The Shounen Club 02 August 2002 review

Taking another jump between episodes here but on the plus side it will be the last time months are skipped. From now on I have at least an episode per month and a few months I actually have all the episodes. In fact I have no missing episodes from March 2003 to the present so this will no longer be in issue in a few weeks. Until then here is the one August 2002 episode I have.

At first I was surprised to see Kamenashi Kazuya and Akanishi Jin with Jimmy Mackey introducing the episode until I finished watching it all and it made sense as this is a rather KAT-TUN heavy episode. I think it is becoming pretty clear that the group by this time has picked up quite a bit of popularity.

Probably the biggest thing to take notice of with the introductions is that A.B.C. has had a line-up change. They are now a a five member group, with the usual four still there but they have lost the other two Juniors and have had Toshin Yoshikazu, who was in ING Shinkoukei, join. This should be the one of the last major changes with the group until Toshin leaves and then of course Hashimoto Ryosuke joining to form A.B.C-Z years later.

The show begins with a rock medley and KAT-TUN beginning to look and sound like the KAT-TUN people know them as. Though having them sing a rock song like Smoke On The Water seems strange, but this was back when Johnny's did not have the massive song catalog they do later.

Everyone on the left is safe, everyone else is late.

The most interesting thing for me with these shots is the name board. The boys have to take their name off a board and stick it to a cubicle wall when they come in, one section for if you are on time, then other sections are started for those who are late depending on how late they are.

I don't think you have fully thought out your genius plan here.

Jin lives up to his Bakanishi nickname when he puts his name with those who were on time while on camera.

Koyashige!

We then launch into rehearsal footage that takes the place of the usual non-performance segments on the show. Which tends to be a lot of the boys playing around and sometimes being serious.

We get another KAT-TUN performance, which is a V6 song medley, and the group is not looking much like the KAT-TUN most are familiar with anymore. In fact the happy and goofiness in this song really does not fit the image they later carry, though of course it still works for Taguchi Junnosuke.

In fact whoever came up with the idea for KAT-TUN to do the medley must have noticed this as well as Junno gets a solo in the medley as well as the chance to show off his acrobatic skills.

We then get more rehearsal footage which includes the boys goofing off in the hallway between performances.

We get a reminder that Ueda Tatsuya at this time was considered the leader of KAT-TUN. Which seems strange as KAT-TUN is one of those groups that never really felt they had a leader, aces perhaps with Kame and Jin but no real leader.

Akanishi Jin gets to sing a solo, Kimi wo Omou Toki, or a mostly solo as Nakamaru Yuichi and Tanaka Koki come in as back up vocals near the end of the song. But I will say at this point even though you can tell that Jin has a good voice he still needs to work on it. Thankfully he does get better at singing but he sounds pretty rough here.

KAT-TUN then shows up to perform a group song, LOVE or LIKE, and again are looking KAT-TUN-ish.

As Ikuta Toma, Kazama Shunsuke and Hasegawa Jun discuss something we can see exactly how much Hasegawa has grown. It is amazing to think that about a year ago he was the shortest of hosts.

As the boys come in from the rehearsal Nakamaru and Koki do some stand-up comedy for the camera.

We get to see the boys watching the rehearsal footage and making comments about it. Then we get to see some performance footage, but not the performance itself just yet.

We get more footage of the guys in the hall from going off stage, which I like with the mixing of the groups that you do not see too much of with these early episodes.

Things are finished up with an ending song medley that ends up looking like what most ending songs on SC nowadays do, a mix of the Juniors all singing a song together.

Like with the other season three episode we get words from Yamashita Tomohisa. Still do not really know what he is saying minus the food talk. I think it is safe to say he probably really enjoyed this one as he got to eat during it.


I rather like this episode because of the rehearsal footage. I have always been fascinated with what happens off stage or behind the camera so this is the perfect episode to see that with this show. Also just seeing the boys being boys is always fun, especially with interactions between the groups. This season so far has come off as the season to try new things, but we shall see how it goes from now on with the fact I have most of the remaining episodes for it.