20 September 2012

The Shounen Club 8 February 2004 review

Onto the last set of episodes before the end of the season. And we get a return that I was not expecting yet seeing how the past few episodes have been.

This episode not only gives us the return of the full Kanjani8 but also of NEWS, though now down to eight members with Moriuchi Takahiro already gone from the group.

And we get to see an onstage blunder as I believe it is Uchi Hiroki that has to do something to his shoe in the middle of the dance introduction for NEWS. I think that I one thing I really like about Shounen Club is that everything is filmed in one go so there is no re-does. The best you could hope for is it getting edited out but things mid-performance are bound to stay for the watching audience at home to see.

Akiyama Jun remains as the main MC but he gets Ikuta Toma, Hasegawa Jun and Kazama Shunsuke as supporting MCs this time around. And the theme is centered around love in regards to Valentine's Day.

The usual three lead the first medley based off the theme of the show. So lots of love songs, which is great as Johnny's has a lot of those that are really good.

We get a little Junior performance that has some new faces as well as some of the usual ones like Inoo Kei, Tamamori Yuta and Nikaido Takashi.

Among the new kids though is a very awkward Senga Kento. But now with him spotted on the show it means all the future Kis-My-Ft2 members are accounted for. I guess the group of back dancers I should be on the look out now for will be for Hey! Say! JUMP.

But Senga is not the only little Junior of note popping up during this song. Yamamoto Ryota, who is one of the more popular members of the dance umbrella groups is with this group as well.

There is a new game segment introduced, Atatte Pon!, using the visiting Kanjani8 members with Murakami Shingo as the acting MC. The gist of the game is that one of the Juniors, in this case Tanaka Koki, has something about them the other Juniors must guess about. For this it is an item that Koki keeps on him.

Having Yokoyama Yu and Shibutani Subaru on the guessing panel is wonderful as Yu just has fun, especially with answering everything with a emphasized "Un~!" that Subaru joins in after a while.

Back with the game the guessing panel get hints about which item it is with short VTR segments they get to watch with Koki using each item and they have to guess which one seems the most true.

There is a KAT-TUN medley after that. I am really surprised that Destiny never made it onto a CD for KAT-TUN seeing that they have performing it quite a bit now and it seems set to showcase all the members in various ways.

NEWS gets to be in a Detective Tomas segment and have questions asked of a few members. One of them asking Uchi who he would want for his boyfriend if he was a girl and he chooses Koyama Keiichiro.

The segment ends with most of the members having to give their lines of what they would say to a girl to be all lovey.

NEWS get to perform a medley with what will be one of the B-sides to their next single, SHOCK ME, and a concert only song that has pretty much been forgotten, Born to run. I always get saddened to find live songs that do not make it onto a CD release, especially with songs that look like they have no chance of making it onto a CD ever.

Rounding out the medley is NEWS Nippon and so we get little Juniors, and thus more awkward looking Senga.

The VTR segment for this episode is a Toma Scoop with Arashi. Arashi of course being thoroughly delighted to be there.

The guys of Arashi have to pick a card that has a question or request on the back of it. From this we get Aiba Misaki having to play out his first try of asking a girl out with Ohno Satoshi having to be the girl.

We then get to see a bit of the PV for the recent single of the time for Arashi, PIKA★★NCHI DOUBLE.

Jimmy Mackey gets his own medley again, even though it is billed as Jimmy Mackey & FiVE, but FiVE really do not get to do more than they usually do with these medleys.

With the return of Yamapi we also get the return of Yama-p no Hitorigoto. He talks about first love and love confessions.

It is followed by a performance of Kinki Kids' Hadaka Candy by KAT-TUN and Four Tops. Well they are not called Four Tops at any time during the performance but the division is telling and if there were any fans of that group at that time that would have taken this performance as a sign the group would continue on and NEWS was just temporary I would not blame them.

KAT-TUN lead the end song and are actually rather fun to watch as they let themselves be a bit more goofy than usual.

At the very end of the song we have Yamapi again to say the closing remarks. I guess one thing I will give him is that he does seem a bit more comfortable in this role than he was before. Though I miss the energy he used to have when he was younger.


Honestly I thought NEWS would not show up again until the next season when they had their next single to promote. But I am glad to see them return for these February episodes as they are my favorite group and I will not complain being able to see more of them. Especially since they do not do the show take over other debuted groups after them have done right after they debuted.

I suspect that the next episode will have the Kanjani8 performances that this one was missing. I look forward to that as I have come to really enjoy the group watching Shounen Club.

And of course I am really happy to see Senga finally, as not only does that mean that all of Kis-My-Ft2 are active as Juniors now but he is actually a part of the original Kis-My-Ft. line up so it means that group should be just around the corner for being created.

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