13 March 2013

The Shounen Club 3 September 2006 review

There does not seem to be any August episodes for 2006. But seeing as in the past they have been recap episodes even if I am missing one I do not think much is lost.

While there are no missing members of the Junior groups this month I would really like to know what is going on with J.J.Express. They are introduced but have Yamada Ryosuke, Morimoto Ryutaro and Nakajima Yuto not only in different outfits than the rest of the group but also get individually named on the screen unlike the rest of the members of the group even though the other groups have their members individually named on screen as well. So I would like to know if the three are supposed to be a part of the group or not.

And we have Nakamaru Yuichi back to be the co-host on the show with Koyama Keiichiro.

The producers of this episode are also guests for the episode, B.A.D. BOYS. It is a surprise to see Kansai Juniors on the program but I love B.A.D. so I am happy to see them. BOYS is bittersweet to see as there is only one member of the group still with the agency, Hamada Takahiro. Their chosen theme for the episode is yakusoku (promise).

B.A.D. BOYS get to lead the Yakusoku Medley, which means they perform in most of it. Seeing as it is looking not likely that we are getting episodes filmed in Osaka for this year I am fine with that.

Also the Tokyo Juniors do perform in the medley as well, like A.B.C. with Kiriyama Akito here.

GYM gets brought out, which is the temporary group of Yamashita Tomohisa and the Thai duo Golf & Mike. They send some time going over how to say hello in Thai and over which of the two is the older brother of the duo.

They then perform the song that they released as a single together Fever to Future. It is a fun song and gets covered from time to time as the unit is no longer around with Golf & Mike returning to Thailand then breaking up to go solo.

We also get to see the temporary Junior group created to support GYM, KITY, that consists of Kitayama Hiromitsu, Inoo Kei, Totsuka Shota and Yaotome Hikaru. They were pretty much just the main back dancers for the group and went with them to perform the song, as I believe it was used as a volleyball support song that year.

The following MC has members of B.A.D. BOYS reading a letter from a fan asking for advice then having members of Kis-My-Ft2 give the advice.

Kisumai then perform their song TRY AGAIN. It is nice to see the group with outfits that match for the whole group. It really feels like they are really coming together as a group between that and the few original songs they have so far.

For the game segment we have Shokura Mania again, which I love as it is a game that the audience can play along with and it uses a lot of the Juniors. It would be great if the program would bring this game back for the new episodes as it would a lot more interesting then seeing a couple of Juniors with a member of Hey! Say! JUMP, Sexy Zone and A.B.C-Z play something. Also back to the topic of this game using a lot of the Juniors this time we have some of the younger Juniors playing as well.

To change things up for the game the final question is who would win in an arm wrestling match between Yamapi and Nakamaru, and the answer is decided by having the two arm wrestle then and there. I think we can all guess right who wins this.

The following MC segment has Koyama showing the gesture you make for making a promise in South Korea.

B.A.D. BOYS get to do a medley. B.A.D. seems to get a bit more of a focus over BOYS in these performances, which I guess is no surprise seeing how the groups ended up turning out.

And at the end of the medley Nakamaru joins them to perform SIGNAL. This KAT-TUN always sticks out to me, not just because I like it, but mainly because it is the last single that the group released before Akanishi Jin decided to temporarily leave the group the first time. I assume I will be able to see some of that fallout eventually on the program in the coming months worth of episodes.

The Junior ni Q of course has a prompt about promises they want to apologize for breaking. Yamada gets called over to talk about a broken promise of his that he made to a friend and how he would like to apologize for that.

When they bring Fujigaya Taisuke over it is for a broken promise with Yabu Kota so they bring him over as well. I want to say it is about Fujigaya borrowing something and forgetting to return it, as that is what the conversation sounds like and Fujigaya has a habit of doing that, IIRC.

And if there were not enough guests on the program we get Takizawa Hideaki showing up near the end. Though I am more lenient when it comes to Tackey on the show as he has a good record of making sure that the Juniors are involved in what he does, like having them be featured in his musicals and such. Plus it has been a while since he was last on the show.

He performs his solo song Taste me using the older Juniors as his back dancers which now include the older members of JJE. And we get to see Tackey making sure the Juniors are not just going to stay in the background with him.

Was surprised to see anyone from JJE there in a song with lyrics asking someone to taste and eat you but I guess JJE is starting to lose its young image. I guess it shows that the split with J.J.Express is happening and it is still just a matter of time for the older looking members to become the actual group members while the little ones break off and become a grouping.

At least having Tackey at the end saves us from having gooood being performed as instead we get a Tackey & Tsubasa medley.

Yes Yamapi, Tackey is tugging at your skirt.
And the medley even gives us some Tackey and Yamapi interaction which I find endearing since I know it comes from back when Yamapi was just a tiny Junior himself.


In a way this episode seems a bit unbalanced between the Juniors and the guests but seeing that one of the guests was a Junior group it does work out in a way. And as I mentioned I do not mind Tackey showing up on the program now as it is not as frequent as before and he does well by the Juniors.

I just hope that they begin to cool it with all the guests on the program in the coming months. I want to see my Juniors even though I enjoy the guests but I can always find other places to see them.

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