The Shounen Club 13 October 2002 review

Well this episode has the introduction intact so I actually have the entire episode this time.

The only thing I feel worth mentioning from the Junior introductions is the hideous outfit they have Yamashita Tomohisa in this episode. I believe he has actually worn this before, but it was just as ugly before as it is now.

After the introductions we have VTR of a few of the Junior groups performing, Ya-Ya-Yah, KAT-TUN and Four Tops.

It seems like the common use of having two members from the doomed group of four performing on their own to later be joined by the rest of the group seems to have begun with Four Tops. Which I guess makes it odd that Ikuta Toma did not debut with Yamapi in the end. But after Four Tops both Ya-Ya-Yah, once they were down to four members, and B.I.Shadow had this occur with their performances and the two that were featured the most ended up being the two that debuted leaving the other two members behind.

The guest this week is the newly debuted Tackey & Tsubasa, a duo formed by Takizawa Hideaki and Imai Tsubasa.

During the segment Tackey shows his love for Tsubasa by whispering his name a few times.

After the segment T&T perform their solos and a duet, all from their debut release. And again we see another blatant example of Yamapi being singled out in Four Tops as the rest of the members wear what Toma is wearing in this cap while Yamapi wears something similar yet different.

The second studio segment continues the talk with T&T about their debut. This time they focus on the custom microphones they have. Tsubasa has a bunch of crosses on it with one having wings on either side to denote that it belongs to Tsubasa. Tackey's is a more basic looking one that just has a military camo pattern on it.

T&T perform another song together and enlist a bunch of Juniors to help by waving the muffler towels with their name on it.

They do the question board on the stage for this episode. What is nice is that if they point out an answer they at least show a picture of the Junior now.

I'm pretty sure hearts aren't meant to cry loving.

It has been a while since I listened to this song and did not remember how Engrishy some of the lyrics are, so that caught me by surprise. The performance is the final of the episode and it ends once the song does.

At the end Yamapi talks a little about T&T's debut but really cannot say much as the segment is pretty short.


Maybe because I was expecting it but I felt that it was a good episode for a debut promotion of SC. I think what will make the difference is if T&T continue to dominate the show from now on or not. I think more people would be fine with the recently debuted groups remaining on SC if they did not dominate the program for so long afterwards. Though currently that does seem to be fixing itself with Kis-My-Ft2 no longer making regular appearances on the show and A.B.C-Z and Sexy Zone seem to be winding down a bit with their presence on SC, though much more in the case of A.B.C-Z but they did have years as a group on SC before their debut.