Blog Announcement

In light of the recent inactivity of my blogs I have made the decision to consolidate them all into one. What this will mean for Never Ending Music Power is that as a stand alone blog it is ending.

Saying good-bye to the this blog is not easy. I honestly want to cry as I hate the idea of ending it. But I need to be realistic and there is no way for me to continue on in a way I will be happy with the outcome. I began this blog at the end of 2007, so to have it last as long as it has is something I feel proud of. And in a way it will continue on as a part of Thennary Speaks.

And honestly I am not as interested in Johnny's as I once was. I still love NEWS and Kis-My-Ft2, enjoy TOKIO and A.B.C-Z, and hope for the day SixTONES debuts, but outside of that my interest has waned. So it just feels like it would be more of a chore to keep this blog running than the fun it is supposed to be.

I will be moving all the posts here to Thennary Speaks when I have the free time to do so. Once they have been moved I will delete them here. So if you find a post missing that is most likely why.

Thank you to everyone who visited and commented. It encouraged me to keep going in the past when I thought about stopping before. But with where my life is now I cannot continue on the way I had in the past, which is why this time things are changing in a major way.

Nakayama's love knife

It seems that Nakayama Yuma will be singing the end song to the drama Tengoku no Koi. On the Johnny's net page where they have the media that the Juniors are in for the drama they not only have Takada Sho, who is a co-star in the drama, but list Nakayama there as the singer of the end theme. It also lists the name of the song, Ai made ga Knife.

There is no word on if this means there will be a new single out for Nakayama in the near future. Personally I would approve as I liked his Missing Piece single and have been hoping he would get another chance to release something.

I do wonder if there will be a NYC/Nakayama single, as NYC has not released anything this year and if they are still being sent to Kohaku I would assume they would have to release something. Plus the unit does have unreleased songs that they could put on a single and they have done a single with a Nakayama solo on it before. Hopefully Johnny's won't leave us in the dark for too long about this.

Kisumai single news and concert speculation

The title of the B-side track on the regular edition of Kis-My-Ft2's upcoming single SNOW DOME no Yakusoku/Luv Sick to be released on November 13. The track is titled Motetaize Tonight and is the theme song for the late night drama that Kitayama Hiromitsu is starring in.



On another note I have been thinking about the group's upcoming dome concerts in November and December and I cannot help but think that these will be the 2013 concerts that we will get a concert DVD from. Dome concerts do tend to have a higher rate of being filmed for a video release. Considering that with the last concert tour we had the DVD release for it so shortly after that ended but have received no word about this year's tour getting a similar release I think it would not be a surprise if it was skipped in favor of the dome concerts. They may tack on digest footage of the tour as an extra for a release but I do not see it being a release of its own at this point.

Of course I do hope we get a concert video release from Kisumai in the near future. I still love watching the Kis-My-Mint DVD (which now that I think about was a dome concert as well) but I would like to see their newer songs being performed live.

Johnny's Under 100: Kitayama Hiromitsu

Kitayama Hiromitsu

Group: Kis-My-Ft2

Birthdate: September 17, 1987

Even though Kitayama is the eldest member of Kis-My-Ft2 he does not really look it. And he does not really act it either with him letting his goofy side show and be best known for sleeping wherever and whenever he can.

He tends to get dubbed as group leader though he has always pointed out the group has none.

I have the feeling he looks forward to the day the group puts the roller skates behind them. I think he has had the most near misses when it comes to falling when performing in them.

The Shounen Club 5 May 2009 review

And Hip Hop Jump begins its history of ever changing group members with this episode.

The introduction for this episode is the standard group and grouping introductions as each does a short dance when it is their turn. As I just mentioned Hip Hop Jump is definitely doing its member shake up as there is only Tanaka Juri and Hagiya Keigo around for this episode. HHJ will be in flux until they are officially broken up, but the group really exists so Juri can have his own Junior group.

It is Tamamori Yuta with Morimoto Shintaro up to introduce the theme of the episode, Kazoku (family). It is kinda funny to watch the two as even though he is much younger Shintaro comes off as much more comfortable and relaxed speaking on stage than Tamamori.

Of course they go straight into the theme medley afterwards. The interesting part of the medley for me is that for Tamamori's performance of Kizuna they have Masuda Ryo and Kishi Tadayoshi brought out to help sing the song with him. I believe this is the first time Masuda gets to do something to show that he is a talented singer on the program so I look forward to him getting more chances from now on.

We have another Fresh Junior corner, though it features a not so fresh Junior. I guess even though he showed up on the program about two and a half years ago Jesse is somehow being counted as a Fresh Junior here.

But he is not the only Junior shown in the corner that is still with the agency, Konno Takayuki is among them as well. The two in front get to talk a bit with the ones in the back only introducing themselves so not something that a Jesse fan would be missing by not watching this.

Butokan then performs their song Now and Forever. They are surprisingly light with the dance for this but the performance is spiced up a bit by having the PV for the song playing on the big screen in the back of the stage.

This is followed by the You no Otegami Yomitai Desu segment, which has Fujigaya Taisuke as the MC for the segment which features the three Juniors that are a part of the natto appreciation group, Kitayama Hiromitsu, Totsuka Shota and Kawai Fumito. The letter is from a fan that had tried natto because of the trio and liked it. After that the trio went over different foods to eat with natto that they thought tasted good.

The first guest of the episode is then introduced and we have the return of NEWS. They perform Koi no ABO, which is a fun song with a pretty fun performance to go with it.

Instead of the usual MC segment afterwards there is a NEWS o Abake segment instead to take the place of the usual game segment. Watching it now I think it is pretty apparent that they know, or at least if they are nest to them, who is talking. This is definitely one of the best o Abake segments with one of the highlights being Koyama Keiichiro getting out of his chair and not remembering how to get back to it. And of course the fact that it turns into just making fun of Kato Shigeaki by the end of it.

And this is an episode with two guests, with the second one being Takizawa Hideaki. He performs a medley of songs from his second solo single, Sha la la/Mugen no Hana. What is nice is that Fujigaya, Kitayama, Tottsu and Kawai sang back vocals for Mugen no Hana so they get to perform the song with Tackey in this instead of just back dancing.

Tackey then does a short MC with Koyama and Nakamaru Yuichi. It is mostly just promoting the release of the single and is one of the shortest MC segments I have seen in a while with a guest.

We get the return of the Dengonban segment and it already has had changes made to it. Instead of going from which Junior was given a message from the last one it just randomly goes to various Juniors who give a message to another Junior.

The segment still does not do much to get my interest as it is still mostly Juniors talking to a camera. Though we do get Tamamori doing a funny impression of Shimakake Ryuya with this one.

A.B.C-Z then get to sit down for an MC segment. Hashimoto Ryosuke gets to talk about his older sister who was the one that made him join Johnny's. You finally get to see that Ebi has done quite a bit in getting Hasshi out of his shell as he shines with his story about this instead of being awkward like usual.

The group then performs Vanilla. It is hard to think of something to say about the performance as it does not stand out from the other times the group has performed it. And while it is a good song it is not something I would consider outstanding. But if you are a fan of the group than you are bound to enjoy it.

The ending song is MOTHER/FATHER, and since this is the ending with the younger Juniors we have Juri doing the rap part, but thankfully with Fujigaya. While I am a fan of Juri I am not a fan of his rapping ability. It just lacks a distinct flow that it necessary for it to even begin to sound good. And it is not like he does not have a decent singing voice, but most probably have no clue about that as he rarely gets to show off his singing.


While a bit guest heavy this episode I think the Juniors got enough spotlight, if only because this is not the norm for the show anymore. And no matter who is doing it the Abake segments are usually quite fun to watch, even if you know little Japanese. Of course they are much more fun if you can understand them, especially the NEWS ones as members of the group are not afraid to make fun of each other.

Kamen Teacher, the movie

It has been announced that the Kamen Teacher drama series is getting a movie sequel. It will hit theaters in Japan on February 22, 2014. All of the main TV drama cast will return for their roles and there of course has been more Johnny's added to the cast for the film. They are Kotaki Nozomu, Miyadate Ryota, Sakuma Daisuke and Abe Ryuhei.

Oricon Style article (Japanese)


I cannot say that I am surprised with this news as the ratings for this drama have been good for the time slot with it getting into the 3% range. And it seems like with the popular series that involve delinquents it is a given there will be a movie of it.

Of course it is also becoming a regular things to get more Johnny's added to a series when it is given a movie. The members of Snow Man seem to get the most of this treatment but it looks like it is time to start expecting to see more of the Kansai Juniors, or at least 7WEST members, getting added as Nozomu is the second after Shigeoka Daichi was added to the BAD BOYS J film.

Ultimately I am curious to how this will all play out for the Juniors with this NTV late night drama block. It is nice that they, and members from some of the more recently debuted groups, are getting chances to be in dramas. But with the growing number of Juniors being in them it does not seem like a vehicle for debut so much as it did when it first started. Sure it helps up the profiles of those in the dramas, especially the more popular ones, but it is hard to look at the list of Juniors that have acted in them and know which ones may have a greater chance to debut. I think for that you do need to look at the ones that have gone on to get drama roles in other time slots for that.

Johnny's Under 100: Okamoto Keito

Okamoto Keito

Group: Hey! Say! JUMP

Birthdate: April 1, 1993

As I have always liked to support the underdog I liked Keito from the start. Even if he got a lot of hate because people thought he only debuted because his father was Johnny’s too. They were probably right, but I think Keito has worked hard to be a part of Hey! Say! JUMP and did not deserve the hate.

Even though he does not have natural talent with dancing he works hard to pull off the group choreography. And he does have his guitar playing to add to the group.