off on a trip) and the Hey! Say! JUMP supporters, Nakajima Yuto, Arioka Daiki and Takaki Yuya starting it off with Dreams come true.

It is easy to see which members of JaPAnese Hi! are getting pushed as only four are a part of this medley and get to perform with Morimoto Shintaro. Sato Shori of course being the prominent over time but back then things looked more level.

Since there is no guest this episode it is just the hosts, Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi, with the HSJ supporters on stage afterwards to talk about the episode theme.

Yuto, Daiki and Takaki then perform their group song Arigato ~Sekai no Doko ni Ite mo~. As they do so they introduce a few Fresh Juniors that have some skills to show off quickly. Not sure who is still with the agency outside of Hayashi Ren, who gets introduced again with his older brother Takuto. The others were Nishi Reito, Ichimiya Daiki and Fukumoto Daiki.

The introduction to JaPAnese Hi! members continue as the couple that can speak foreign languages get to show off their skills. It is mainly Kanazuru Hideki speaking but Okubo Lewis gets to use his Spanish near the end.

There is then a Junior performance which is mainly Morimoto Shintaro with Hip Hop Jump performing a song called 1 for YOU. This is the kind of song that I could see them performing today, or at least the remaining ones of this grouping of Juniors.

This is followed by a You no Otegami Yomitai Desu! segment which is hosted by various members of A.B.C-Z, Kis-My-Ft2 and B.I. Shadow. The first letter is asking about advice in relation to being a high school student.

The following letter is about Juniors that resemble animals. They also pull in Nakamaru Yuichi for this one but mostly focus on Kawai Fumito and his assumed resemblance to a horse.

Kitayama Hiromitsu and Fujigaya Taisuke then perform their duet, No. 1 Friend. There is not a lot to say about the song itself as it is rather bland and makes me miss the rest of the group. But KitaFuji were the ones getting pushed at the time so having this song was not so surprising.

The Gekkan Koyamaru segment is next with a theme for this one, sempai. Koyama and Nakamaru are able to share a photo that he managed to get with his sempai Domoto Kochi.

Nakamaru then gets ready to do a solo performance of two songs, Shooting Star and Film, with both songs having lyrics at least written in part by him. A good solid performance from him but honestly I would be disappointed by anything less from someone with his experience.

The Gekkan Koyamaru segment continues after the performance as Nakamaru takes a turn mostly talking about photos, including one with some of his fellow group members, as usual.

It is then Koyama's turn to perform a solo which is his solo song Uri Sarang, which uses Korean in the lyrics. It is also one of the solos released on the bonus disc of the limited version of NEWS' best of album.

Then it is Junior ni Q time with the Kansai Juniors. The theme this time is talking about things they want to see changed in others. Mukai Koji gets mentioned as one of the Kanjuu that someone wants to see a change with.

Nakama Junta gets to air a grievance he has with the other half of his duo, Kiriyama Akito. I was able to catch that it was something about his use of Kansai ben. And with that the segment ends.

A.B.C-Z get to sit down for an MC segment. Yamashita Tomohisa is featured in a VTR for this, as he talks about the members of A.B.C-Z. Or at least the ones that he pretends that he can remember.

The group then perform Dream ~5tsu no Negai~, which is a ballad so it lacks the usual energetic dances from the group's other songs. They seem to be trying to make up for that by adding a large star to the floor of the stage to have the members move around during the song so they are not just standing around during the performance.

With that we are at the end of the episode and it is time for the final song to close things out with. The older groups perform Sotsugyo ~Sayonara wa Ashita no Tame ni~, another ballad and with so many on stage it falls into the issue of just having everyone mainly just stand in place on stage.


And this is about where HSJ starts spending too much time on stage compared to the Juniors. It is not so bad with this episode though as at least one of the performances is to help highlight Fresh Juniors but I still have yet to recover from the HSJ-dominated era of the program. And it will probably be only made worse with the fact that I am heading right into those episodes now.

Other than that at least this is a time where at least some Juniors will be able to get a good amount of screen time, or at least anyone in the groups, Kis-My-Ft2, A.B.C-Z and B.I. Shadow. Only down side to that is that it makes it seem like there has been very little change in who gets featured on the program when compared to the most current episodes.

The Shounen Club 13 September 2009 review

And we get a bit closer to the end of this year's worth of Shounen Club episodes as this episode finishes up September.

The song starts up with a performance of Kibou ~Yell~ with Koyama Keiichiro and Tanaka Juri starting things off before the groups and groupings come on stage to be introduced.

Fujigaya Taisuke is the Junior that gets to introduce the theme of the episode, Fight (which in this sense is more as challenging something that fighting someone or something). It is interesting to hear how loud the audience got when Fujigaya came over to do this, one of those signs that Kis-My-Ft2 was on their way towards debut at this point.

We have the usual theme medley to follow this. The "try your best" song types for Johnny's tend to be my favorite so I loved this medley. Though I did have to laugh a bit at Kochi Yugo obviously not really knowing the lyrics to TEPPEN. He probably never would have passed an audition and was lucky to have won the competition he did to join the agency. Of course he has come a long way since then but he was obviously over his head early on.

The Fresh Junior introduction is skipped for this episode so instead of the usual MC after this we have a letter exchange between Morimoto Shintaro and Juri. It is amazing to see the difference in the levels of confidence between the two, but in the end they are both just adorable.

This is followed by a two song performance by Snow Prince Gasshoudan with the first song being Bitter Moon, which is a B-Side on the group's one off single. The second song is LOVE Together, which was one of the closing songs for the program years ago. What I like best about the performance is that they put names to the Juniors in the group so I can actually recognize some of them. The ones I recognize and either know or do not remember hearing about them leaving the agency at least are Shimekake Ryuta, Horinouchi Tatsuya, Kurita Kei and Kishimoto Shintaro. Of those four only Shimekake does not make the final cut for the group.

We get a recycled guest for this episode as Uchi Hiroki is introduced to sit down for a MC segment with Koyama and Nakamaru Yuichi.

The song he performs is 3Piece, which he performs with Question? With this performance it looks like Goto Hiromi is a part of the group and this is the start of Question? being attached to Uchi.

The guys have some fun before starting.

It is then time for the game segment. This is one of the more fun ones even though we are back to the usual participants coming from A.B.C-Z, Kisumai and Q? But the game is Yamanotesen, which is basically they are given a topic to give an answer to. The first topic is the best to use as an explanation as it is the stops of the Yamanotesen (the train line in Tokyo that is a giant loop). Each person has to name one of the stops at their turn and they cannot repeat an answer.

Gekkan Koyamaru is next and it is Koyama's turn. We get a behind stage photo of him and Kato Shigeaki before they give Tegomass a surprise by showing up on stage at the Tegomass concert they had. Koyama tells the whole story and acts out the reactions to the surprise.

This is followed by Yara Tomoyuki and They Budo performing a two song medley, with Yara starting off solo for the first song and They Budo coming out for the second. I think we are hitting the time that Butokan is coming to its end and we will see more and more of Yara on the program on his own or with one of the dance groups.

There is then a Kansai Junior ni Q segment with the theme for them being Favorite Dance. First up is Nakama Junta who put down the coda for the song Romantic. He gives a demonstration of the dance for us of course.

The next Junior answered with Hamanaka Bunichi's dancing, so Bunichi gets a chance to come up and show off his skill.

Next up is Mukai Koji as he answered with the dance for the BOYS song STAY GOLD, and with BOYS being the hosts of the segment they could not just pass that up.

Then Kiriyama Akito gets a turn with his answer of UME Goin On. They pull over one of the younger Juniors to show the dance off as they support him by keeping the rhythm and singing the song. And that ends the segment.

A.B.C-Z is up next for an MC segment. They talk about a game they played backstage at the KAT-TUN concerts.They demonstrate it and it seems like it is a variation of a game that is played in Japan from the information box that pops up. But if you know some basic Japanese it is easy enough to follow and laugh with the guys.

Ebi then perform a new song for the program A to Z. With most Ebi songs it has some really fun choreography for it and overall it is a fun pop song that fits with the group's image.

It is then time to wrap up the program with the closing song. This time it is Hitomi o Tojite, which if you watch TakiCHANnel you should be familiar with. And this ending song is full of a lot of little fun moments, making it a joy to watch.


A good episode that lets us see the younger Juniors that will become more prominent in the years to come. It is also nice to see those little hints of big things to come for Kisumai and feel more assured that it is not just my wishful thinking that the group will eventually debut.

The Shounen Club 12 October 2008 review

And we have an episode that Yabu Kota is not one of the guests in.

Did not mention it with the last episode but Sanada Yuma and Nozawa Yuki still are treated as prominent Juniors and get individual introductions. Eventually they will be put in a group, which is made of a few of the Juniors from the Jr. Boys group that gets introduced in this episode, but until then they just float as a duo.

At the end of the introductions the guest of the episode comes on stage, Taguchi Junnosuke. He performs a snippet of his solo song, Samurai Love Attack, to end the starting segment.

After that Nakamaru Yuichi reads a fan postcard asking for the theme of Himitsu (secret) and is a Yamashita Shoon fan. They have Shoon come over to say a few words before the theme medley is kicked off.

The medley takes a bit of a break from the usual pattern it has had in the past few months and has the more prominent Junior groups', Kis-My-Ft2 and A.B.C-Z, members lead the songs in the medley with the other Juniors backing them up or singing with them.

After that the first MC segment has Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru talking to some of the little Juniors. Out of the three that had turns talking Kyomoto Taiga and Morimoto Shintaro are of course still with Johnny's. They had to tell a secret and Kyomoto talked about something related to sleeping while Shintaro claimed to be a genius a coin games, which is a kind of arcade game.

Of course whenever there are little Juniors in black suits it usually means that there will be a performance of Secret Agent Man, and for this episode it holds true.

The little ones are not the only ones performing the song as about half way through they are joined by four other Juniors, Takada Sho, Nakajima Kento, Kikuchi Fuma and Takahata Misaki, the last one being the only one not with Johnny's anymore. But all four are involved in dramas in 2008, which is why I am assuming they were placed to perform in this song.

Next is an MC segment with Junno. When asked about a secret he just says something goofy, which is nothing new for him. He then talks about playing an internet game and teases about the name he uses to play it.

He performs his solo song Natsu no Basho, which is a nice summer pop song. Listening to it I am amazed at how much he has improved his vocals over the years as he sounds so much better in his latest solo, FLASH. But what Junno lacks in vocal skills he always tried to make up with energy and he has a dance break in the middle of the song where he shows off his dance moves as well as acrobatics.

The game segment portion of the show comes after that and this time there is quite a change up to it. Though it is more going back to some of their old games. This one has each team captain, Fujigaya Taisuke for Dream Bombers and Kawai Fumito for Jonetsu Rainbows, call out a Junior to showcase a talent. Junno then as judge has to pick which one did better. What is great with this is that they make sure to use some of the Fresh Juniors, which includes Nakaken, who does an impersonation. 

Another Fresh Junior showcased is Tanaka Juri, who with Nakamaru revive the TaNaka comedy duo that Nakamaru used to do with Juri's older brother, Tanaka Koki. They even make it a point to point out Juri and Koki are brothers in one of their routines.

Next performance is Kis-My-Ft2 performing Smile again. There is not much different from their previous performance of the song but it is still miles better than what comes after it...

This episode has what to my knowledge is the first and only foreign guest act on the program. It is a boy band from Europe called US 5 and I was not impressed watching them perform back in 2008 and less so watching them in 2013. I have no clue why they were on the program but I am not sad that we never see or hear from them again.

Thankfully there is Kansai Junior ni Q next to bring us back to what the show is really about. The theme seems to be exposing others' secrets. While the first Kanjuu up, Muro Tatsuki, is no longer with Johnny's his brothers, which include Muro Ryuta, are and as Tatsuki's secret includes his brother Ryuta gets called over.

A familiar face camera bombs them though and focus shifts to the culprit, Mukai Koji, for a bit before moving back to the brothers.

Nakayama Yuma is called up next, as there was indeed a time he was with the other Kansai Juniors, and his secret is about Fujii Ryusei. So when they have Fujii up there they talk about his answer which involves Yuma and another Kanjuu.

Then it is Shigeoka Daiki up next and he talks about Fugal Shawn Goku and how he listed something wrong in his profile. And the final Kanjuu they bring up is about those not with the agency anymore.

There is then an MC with A.B.C-Z and they talk about a secret and Kawai brings up Hashimoto Ryosuke as the topic bringing up that even though Hasshi looks like the cool type his personality does not match up at all. They also help correct Koyama's pronunciation of their group name at the end as 'z' tends to be pronounced as 'zed' in Japan instead of the American variation of 'zee'. 

They perform their first group song as this unit, Ashita no Tame ni Boku ga Iru. The song is a ballad, which at this point for the group is probably the best thing as Hasshi really has no acrobatic experience that I can recall at this point so he would stick out quite a bit if the group do their usual song types.

And we get a rare performance of the season's ending song, OH! MY DREAM. I think by now it is safe to say having assigned ending songs for the show is on its way out. Which is a bit of a pity as they have been ensuring that Juniors are a part of the final performance and tend to give us cute moments like this.

A Shounen Club episode with Junno as a guest will always be a joy for me. The biggest downside to the episode is the US 5 appearance, as there seems to be little point to having them there as they are not Johnny's and do not really interact with the Juniors, just do their performance and leave. If I take that oddness out though I easily rate this episode rather highly as it has a good mix of everything I like from the program.