February Shounen Club ramblings

I've been really busy this month so I have honestly only today had the chance to watch this month's Shounen Club episodes. I'm so glad I did, because even though they still have the issue of being debuted groups heavy I loved what I saw of the Juniors. I am just going to ramble a bit on the few things that caught my eye and stood out to me.

Feb. 3, 2012

Well it seems when it comes to any new groupings for Juniors noon boyz is it. I cannot complain as I have liked Sanada Yuma and Nozawa Yuki since they performed with Hashimoto Ryosuke as TOP3. It must be pretty sad for Mis Snow Man fans though to see that group breaking up, especially since they had that movie that will be coming out next month on DVD/BD.

I will not lie but the fact that Lewis Jesse got to be center in one of the melody songs made me so incredibly happy. I have liked the kid since I learned about him back in 2008, and he was such an adorable kid back then. But seeing him get center and so much screen time made me so happy as I really would love for him to debut someday. And with You Marius' debut with Sexy Zone I actually do feel like it is possible. I really hope all this screen time for him will not end up being a passing fad and will continue on to greater things for him.

I honestly feel like a terrible Senga Kento fan for forgetting her had solo lines in My Love. But I am so glad he does as it means the camera has to focus on him more. Seriously, Johnny's needs to fix their fixation on KiFt when the rest of the members are pretty damn talented in their own right.

I just had to laugh when I saw this in Hey! Say! Jump's Super Delicate performance for the fact of how blatant it was with the fanservice there. Especially since Nakajima Yuto and Yamada Ryosuke stay all up in each others faces for a while too. It is still strange for me to think of the two as sexy in any regard as I have followed them since they were kids but I am sure there are plenty of fangirls that fully approve of this.

Speaking of finding it difficult to come to recognize how much certain Johnny's have grown, damn Morimoto Shintaro! You disappear from the spotlight for a few months and all of sudden you are not that cute little kid anymore. I really was not prepared to see how much taller he is compared to Yamada and he has certainly begun to lose the baby fat on his face. And he is only about 14 isn't he?


Feb. 10, 2012

And another performance that Jesse got to be center for and get a lot of camera time with. Of course this grouping seems to be a shuffling of the Hip Hop Jump members for the most part which I have no qualms with. I liked their final line up and am happy to see Shintaro still getting the chance to perform as he seems to fit in well with the others now he is not getting pushed so hard by management.

Kyomoto Taiga is another Junior that has been getting quite a bit of the spotlight recently. He had a solo for each episode and even when the rest of his group joined him in this second episode he was still front and foremost for the performance.

And we get a quick visit from Shigeoka Daiki and B.A.D. in this episode. I was disappointed that they just talked for a little bit and only joined in for the end song but something it better than nothing. Though I do not think they had time to plan much for them and the only reason that they were there was because they were doing something else in Tokyo at the time and Johnny's figured if they were in town they might as well make an appearance. And the guys always liven up whatever stage they are on so they were a welcome addition to the episode.

I forgot to screencap it from the first episode but this month's episodes mark the return of Koichi Yuugo to the SC stage. Of course I could not help but notice neither song he was a part of had him do dancing, so he probably is not completely recovered yet, but it is nice to see him back. If only Matsumura Hokuto was there too, but I am not worried about him as he has been appearing regularly on SC since SZ's debut so he was most likely busy with something else that month for the taping. I still want to see Yuugo and Hokuto together again, but I guess I am going to have to be patient for that.

On a side not, I'm rather glad that SZ finally got the chance to do something outside of singing their songs off their debut single. Not that I hate those songs but it runs into the issue with any newly debuted group that does not have pre-debut songs in the fact that the single tracks get old once you hear them for the umpteeth time within a short period of time. I honestly could not listen to Hey! Say! JUMP's Ultra Music Power for about a year or so, even though I loved the song, because of this. So having the SZ members split up to cover songs was refreshing and it is nice to see that Marius seems to have become more comfortable on stage and I hope he continues to progress.


And because I am curious to when to expect the debuted groups to stop showing up so much on SC I went back to check the 2008 episodes to see how long it took HSJ to stop dominating the program. And the first episode without any HSJ members was not until June of that year so it looks like we should have a couple more months with Kisumaiebizone being regulars on the program. Of course I can see them leaving the program in order of debut and first having Kis-My-Ft2 stop, especially since next month's theme is "graduation" and Kisumai had a talk segment about the topic. So it will be interesting if it will lead to a graduation from the program then. I will miss them but SC is a Junior program and now that all the recent debuts have happened it is about time for the remaining Juniors to start moving into the spotlight to pursue their dreams of debut as they got to.

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Reading the spoilers for next month and it looks like another good month. I am not sure if I look forward to one of the Junior Medleys that will consist of Ya-Ya-Yah songs though. I mean I love it when the older songs of past Junior groups get revived but I think I would prefer it to be more spread across past Junior groups, like maybe have a J.J.Express song in there as well, as that group had some great fun songs I would love to hear again. But it seems if it's a Junior song from a past group it will be from Yax3 and that just does not sit completely right with me, and I am sure there are some Yax3 fans that may not like it, especially as the Juniors performing the songs are the ones that came in well past Yax3's time. But I really like the songs they will be performing so personally I feel conflicted over it.