Sexy Zone's summer of concert releases

Between the already announced Johnny's World concert DVD/BD and this Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 DVD/BD release SZ fans are going to have some light wallets by the end of summer. This DVD/BD will be released August 28th and will have a limited and regular edition with both being the same for each format.

The regular edition will just have footage from the May 6 concert at Yokohama Arena.

Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 [Regular Edition] / Sexy Zone (DVD)

Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 [Regular Edition] / Sexy Zone (BD)

The limited edition will have the same concert but it will also have a second disc that will have footage from another concert at the venue as well as a documentary for the tour.It will also have a special photo book at a set of trading cards that will feature each member in a solo shot.

Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 [Limited Edition] / Sexy Zone (DVD)

Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 [Limited Edition] / Sexy Zone (BD)

All the versions will come with a bonus poster as a first press bonus.


I have to admit as a Hey! Say! JUMP fan I am quite jealous of a release like this for SZ. If HSJ had their concert DVD releases like this I think it would have helped make up for the lack of CD releases a bit, especially if it meant having some footage of all the concerts they did that did not get DVD releases. Not to mention that with BD the whole region coding is not as much an issue as the regions are much larger and North America and Japan share the same one, so for me there would be no issues with having the right player to watch them.

Concerts are an important part of following Johnny's, as they are one of the big ways the groups set themselves apart with how theatrical they are. And they give group members that may not get a lot of attention in other activities a time to shine, so they are great for fans of those members. In fact if I had the money for it I might actually pick this up for Matsushima So and Marius Yo, as I am sure I would see more of them than what I have been able to see of them on Shounen Club.

Johnny's Under 100: Masuda Takahisa

Masuda Takahisa

Groups: NEWS, Tegomass

Birthdate: July 4, 1986

My second favorite member of NEWS. I am just in complete love with his smile and enjoy his easy going nature and he seems like the kind of person you can just relax around. And he has one of the more interesting fashion senses in Johnny’s.

He has never seemed to have a lot of confidence though, but I hope now with NEWS being a smaller group he will gain some as there is no anyone to get stuck behind now. And while his voice is not the most powerful he does have good control and a unique tone.

The Shounen Club 11 May 2008 review

As I visit with family this weekend here's the next Shounen Club episode review.

For this introduction Totsuka Shota calls out the names of the main Juniors of the episode. And I will call this Junior grouping the MassuRyo quartet, as Masuda Ryo is the only Junior I know that is still with the agency out of the four of them.

The theme of the episode is Friends and unlike last episode the theme medley follows the theme introduction. There are some changes to the way the medley has been divided up among the Juniors, with the MassuRyo quartet being the only Junior grouping to perform. Then it is solo performances for the four KisuEbi members present with the MassuRyo quartet with a few other Juniors finishing the medley.

The following MC has a few of the younger Juniors talk about their friends, who are all fellow Juniors. Kyomoto Taiga and Morita Myuto both have each other as friends. Kawashima Noeru put down Anderson Casey and Takada Sho put down Nakayama Yuma.

TOP3 then perform the song Genkai Meter, which will follow Sanada Yuma and Nozawa Yuki to Mis Snow Man. I really loved this group and thought it worked well as Hashimoto Ryosuke had the voice to be lead vocals and Sanada and Nozawa's voices are better as supporting vocals than with solos lines.

The next MC segment features Sanada, Nozawa and Camu Cade. They all talk about each other with the highlight being Sanada talking about Nozawa getting scared about ghosts.

The next performance is with parts of Question?, Goto Hiromi and the two Juniors that are getting pushed for now but one definitely left the agency and I would not be surprised if the other did as well. They perform Julia, which is an old TOKIO song and I am certain they slowed it down for this performance. But Goto gets to show off his violin skills with it.

Then it is time for the game segment. To go with the theme of the episode both teams need to give the same answer to earn a point. So if two people have the same answer they earn a point and each answer that is the same after that is another point. The questions do not have definite answers so being correct is not an issue. The issues asked are what color do they think Koyama's image color should be, what animal does Nakamaru resemble and who is the most admirable in KAT-TUN.

Then they move to a charades game for the second part of the segment. This is always a fun game to watch with how creative the guys can get as well as for the joy of seeing them just doing silly things.

There is then a Kansai Junior ni Q, hosted by the members of BOYS, Nakata Daichi and Hamada Takahiro. The theme of the corner is charm points and there are quite a few Kanjuu highlighted that are still with the agency. First up is Muro Ryuta who is currently a member of Veteran. He put down something about the shape of his ear.

Next Kanjuu still with Johnny's is Backes Kento who put down his eyes. So of course we get a good look at them.

Then is Shigeoka Daiki who wrote about his dimples. This is a rather easy segment to watch with little Japanese knowledge with how they showcase each charm point.

That said I did not quite get what Fujii Ryusei wrote but in the end it came down to his height as he is only thirteen here.

Then to finish the segment is Mukai Koji who wrote about his ears as they are rather large for the size of his head. They bring over his older brother, who quit Johnny's a couple yeas back IIRC, to compare. And that finishes off the segment.

The following MC is just between Koyama and Nakamaru as they discuss the friends they have, which is Kato Shigeaki for Koyama and Masuda Takahisa for Nakamaru.

The next performance is announced as a Hey! Say! 7 medley but it is just Yamada Ryosuke singing a solo with the group coming out to sing one unit song, Wonderland Train. At this point it is clear to see that Yamada has been moved to being one of the more heavily promoted members of the group, especially of HS7.

We get the return of Heisei Post, which looks to have Nakamaru as the host to replace the members of Hey! Say! JUMP when they are not on the program. HS7 though are featured in the corner and read some letters from fans. When discussing e-mail Okamoto Keito speaks up about Nakajima Yuto's use of emoji and cute way of signing off, which leads to Yuto becoming embarrassed.

Another letter asks about which members can to back flips and of course Chinen Yuri says he can do that. He is even asked to give a demonstration, which he of course does.

Then there is a performance of A Ha Ha with the same group of little Juniors as last time, so basically Morimoto Shintaro and his group of four other Juniors. It is a bit strange to hear Kyomoto Taiga being shouty with his singing but this was probably before he began his vocal training.

This then leads us to the final song of the program, BEST FRIEND. Honestly I do not care too much for this song. It sounds like it belongs in another decade, like maybe a rejected Hikaru Genji song. But it is nice to have an ending theme that both the older and younger Juniors can perform in.


Honestly the only thing I feel that is missing from this episode are the rest of the group members of Kisumai and Ebi. This is pretty much what I would consider to be a standard episode and what I wish to see more of with the newer episodes, that is a much greater focus on the Juniors and less on the debuted acts. I do not mind having debuted Johnny's hosting the program but I expect the Juniors to be the focus and get the lion's share of the performance time. They are supposed to be the up and coming Johnny's that have the greatest potential to debut and it would make whatever group they debut in be stronger if they get a sizable fanbase built for them when they are still Juniors.

The Shounen Club 4 May 2008 review

Hey! Say! JUMP are confirmed as no longer being regulars on the program with this episode.

There are quite a few missing Juniors in this episode, in fact only two members from Kis-My-Ft2 (Fujigaya Taisuke and Kitayama Hiromitsu) and A.B.C. (Kawai Fumito and Totsuka Shota) are there for the taping. So the opening is all the main Juniors singing Hey! Minna Genki kai? with everyone just getting individual name tags on the screen.

Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi then introduce the theme of the episode, Genki (energy, spirit, health, etc...). They tie the theme into some talk about concerts and how those make them energetic.

They introduce the guests of the episode, Hey! Say! 7. The group goes directly into a dance segment to highlight each member before starting their performance of Hey! Say! For the theme of the episode they picked the perfect guests.

The group then has their MC segment and they are asked about who the most genki is and they all answer with Chinen Yuri. They then ask what makes them genki and Okamoto Keito answers with a massage, as well as Nakajima Yuto. Morimoto Ryutaro answers with his hamster and I did not quite get what Yamada Ryosuke or Chinen's answers were.

We then get the usual theme medley with the same run down as the past few episodes with the fresher and younger Juniors being the ones participating. And oddly enough everyone but the ones in the Junior Boys grouping get name tags during their performances.

The following MC segment is just with Koyama and Nakamaru. They talk about things that make them genki. Nakamaru said something about taking a bath and a DVD player. Koyama talked about how eating sweet things made him feel energetic.

The quartet of Juniors that has Masuda Ryo in it get to perform a song called DANGAN - LINER. This group also has Takahata Misaki who was in the original B.I.Shadow line up but quit the agency before Kochi Yugo was added to the group. The other two Juniors I am uncertain of as I do not remember seeing them for some time on the program. The performance also features the camera doing some tricks that are more annoying than anything. I think I recall seeing something similar to it in old 90's cheap music videos.

Butokan, or the three members that are there, have an MC segment. Each get to say what makes them genki. Yara Tomoyuki answers love, Yamamoto Ryota with dance and Hamanaka Bunichi brings up the fact that he really does not change emotionally. Which if you have watched Bunichi you completely understand what he is talking about.

Butokan then perform a new song for the group, C=Normal. I have liked all of Butokan's songs, though they are not favorites but I do like to listen to them. And the performances are always fun to watch, especially with some unique choreography put in them.

Next up is the game segment which has the guys going off of prompts that ask them to react to things. Like the first one is about water in the bath and the second is finding their pudding missing from the refrigerator. Then there is the reaction to a girlfriend confessing to you.

It then moves to have two at a time get a prompt to act out. The first is that at the opening of a play it begins and the actors notice no one is in the audience. The following one is that they have to pretend that they are a couple and one of them wins for being the millionth customer.

Question? is up next to perform and they sing their song Beautiful Mind. If I have not said so already this is one of my favorite songs for the group and I will never tire of listening to it.

For the VTR segment the theme is the source of genkiness. First up is Hashimoto Ryosuke who answered with karaoke and punching machines. When asked about it he brings up that he likes to go alone for karaoke.

Next up is Morimoto Shintaro, who shows off his genkiness to start things off. His answer was simply that he was always genki. He surprises Koyama and Nakamaru when he brings up the fact that he is only ten years old.

This is a rather good Junior ni Q segment as most featured are still with Johnny's as next up is Jesse. He wrote that drinking vegetable juice (or more specifically vegetable juice made from mainly green leafy vegetables) is his source of genkiness.

There is then a letter exchange between two Juniors that one I am not familiar with and another I know has left the agency and is now in a rock band.

This is followed by performances of the members of Kisumai and Ebi that are present. It starts off with Kitayama Hiromitsu performing his solo song Chikara.

Then Fujigaya Taisuke performs his solo song, Maria. I am surprised these songs have yet to be released on a CD as the rest of their solos from their Junior days have. But there is still just enough unreleased songs for Kisumai that they could do one last Kis-My-Zero CD.

Going back to the performances Kawai Fumito and Totsuka Shota sing parts of their group song, STAR SEEKER, solo. They are then joined by Fujigaya and Kitayama to finish up the song.

This then takes us to the end song which is OH! MY DREAM for this episode. Again only the older Juniors are performing this. It is a bit strange to see Nozawa Yuki and Sanada Yuma without Hasshi for this, it is easy to forget that they are older than him.


A good Junior focused episode even though some of the more prominent Juniors are missing. I can only assume they were busy with either a concert or stage show as that is the usual reason for having so many missing. Either way we got the chance to see some more of the Juniors that are not usually pushed as much in the episodes, Nozawa and Sanada even both got to participate in the game segment instead of it just being Kisumai, Ebi and Q?.

I tend to feel that most of 2008 is an intermission year, with very little changing and Johnny's trying to figure out which Juniors they should start focusing on for the next debut. Probably closer to the end of the year things should start falling into place but until then there is still plenty to enjoy in these episodes.

Piece Ep. 12 first impressions

Watching this episode I have to wonder why I have taken so long in getting back to finish up reviewing this series. I guess perhaps it was an issue with the fact there was a bit of a wait time for the subs to come out and it would have been hopeless to try to review an episode like this without knowing what was all being said.

The episode begins with a part recap of the previous episode and part look at the relationship of Narumi Hiro (Nakayama Yuma) and Origuchi Haruka (Mizuno Erina). Without a doubt there was something between them despite both being rather quiet in nature.

When it returns to the present Hiro and Suga Mizuho (Honda Tsubasa) are talking in a cafe about Origuchi. Hiro tells her that he has not been in touch with Origuchi for some time and mentions that he has hopes in seeing her again someday. Mizuho then has to break the news to him that Origuchi passed away. Hiro does not take it well and runs off with Mizuho following him.

At the place Hiro is staying at Mizuho gets him to talk more and he confesses on being the one to have almost killed Maruo. He also tells her that was the reason Origuchi rejected him. He then takes his paintings, including a portrait of Origuchi, and set them on fire. Mizuho though saves the one of Origuchi and tells him that he shouldn't erase the little that is left of her so easily.

Some time afterwards Yanai Takashi (Matsumura Hokuto) and Nishida Remi (Arai Moe) show up. Yanai confronts Hiro about getting Origuchi pregnant but Mizuho cuts in telling him that was a mistake, it was her friend that had gotten pregnant.

Remi then speaks up and explains that the friend that Origuchi was helping was her. She confesses everything then about her relationship with Origuchi, as she was the one that helped her and was there for her during the most painful period of her life.


So with this the main mysteries are solved and I feel rather satisfied with them. Certainly they are heartbreaking but they make a lot of sense for the characters so it did not seem to come out of left field. That and this series focuses on discovering hidden truths about others as one of its themes so it fits very well with that.

And I remain impressed with Yuma, as even though I do not care for him to play both Hikaru and Hiro it does give him the chance to show off his acting skills as he makes it difficult to confuse which character he is playing with both roles having very distinctive feels to them.

Johnny's Under 100: Yokoo Wataru

Yokoo Wataru

Group: Kis-My-Ft2

Birthdate: May 16, 1986

One of the initial draws to Kis-My-Ft2 for me was the fact that Yokoo was in a previous Junior group with Kato Shigeaki and Koyama Keiichiro. Being the big NEWS fan I was anything related to the group got my interest.

Even though Yokoo was a member I paid attention to as first with Kis-My-Ft2 he remains a bit of a mystery to me. Perhaps because he is one of the quieter members or just one that does not get pushed much. But I like have members like that in a group, it makes things a bit more interesting.

The Shounen Club 13 April 2008 review

This episodes gives us NHK cross promotion.

The episode opens up with a shared performances of Sekai ni Hitotsu dake no Hana for the Juniors that get the chance to be introduced. I did not bring it up with the last episode but we do have a few more of the Kansai Jrs on the show for this month than just Nakayama Yuma. There is of course Hamanaka Bunichi, as he is a member of Butokan, and a few other of the older Kanjuu that I am not very familiar with.

It is just Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi introducing the theme for this episode. It is Magokoro (sincerity/devotion). And we get the usual Juniors doing the theme medley and it going the usual mix of various groupings of Juniors doing a song before they all join together to sing the final song of the medley.

This is followed by a letter exchange segment with Morimoto Shintaro and Yuma. It's rather cute, especially when Shintaro reads his own name instead of his older brother's in his letter, and his want for Yuma to be his real brother.

There is then another medley that has the two leading it. It brings in more of the Juniors than the theme medley and has an interesting mash up of Mack the Knife and Namida-kun Sayonara.

Yara Tomoyuki seems to be the guest of the episode as he gets his own MC segment this time around. He talks about working on Endless Shock, which is Domoto Koichi's annual muscial.

Instead of a solo for his performance he instead does a collaboration with A.B.C. and Kis-My-Ft2. I always find myself enjoying Yara's performances as the dancing always stand out. And he has a good sense of how to get the crowd going.

The game segment is next and Yara is there as the judge for it. It is the game that has the two teams acting out prompts. One thing that is rather noticeable with this is the fan reaction to the Kis-My-Ft2 members. There are a couple of times that it almost got hard to hear what was being said because of how loud the crowd was.

This was also a surprisingly good segment for fan service with Goseki Koichi showing off why he's thought of being good with female and nee-san roles. And he even gets a kiss from Yara for it.

Overall this was a really fun segment, and I liked that they ended it with having them try to do some of the choreography for Kamenashi Kazuya's solo song sixteen seconds. As it actually uses something tied to the show, the performance, than something a bit random.

Nakamaru is on his own for an MC segment so it gets turned into a talk segment with him speaking about the theme of the episode.

We had a solo Nakamaru MC apparently because Koyama gets a solo performance this episode. He performs Private Hearts, which was a B-side on NEWS' NEWS Nippon CD. Koyama gets to show off his dance skills a bit with this performance.

For the VTR segment of the episode we get something different as Yuma is visited on the set for the Battery drama series that started airing that month. To be noted this drama airs on NHK with SC airing on an affiliate channel, NHK BS2, which is probably a big part of why we are getting this segment for this drama and not any of the other dramas Juniors and guests are in.

Yuma is joined by Shintaro part way through the talk and we have Shintaro again praising Yuma. He does make it sound like he would rather have Yuma as his older brother than his actual brother.

There is then an MC with the members of Hey! Say! BEST that are there for the April episodes. They talk about Jikkon (putting one's heart and soul into) with how it relates to them as a unit.

Following this is a Yabu Kota solo, My Everything. It is a standard ballad so I think whether or not you will like it will depend on how much you like Yabu.

This season does have an ending song for the program as one is introduced, OH! MY DREAM. This is performed by the main older Juniors so there are plenty of fun little moments which matches with the fun sound of the song.


With this episode Yuma seems to have begun getting the push he will have for years to come. And Shintaro will also start getting his push as well though he does not go as far as Yuma, or at least not yet. But I expect to see much more of the two in the near future on the program.

And while Hey! Say! JUMP is present, or at least some of the group's members, there is a definite reduction of their screen time from last season. I am certain they will stop being regulars on the program soon, IIRC.