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.

Junior News Round-Up 004

Wanted to make sure I had a good deal of Junior related news to talk about for this one.

Kiriyama Akito has gotten a Tackey-bump as by recommendation of Takizawa Hideaki he will be co-starring with his senior in Tackey's upcoming NHK-BS Premium drama, Mayonaka no Panya-san. The drama will start airing in April of 2013 and will run for eight episodes.

JE News Daily (English)

I am so happy for Akito. He has been getting quite a few drama roles for a Kansai Junior and seems to be the "actor" of the group. And it is nice that this will be a national drama.

Not sure about how much attention it will get being on a premium channel and Tackey no longer being the big draw to dramas he once was but it is still a good opportunity for him and he will hopefully pick up some more fans with this.

~*

The Kansai Junior National Tour is actually national this time. Usually they just remain in the Kansai region but this time around they do have dates for other parts of the country. The Kansai Juniors listed for these concerts are B.A.D., 7WEST, Kin Kan, Naniwa Oji and Hamada Takahiro.

Concert places and dates:

4/14 Hiroshima
5/4 Sapporo
5/12 Ishikawa
5/19 Fukuoka
6/9 Nagoya
6/23 Miyagi
6/30 Tokushima
7/6 Tokyo
7/7 Tokyo

My personal hope is that this is another sign that B.A.D., 7WEST and Hamada may be edging closer to debuting, most likely in a created unit with them all. And Kin Kan and Naniwa Oji are being pushed so they can help fill the gap for the Kansai Juniors that will be created when those others debut.

~*

Kamenashi Kazuya has Juniors in his latest AOKI suits CM. The Juniors in the CM are Hagiya Keigo, Iwamoto Hikaru, Morita Myuto, Fukasawa Tatsuya and Abe Ryohei. The Official Home Page has images of the Juniors in their suits as well as the CM and a making of clip for it as well.


I am rather happy for the boys though I do not follow any of them that much. But with Snow Man more or less gone it is nice to see some of the guys from that group keep getting work. Myuto has been with Johnny's for so long it is nice seeing him get some breaks and I have liked Hagiya since Hip Hop Jump, not enough to really follow him but enough to feel happy when he gets a break like this.

The Shounen Club 5 March 2006 review

For those who are following along regularly, no I did not skip a month or am missing any episodes. Instead we have two more "lost" episodes, as in episodes that were recorded but not aired. Or in this case not aired in full, as I shall go ahead and explain about.

So sometime in what had to have been early February the second underage drinking scandal hit NEWS. While in Kusano Hironori's case nothing was 100% proven, unlike with Uchi Hiroki's scandal, the fact that it was not even a year since that first scandal it was still seen a big thing. Especially since it was a member of one of the same groups Uchi was in. So Kusano was pulled out of NEWS (it is said he withdrew but I doubt he would have been allowed to stay even if he wanted to) the group was put on immediate suspension and it looks like we lost two episodes of Shounen Club as none aired that month.

On the flip side we get two March episodes, both recap episodes but it looks like they tried to salvage some things from those February episodes at least. From the footage it was yet another set of episodes hosted by NEWS, which is what made them unairable after the scandal. But since by then they were involving the Junior groups more anyway they had enough footage from the taping without Kusano in it to make this special episode.

This special is hosted by Yamashita Tomohisa and Yabu Kota. Probably the thing that stands out the most to me about them is that Yamapi's happy mood he had in the recent months is completely gone. Understandable with having lost another group members and his group being put on indefinite hiatus. This episode does have a theme, or what is likely what would have been the theme of at least one of the episodes that did not air, Ai (Love).

We have what looks like what was part of an opening medley as you can see at least two members of NEWS walk off stage with mic stands as J.J.Express launches into their performance of Love Me Baby. And you know it has to be new footage as Yamada Ryosuke is mixed in with the group, though still not listed as a member. If this had been aired before in another episode I know I would have remembered this.

The medley is not completely without NEWS members though as Koyama Keiichiro and Kato Shigeaki sing Yume Monotagari for a part of it, but you can tell there are some obvious cuts done between some of the songs to keep the screen Kusano free.

Between these clips we return to our host in front of a green screen, who both seem to lack much spirit in doing the job. Not that I feel like I can really blame them as Yamapi's future at this point would be rather up in the air and Yabu was probably just following his lead being the junior of the two.

We get a VTR segment with Tegoshi Yuya talking about the topic Yabu and Yamapi did, jounetsu no ai (passionate love). From what I have gotten from the episode it was most likely that one of the episodes was produced by Tegoshi which is why he gets this VTR segment that no one else does.

The reason I figure Tegoshi was an episode producer is simply because after the VTR he solos a medley of songs. It is interesting to see him getting this kind of push. It makes the creation of Tegomass as a unit seem like something rather natural than Johnny's just randomly deciding to create it.

I am going to skip the talk parts with Yabu and Yamapi unless there is something I am able to catch that I find interesting. Even though the two seem to eventually move into better moods for the most part they are pretty awkward for the most part.

Next clip is a performance from Ya-Ya-Yah, which is starting to look more and more like a duo of Yabu and Yaotome Hikaru with their back dancers Yamashita Shoon and Ayukawa Taiyo. That is once the other two finally show up around halfway through the song.

Next up is JJE covering the Tackey & Tsubasa song Venus. Well technically it is JJE plus Yamada. Looking at the full group I think I can understand why they decided to take Nakajima Yuto, Yamada and Morimoto Ryutaro out of the group to group them with other Juniors, as there is an obvious difference in looks, with those three looking younger than the rest of the group.

Then Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. perform a medley of songs, of course their acrobatics being the most standout part of it. Though it is really looking like Toshin is a bit of dead weight as he really does not do the acrobatics.

We get parts of one of the game segments. This one is edited so we do not see all of it and probably the only reason they showed it was because it was another game segment that had most of the Junior groups onstage so it would be easy to hide Kusano in plain sight that way. The game has Yabu hit a button to pair a random Junior with one that was picked to do some kind of challenge. Like Nishikido Ryo and Toshin had to hula hoop together with the same hula hoop.

Masuda Takahisa and Yamashita Shoon were the other pair shown in the footage and the had to confess things about each other that they liked.

Then we have Question? performing their song Kanjite Miro. They are still only four members this month so I think I can assume that they have indeed lost their second guitarist and it should only be a matter of time for Igo Akun to join the group.

Yamada hits another milestone for his career as a fan letter is read that brings him up to say that they like him. So even though he has not had much screen time he is already gathering fans.

After this we see that a Junior ni Q segment was saved as it was hosted by Shige and Massu. The highlight of it was Yuto who talked about his younger brother in a doting matter, finding him cute.

Kis-My-Ft2 are shown performing Sennen no Love Song again, and again they are missing Miyata Toshiya from the group.

We get an idea of what the theme most likely was for the other episode filmed with a Nippon (Japan) song medley. Since no members of NEWS are in it i can only assume that the producer for that episode was probably one of the Juniors. Though there was not enough from other performances to try to figure out who it could have been.

We get another Yax3 performance, this time all four are present for the whole song, Just wanna lovin' you.

There is a Yamapi solo that we get to see as well. This could have been cut and I think nothing worth seeing/listening to would have been lost. The song, LET ME, is bad and it looked like Yamapi decided to borrow parts from one of Akanishi Jin's costumes for the performance.

The special ends with Yabu and Yamapi just doing the wrap up talk at the end of the program.


While I am glad that they decided to air parts of the episodes post-scandal this format does not lend itself well to flowing nearly as well or being as entertaining. Also because the game segments had to be mostly cut I feel we missed out some of the more entertaining parts of the program.

On the bright side Shounen Club has been unaffected by scandals since this one with Kusano so no more unaired episodes because of them.

All that is left for this season is a recap episode for KAT-TUN to go with their debut now.

SMAP and Mentoring

They more I see of SMAP with either Yamashita Tomohisa or Kis-My-Ft2 the more I realize that the interactions between senpai-kohai for them is a true mentor-mentoree one. SMAP has in the past been more removed from other groups so you did not get much in the way of interaction between them and other groups. But with this recent shift with them working with Yamapi and Kisumai this has been changing, or at least with these Johnny's.

I feel that the interactions with SMAP for Yamapi and Kisumai will benefit them more than just simply trying to ride on their coattails. SMAP are tried and true veteran idols and the first to make that successful switch from just being idols to all around entertainers. Yamapi and Kisumai are getting the chances to work side by side with them, giving them valuable opportunities to learn from the pros as it were.

And I do think SMAP gets something out of this relationship as well. At this point of their careers they have hit so many highs it is probably hard to figure out what the next goal is, and by having younger talent to mentor it can give them that new goal, to nurture the ones that are coming up after them. And they seem to love interacting with the other Johnny's, even though they have not gotten many chances because of how busy they are.

I can understand why some fans may feel begrudged to Yamapi and Kisumai for getting these chances when really no other Johnny's act has gotten to. But timing is everything and they just got to be the lucky ones that where placed under Iijima Michi's management when it seems things are getting serious about finding the next president of Johnny's & Associates.

So in the end I see this as a clear win-win situation, with the younger ones getting to learn from those that can be considered masters of their trade, and with SMAP gaining a new way to find job satisfaction by helping their kohai rise in the entertainment world.

The Shounen Club 15 January 2006 review

This is the final new episode of the season, sorta, in a way. It gets a bit complicated after this and I will get into all that with the review for the next episode.

Forgot to mention it last episode by Miyata Toshiya is still M,I.A. from Kis-My-Ft2. I cannot help but wonder where he is. My only guess is that his parents wanted him to take a break from Johnny's to concentrate more on studying as it is the time of year that tests would be coming up.

Joey Tee gets his official introduction and says some things about himself in English, like he is from L.A. and came over to be on the program. Joey is a bit of a curiosity as he never really went anywhere but had decent time on the program. I guess if anything whatever management was trying to do with him let the Juniors of mixed heritage get some lasting time in the spotlight as we should be seeing some familiar faces showing up soon with him.

The producer for this episode is Tegoshi Yuya. He leads into his chosen theme by talking about how he is not a kid but also not an adult so he decided his theme will be Otona tte Nani?! (forgive me if my Japanese is off here but I believe it would translate to something like "What's an adult?!")

The theme medley is a Otona medley (Adult medley). Like the more recent medleys there is a good mix of Juniors with NEWS members performing in the medley.

I noticed that Question? looks to be down to a single guitarist. I wonder if it means they have lost their first guitarist and we will be seeing Igo Akun showing up in the near future.

For the first MC segment we get a few members of J.J.Express and Ya-Ya-Yah up to talk about what they think are signs of being an adult.

JJE then performs Yamadera no Oshousan, which is a Japanese folk song. We get the trio of Nakajima Yuto, Morimoto Ryutaro and Yamada Ryosuke leading the song at first. I kinds wonder why they did not just add Yamada to JJE at this time but I guess soon it will not matter too much when Yuto and Ryutaro get taken out from the group.

The belt-tie sewn on to the shirt of the outfits they are wearing comes loose from Yuto about halfway through the song. He does well to pay it no mind until the camera is off of him and he does not have to dance so he has the chance to retie it to finish off the song.

We then have a letter exchange between Kato Shigeaki and Ayukawa Taiyo. I actually understood a little of it, which was at the end of Shige's letter he scolds Taiyo about just calling him Shige when he is his senpai. Of course Taiyo has written his letter calling him Shige all through it.

This is followed up by Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. performing the song BEAT MIND and then Kis-My-Ft2 performing Sennen no Love Song.

The Kisumai performance of course stands out to me, not just because I am a fan, but also because IIRC this is the first time the group is performing this song. The song is a carryover from K.K.Kity, the previous group of Yokoo Wataru and Iida Kyohei and is really the first one that I feel makes the group feel like a group as all the members get a good amount of screen time and the younger ones are not stuck in the back of the older ones for a change. And it is no surprise it was one of the pre-debut songs to end up on a Kis-My-Zero bonus CD for the group.

Following this there is a VTR portion with an interview of Tackey & Tsubasa by Shige. He brings up that when Takizawa Hideaki did his VTR for the episode Shige produced he failed to do one of the prompts given him, say "I love you" to the camera. Tackey protests and refuses to do it but Shige and Imai Tsubasa do it so he needs up finally doing it as well with the results seen above.

There is the usual talk about the theme followed by a plug for whatever new release T&T had out at the time, which would be their single Venus.

When we return to the filming it is for a game segment and a new game, Shokura Mania. It is a simple but fun game as it is easy to play along with. But they bring a large group of Juniors on the stage and they are given a question related to Shounen Club to try to guess the right answer to. It is a multiple choice answer and they have to get in the circle of what they think to be the right answer. If they get it right they stay, if not they have to leave the stage.

As fan of the program I found it fun to play along with. And even got to learn a couple of things along the way. Like the original logo for the program was handwritten by Ohno Satoshi.

In the end they end up with three winners after four questions. Since Kitayama Hiromitsu is the only Junior he gets the medal that the winner is supposed to get.

NEWS then get to sing a song, Towairo no Koi, another song that eventually made it onto a CD. The song is nice enough but the outfits they have on are really ugly. I am not a big fan of plaid though if done right I do not mind it but this is definitely plaid done wrong. Of course knowing my luck these outfits will resurface to be Bakaleya6 outfits or some other current/future Junior group I like.

In the following MC segment Koyama Keiichiro has Tegoshi pick between him and Nishikido Ryo for who was the most adult-like to him. Much to Ryo's joy and Koyama's heartbreak Tegoshi picks Ryo, but Tegoshi does spend a good amount of time pointing out Koyama's good points to make up for it.

Yamashita Tomohisa performs a solo song LOVE XXXX. It sounds really dated and I am glad this was never brought back for anything. But then again the song credits has Domoto Tsuyoshi so I wonder if this was just a cover.

This is followed up with Tegoshi speaking about the theme before the start of the next performance, him and Masuda Takahisa singing Sunadokei. I had no idea that Sunadokei was something that was around before Tegomass was made into an official unit so this took me by surprise. It gives me a different perspective about the song and makes me wonder if Tegomass may have happened even if NEWS did not get suspended for a year.

Then this should be the final performance of Wonderful World, barring it being shown in recap episodes. I will go ahead and mention that Yamapi seems to have been in a really good spot in his life as he has been rather energetic and happy in the past couple of months. A happy Yamapi is much more fun to watch than any other mood I have seen him in.

This is going to be the last episode we get with NEWS as a 7 member unit and the last we will see of NEWS at all for a good while as well. As NEWS gets hit by the second underage drinking scandal in the following month.

So while I liked this episode I had that bad feeling hovering over me during the watch because I know what comes next and it is not something I want to happen. But there is no stopping it as it is in the past and I guess at least there will be a lot of distraction with KAT-TUN debuting and then the usual changes that come with a new season.

The next episode does not air until March and it is an interesting episode considering what it is as it is not exactly a clip show yet is a clip show.

Kayou Kyoku X'Mas Live SP 2012 review

This is the final music program special before the ones for the New Year and it aired on Christmas day.

Kayou Kyoku X'Mas Live SP is a four hour special for the weekly Kayou Kyoku program that airs on TBS. It is basically a special version of the usual program that runs much longer and with a Christmas theme but as the show is usually fun to watch you know there are going to be fun moments mixed in with the usual performances.

You know that this is going to be a fun program to watch as it opens not with the usual list of acts that will be appearing but the host of the weekly version of the program, Nakai Masahiro. He sets up the story that they begin with.

The acting portion of it is done by popular child actors Ashida Mana and Suzuki Fuku as well as the other regular host of the program Esumi Makiko. They ask their "mama" about Santa Claus coming and she gives the typical answer about being good children so he will come. They pray for him to show up and we get the opening act for the special.

Of course this is probably not the Santa Claus the kids had in mind. I mean they did not even bring presents with them. But at least AKB48 with SKE48 and NMB48 start the holiday themed show off right with a Christmas song, the Japanese version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

My highlight is the fact that NMB48 have their own section that gets some screen time during the song. And how cannot I help but smile to see the girls so happy?

After the song is done Ashida Mana joins AKB48 to sing a X'Mas version of Heavy Rotation. Mana looks so happy performing that even though I am getting tired of hearing the song I cannot help but love the performance anyway.

We get some opening talk as the MCs introduce the program and talk about some of the things that will be coming up in it.

During the program we get a satellite feed to new mother Higashio Riko (a Japanese pro golfer and wife of Japanese actor Ishida Junichi) and her father, Higashio Osamu (an ex-baseball player). I am not familiar with them, had to look them up, but I guess they are people that the average Japanese TV viewer would recognize. The baby does not seem to be so happy about making his TV debut.

When we start the performances it is with Sexy Zone, most likely because with the length of the program they need to make sure the younger artists go first as they will not be able to stay for all of it. They perform a medley of their singles, and I cannot help but notice that it looks like Yo Marius's sleeves look to be coming up short on him. He is going to be a giant compared to the others if he does not slow down with his growth spurt.

We keep on with Johnny's performances as SZ is followed up by Hey! Say! JUMP performing Super Delicate like usual. I have found it interesting how conservative Yamada Ryosuke and Nakajima Yuto are in the fanservice part of the song on these songs, especially compared to how much they play it up on Shounen Club and concerts.

During the show there are special corners that are done. The first of these is lead by the comedian Chris Matsumura and is is Johnny'scise (Johnny's x exercise). We see some VTR to see that Katori Shingo and Yamashita Tomohisa have already done this with Chris.

He invites them to join him to do it on the show as well as all of Sexy Zone. So with them and the little Juniors that were back dancing for SZ they do the Johnny'scise. SZ look to have a blast and Yamapi is a trooper. Shingo makes this segment with going between a beaming face to looking like he has no idea why he is doing this.

Nakai afterwards go on stage to talk to them all. Near the end he goes up to one of the little Juniors to say something and gets him to say "Merry Christmas", though you could tell the Junior was just all kinds of awkwardly nervous at being put on the spot.

Then after some other acts we what is my personal highlight of the program, a Johnny's Hit Medley. We get to see some of the original footage from the older Johnny's groups whose songs will be covered. I love seeing these as I find it interesting to see what idol style was like in decades past.

And here are a bunch of screen caps from the performance because I love it so. And to note the three oldest members of SZ are the only ones in the medley as it was too late for the younger two to work according to Japanese law.

We get a bit of a Ikemen Desu Ne reunion plus Yamapi.

And that is S-My-2 not being stuck in the very back of the formation and getting seen singing with the KiFt.

Miyata Toshiya gets used as an anchor again, this time by Kitayama Hiromitsu to steady himself when they move to a different part of the stage.

The Otokogumi song cover gave Okamoto Keito some time to shine as he got to get a good deal of focus of course because the group was the one his father was in.

The stand out performance of the medley was of course the cover of the song NAI NAI 16. It was hilarious as the guys really played up the awkwardness of it with Nakai not holding back with his singing at all.

Arioka Daiki had to be one of the worst when it came to keeping a straight face during this performance. I swear it looked like he was cracking up all the way through it.

At the end all the Johnny's groups sing together and we get some fun group mixing.

After the medley is done SMAP leads an MC break with everyone. They do most of the talking as it is mainly about how "perfect" Nakai's singing was and I really wish I knew what exactly Inagaki Goro said to them when he was sounding annoyed.

Another break and it is another Johnny's related special segment that interests me next. This time it is a drama based one for the drama series Ataru that Nakai Masahiro starred in and Tamamori Yuta had a supporting role in. Nakai comes out in character and sings a song.

After the song he goes over to where the guests/MCs are sitting and remains in character so he pretends that he has no idea who Nakai is and walks off stage in search for curry soup.

Next up are AKB48's sister groups, SKE48 and NMB48, who have been sent outside the studio building they are filming at. They have an over sized thermostat just to let you know how cold it is outside (6C or about 43F for those curious).

NMB48 perform Kitagawa Kenji and are a wonderful splash of color where they perform. I love this song, it is just a lot of fun and easy to want to sing along to.

Next performance that I was interested in was of course SMAP's. They perform Lion Heart, which I am quite happy to hear as it is a favorite SMAP song of mine and it is nice that they are pulling out a good variety of songs to perform on these year end programs.

I am quite glad that World Order is on this program. I am really impressed with how creative their dance routines are. Screen caps do not justice to it and I would highly recommend searching youtube for them to check them out.

Later we get Kis-My-Ft2 and The Monsters (the temporary unit of Yamapi and Shingo) getting to spend some time talking in the guest section. The main topic is the relations of Yamapi to members of Kisumai, which is mainly Kitayama and Fujigaya Taisuke.

In this Nakai wonders about why only the front three of Kisumai are in white and the back four are not. This is notable more because this will not be the only program he brings this up in.

Kisumai is up first to perform. They do Ai no Beat -Dance ver.- which has grown on me over repeated performances. I still have my usual misgivings with the whole split thing but there is only so many times I can go over it without feeling like a broken record.

They are followed by The Monsters doing the remix version of the title track of their single, MONSTERS. Do not think that I care much for this remix and the performance does not come off as solid as their other ones.

AKB48 perform their usual mix of songs as a 2012 single medley. Real highlight for me is to see Akimoto Sayaka performing with the group. Honestly though I think she is one of the girls that should be seriously thinking of graduating from the group as I do not see her going much further with her career with them as she keeps further and further back in the group for newer girls.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu performs next and does a medley with her two songs Tsukematsukeru and Fashion Monster. She has the choreography down for these songs well enough but I would love to see a bit more emotion from her.

As we move towards the end of the program we get more of the senior acts, including one of the few Johnny's that is the senpai to SMAP, Kondo Masahiko.

For the talk segment with him they have brought all the Johnny's, minus SZ as it was probably deemed too late to keep them around, out into the guest area.

Nakai ends up asking who he knows of the younger Johnny's and Matchy answers with Tanaka. Yabu Kota goes ahead and says he is Tanaka as it is easy to tell that Matchy just through the name out because it is a common last name and there was a chance that it could have been a last name. Unfortunately the one group with a Tanaka was not on the show.

Matchy performs one of his older songs, Sneaker Blues. He still has an old fashioned style to the way he performs with some very overly dramatic moves. Though they do seem a bit toned down when he performs his new song Let's Go!

SMAP then gets to perform again, this time singing one of their new songs, Moment. It sounded like Nakai forgot how to get himself to sound somewhat in tune for this performance. Either that or just decided not to try too hard as he had already proven his extreme lack of singing ability already in the program.

During the song the members of SMAP bring over the Olympians that were in the audience up on the stage and then over to the guest section.

Things then wrap up with final words from various people on the stage. And that brings this music program to an end.


I would probably only recommend this special to fans of Johnny's and/or AKS groups as they are the main artists of this special. While there are some other artists that perform the selection is not as great as other year end music programs and this one seems to have a lighter tone to it as well.