21 September 2013

The Shounen Club 1 February 2009 review

This is definitely an episode for B.I.Shadow fans to want to hunt down. Also expect some variations in video quality for a while as this is the time that getting someone to share the episodes got difficult until I believe sometime in the second half of the year.

In the introductions we finally get B.I.Shadow introduced by their group name. I fear though that this signals that Takahata Misaki will be leaving Johnny's soon, but until Matsumura Hokuto shows up it is not a nail in that coffin.

The guest for the episode is Hey! Say! JUMP and they get introduced at the end of the introductions. They stay on stage to introduce the theme of the episode Hiyaku (this has several meanings with a few being; leaping, becoming active, and emerging).

The medley is labeled a Jumping (or Junping going by the text on the screen) Medley which featured HSJ performing their singles with the younger Juniors. I do love that Morimoto Shintaro was in the medley, even though not in the same part of it as his older brother.

There is a letter exchange segment in this episode and it is between Kikuchi Fuma and Nakajima Kento. I believe Fuma mentions them being in the same auditions and of course that he sees Nakaken as his rival (in a friendly way of course).

BIS get to perform afterwards and they cover the KAT-TUN song GLORIA.What is nice about it is that Nakaken and Fuma get a good amount of solo lines so you get a good idea of their vocal levels. I have to say their voices have improved and changed a lot since this.

This ends up being a part of a medley and mostly Hip Hop Jump, Junior Boys, Sanada Yuma and Nozawa Yuki continue on with it. I am now waiting for Mis Snow Man to become an official group with the Junior Boys members being basically the rest of the group and performing so regularly with Sanada and Nozawa.

The first actual MC segment is with Butokan, who has all five members present for this episode. Outside of the usual Yara Tomoyuki doing a good deal of talking Hamanaka Bunichi and Senga Kento are prompted to speak a bit as well.

The song they perform is Yuki no Furu Hi, and again I find myself really drawn to Bunichi's singing. I hope he has a good chance as debuting in a Kansai Junior group, as a group can never have too many solid vocalists.

We get to the game portion of the episode and have Yara Tomoyuki as the guest judge for it. It was the usual act out a prompt game but each team only had three members each so the game went by rather quickly. Kawai Fumito continued to show that he had a greater impersonation range as he did one of Shounentai's Nishikori Kazukiyo.

There is then an MC segment with the members of Hey! Say! BEST who talk about how their unit image differs from Hey! Say! 7. Koyama Keiichiro congratulates Inoo Kei on entering university near the end of the segment.

HSB then do a medley of their unit songs and I find that I completely forgot about their song Switch. I believe this is the only HSB song that has not made it on a CD yet, though the performance is just with Arioka Daiki, Takaki Yuya and Inoo so that might be why it has not. But it would not be hard to get Yabu Kota and Yaotome Hikaru worked into it. As it starts with the letter 's' so it fits in with the rest of their unit songs.

The Junior ni Q segment starts off with a certain trio seemingly taken over for it. Not surprisingly the topic turns out to be about natto, or favorite toppings to put on natto.

After the three talk a bit Koyama and Nakamaru Yuichi come over to take their rightful places of hosts of the segment making the three leave. We then get the usual Junior ni Q segment. Jesse gets brought over to discuss his answer of scrambled eggs and ketchup.

Morita Myuto is called over as well as he has a few different items on his list of toppings.

It is not all younger Juniors as Yokoo Wataru gets to explain his choices, as he also has a few items listed as his answer.

A.B.C-Z are up next for a talk segment. Koyama starts it by congratulating Hashimoto Ryosuke for entering high school. I think it is really easy to forget how young Hasshi is when he is with Ebi, as the rest of the members are so much older than he is.

The group performs InaZuma Venus, which is one of the songs they get post-Hasshi. Of course this means it is not as acrobatic intensive as some of their other songs but the dance moves are still energetic and it is one of the songs from the group that enjoy.



The end theme is Yuuki 100% and this kicks off the recent love Johnny's has for this song. I remember there being a good deal of wank about this as not only was it a cover of a Hikaru Genji song but the one CD release Ya-Ya-Yah had was for this same song. The versions are a bit different as there has been some minor changes to the arrangement but Yax3 fans were still pretty sore, especially as it looked like Yamashita Shoon had left Shounen Club, much like how the remaining members of Four Tops did after NEWS debuted.

Putting that all aside though this was a fun performance to watch as the HSJ members looked to have quite a bit of fun, especially with some of them putting others' on their shoulders at one point. It is a good performance for HSJ fans to watch, and a pity the file for it was not in better quality.


So BIS keeps moving towards its member change up, which should be happening soon as we are quickly approaching Nakayama Yuma's first debut. That should be an interesting span of episodes to watch to see if it really was as confusing as I remembered it being.

There was a rumor around this time about HSJ releasing a single for Yuuki 100%, which I was against. Looking back on things now though I wish it would have happened. It would have given the group a CD release for 2009 and they probably could have gotten out an album before Hitomi no Screen. But there is no changing the past in the end.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've Always found it strange, don't understand that HSJ didn't had any CD release during 2009 and I stil don't understand that starting from then HSJ had so little releases, I've tried to find reasons but I just couldn't find anything. I do remember that during 2009 concerts a lot off HS7 members cried and thanked the fans for there support. Back then I thought maybe something did happen and they were like giving a punishment. (ha, don't know I was younger back then) HSJ had good releases and sales in 2008 with 3 singles and only just with 2 versions, they Always had better sales then what SZ have now. I Always thought back in the day that HSJ could have skyrocket in popularity. They were a young group with lot off fans and good sales, single and DVD. I don't understand what the management is doing with HSJ even until now. Why so little releases ? Why aren't they giving better songs ? We saw them in 2008 going up with good songs, performance, PV ending with Mayonaka no shadow boy and then BAM a whole year nothing. I'm going to stop complaining now, I'm just a big HSJ fan Always have been, but its sometimes so difficult and I Always feel sad for the guys also. They don't deserve this. Before we know it SZ wil have more singles and albums then HSJ in there short periode of existence and that makes me even more sad :(.

Thennary Nak said...

HSJ were not the only ones getting mismanaged in 2009, it was also the time that Tackey & Tsubasa basically stopped doing things as a duo and Tackey had his solo CD releases. I do not think either group fully recovered though T&T at least had been around longer so they could recover. HSJ on the other hand still seems to be struggling.

I think part of it is that they tried to tie everything to Yamada but because of his age what he could do was limited and they really needed to build up more with the members of HSB to help carry the group for those early years until HS7 left high school and had freer schedules.

As a HSJ fan I completely get where you are coming from. This part of the group's history always bugs me too as there was no reason for it and they did have good sales. And it saddens me that unless HSJ pick up their release schedule then Kis-My-Ft2 will pass them for amount of albums and singles released next year and SZ probably will not be that far behind if things keep going the way they are.