The Shounen Club 13 July 2003 review

Another Saturday and another SC review. With the rate I have been going I should be hitting the episodes with NEWS' debut either early or mid next month depending on if I keep doing one or two episodes a week.

There is no introduction to speak of for this episode. They still do one at the end but skip the one at the start for this episode. Instead we have Akiyama Jun and Jimmy Mackey talking to start off and bringing up that Imai Tsubasa is the guest for the day. Then it leads into the first medley that centers around a grade school theme.

From this theme we get some interesting looking chair dances.

We also get Professor Kazama Shunsuke.

The three Ks of K.K.Kity get some screen time as well as a trio introduced as Junior boys that includes Inoo Kei and Nikaido Takashi.

Overall it is a goofy yet fun performance and does give some Juniors time to shine that they have not gotten before.

We get another Club News segment this episode. Hasegawa Jun gets to rattle off all the Junior activities of the summer. He sounds a bit strange saying English words, like 'concert', but I think it is him just trying to pronounce the words as they would be said in English.

The Ya-Ya-Yah musical is worth pointing out as it is one of the events that signal the change for the group from five members to four members as only the four that are a part of the final line up for the group have roles in it.

They call the Junior groups that are doing something over the summer over to talk to them a bit before sending them back to continue with practice.

We get another Toma Scoop segment but for this episode he is with Arashi. When asked about their scoop they give Ikuta Toma this (pictured above) at first. But after some goofiness Toma gets them to talk about the recent news for the group, like a new album and such.

Back to NHK Hall K.K.Kity perform Sennen no Love Song. Not a lot of difference from before outside of a different stage.

Between performances we have Jun talking to Akanishi Jin and Kamenashi Kazuya. They pretty much are just the bridge between performances as they are the topics talked about.

Imai Tsubasa does not have much of a presence this episode compared to the first one of the month. He only does the one medley and with it the focus is on dance as he only sings for one of the songs.

So I think I figured out what this new segment is. Akanishi Jin did it last episode and it seems to be the boys going over kanji/word meanings by giving stories that tie into the word they have been given.

Yamapi gets to sing a solo song that he wrote both music and lyrics for. NEWS fans should recognize it as it was made into a group song for them and put on their debut album, Touch. The song is of course Love Song.

After that Toma gets to do his Detective Tomas segment this time featuring Koyama Keiichiro, Kusano Hironori and Kato Shigeaki. We learn that Koyama is currently in university as he is asked about it during the segment.

Near the end of the segment the three are asked about what animal they think they resemble. For Shige he first answers with rabbit but that is questioned even though he does an impersonation of one. He then does a monkey impersonation which gets a better response.

KAT-TUN then performs Original Blue, which is one of those songs that do not seem to fit the image of KAT-TUN most have from their post-debut career. It is poppy and goofy with the guys dressed up as various occupations and doing gags in the middle of it. We do get to see Kamenashi Kazuya use an outdated cellphone for it.

And it does give us Taguchi Junnosuke in a suit with his ridiculous hair of this era doing his usual bad jokes so I cannot hate it.

We get the second Toma Scoop segment. This time he reads postcards from Juniors to the members of Arashi. Koyama's status as a university student gets to be brought up again as his postcard is to Sakurai Sho asking for any advice about going to university and working. Sho is the best to ask about this as he is the first Johnny's to go to university while working and after some joking around he does give some serious words of wisdom about the subject.

We get another medley but they change things up a bit by mixing the Juniors a bit so we get something like this, a duet with Yabu Kota and Toma.

Yamapi gets his talk segment again but this time he spends a good portion of it talking about how to send in postcards to the show to be read.

Maybe because it is because they are one of the most popular Junior groups but KAT-TUN gets regularly featured to perform quite a lot since the switch to NHK Hall. It does not seem as bad as with the old format as there is still plenty of time to let other Juniors perform and get screen time but it is still noticeable that this group is getting pushed more than the rest.

I did find it perfect timing to watch this episode though as KAT-TUN performs Hoshi Kuzu no Spangle which is a song that gets pulled out from time to time for mainly Juniors to perform. Sexy Zone did a cover of the song for one of their first concerts and since I got that BD in finally today I am looking forward to being able to compare the two performances of this song.

The end song is missing quite a few Juniors for unknown reasons but beyond that it is the usual ending. Though you can catch I believe it is Tsukada Ryoichi from A.B.C., slip on stage but thankfully catch himself so he stays on his feet.

And I think I will just do a review this Wednesday as after doing a quick check of the next episode it is a recap episode so it will not take long to review it. Especially as all the recapped footage is from this current season of SC. Also it seems that until 2007 August was a month of recap episodes for the program and for the first year they only had one episode for it, and I think one of the years I have no August episodes but according to sources that was just the way it was. So that will help with catching up with the new SC episodes a little.

And if anyone is wondering this month's new SC episodes were delayed because of the Olympics. They will be aired these last two weeks of August so the first episode should air on the 22nd and the second on the 29th.