The Shounen Club 19 & 26 January 2003 review

Finally reached 2003 so I am less than a decade behind with this show. I will be reviewing these two January episodes together as they are both part of a request special so it is mainly just clips of past episodes.

The episodes are basically the main hosts, Four Tops and Jimmy Mackey sitting at the studio, reading postcards and commenting on the clips viewed.

We do get to see this board, which has photos of the winners of Club no Ousama. They show this off as they talk about them before showing the clips of them doing the various talents that gave them their victorious.

I really wish I had the episode Kato Shigeaki did his talent, balloon animals. But he looks adorably awkward here.

And I sadly missed Yamashita Shoon showing off his tea tasting skills as he shows that he can tell tea apart from their smell alone.

Your usual Massu sighting.

We then get a Ya-Ya-Yah medley. Honestly the group has done the three songs they have so many times I have come to really not care for them. Though for Aikotaba wa Ya-Ya-Yah it means I can spot Masuda Takahisa back dancing as he is one of the four Juniors that seems to be always a part of this performance.

"I love all human." - Tanaka Koki

We get a series of clips dedicated to Tanaka (Tanaka Koki and Nakamaru Yuichi's comedy team name). Apparently they started it when they were in Thailand back in March of 2002. They mainly just goof off at first and we get some amusing Engrish from it.

Nakamaru, the malfunctioning crane from a crane game.

We then get to see their attempts at getting crowns on Club no Ousama, with of course everything ending in failure for the duo.

Then there is a KAT-TUN medley. So just because here is a screen cap of Taguchi Junnosuke.

I think the only thing that peaked my interest in this medley was the fact that one of the songs was Heartbreak Club which is one of the group's Junior songs that eventually made it onto a CD release for the group.

The next clips are of bloopers from the show. Some of the highlights are Yamashita Tomohisa managing to hit a ping pong ball accidentally at an audience member and of course hitting them. He makes sure to rush over to see if she was okay and probably made her day despite having been hit by a ping pong ball.

Hasegawa Jun is a lot of fail during this. One of those moments is when he is trying to read a measuring tape where he seems to fall a bit short at first.

And then tries to find the measurement to correct himself and goes the opposite direction with being more on the long side this time around.

Then we get Four Tops singing Nami from a past episode to end the requests for this episode.

There is no Domo-kun for these segments for these episodes. I am quite heartbroken by this. I did manage to get that Yamapi was saying something about his grandmother here but could not figure out what. Also it seems like the other hosts were still around as you can hear snickering at the end.

Next episode the same as the first so I am just jumping to the clip segments. We get a look at the question board segment. Find it kinda cute that Akanishi Jin here has put down that his favorite word is Yabu. This is not the first time Jin and Yabu Kota have had their answers mention each other so I can only assume they used to be close.

And after one question board segment Yamapi decided to confess his love for Jun (why did Johnny's not debut any other member of Four Tops with NEWS? I think the group would have benefited from a happy and goofy Yamapi like this). Which is made much cuter with the inclusion of Domo-kun.

And I have reached my limit when it comes to Yorokobi no Rain. Seriously Johnny's, get these Juniors other songs to perform. But Ikuta Toma is rocking the single finger-less glove here. I am surprised it is not sequined.

The next batch is KAT-TUN silliness from the drama prank Takizawa Hideaki pulled on them. Starting off with Junno crawling on the floor after getting "beaten up" by his fellow group members.

The big highlight is the box game of course. Especially Nakamaru's reactions. It needs to be watched as there is just no way to convey how hilarious it is to hear him actually shriek in fright.

Then there is a Tackey & Tsubasa batch of clips. Honestly they do little for me though I know both men are really talented and all.

Next up we get to see a clip of when the guys had a run in with Domoto Koichi during one of their episodes. Koichi of course is wonderfully entertaining. He ends up showing Jimmy moves he should do when giving the name of the show's end song, Love & Dream. Something else that needs to really be seen.

Then we get one of KAT-TUN's performances of the end song. It is nothing really different than any of the other times they have performed it.

Yamapi talks about Jun in this end segment this time. Still no Domo-kun though so I am still rather sad about it.


While I normally do not care much for clip shows because I am missing a good portion of the older episodes I do like having these. Especially since they do cover fun moments from episodes that I have missed. Otherwise they really do not bring much excitement as it is things you should have already seen if you have been watching the show throughout the year.

Though with this done I only have five episodes left before the next season begins. The last two of those are clip shows like this and will be reviewed at the same time like these were. They will be on the 18th so the next season and the longer episodes start on the 21st, which will also be when I go to one SC episode a week to review because of the switch to the longer format.