The Shounen Club 11 April 2004 review

Well the video and audio quality are better than the last episode and I think that one should be the worst of from the NHK Hall episodes. Which is nice as now that Kis-My-Ft. has been formed J.J.Express should be around the corner and I would like to have that in better quality.

Like the previous episode we start off with a song performance from the get go. Of course KAT-TUN are the ones that lead the performance but about halfway through they are joined by Yamashita Tomohisa.

After a quick talk they break into the first medley of the show, which is mainly just Kinki Kids songs. During this Koyama Keiichiro, Kusano Hironori and Kato Shigeaki join in, each one in one of K.K.Kity's group outfits.

There is then a MC segment with KAT-TUN and the members of NEWS that have introduced so far in this episode. This is actually the last we see of Yamapi, so I guess he was just around to hang than leave.

KAT-TUN perform a new song, Le ciel ~Kimi no Shiawase Inoru Kotoba~. It seems like this is perfect timing for me as the Bakaleya6 will be performing this song on SC for the second September episode. So Now I have a recent performance to compare it to when I watch the episode. I do like the song, I am a sucker for songs that have a quick back beat in them and I love how they break from that to move into slower parts between the verses and chorus. Do not care much for the large orange sheets though.

We then get a MC break with Jimmy Mackey and Yabu Kota, with them using the difference in size between the two as a talking point.

This leads into the game segment which is radically different than the others for the Junior Hai~! School segment. There are two teams of Juniors, four in each team, and they have to play a game that is a cross between charades and telephone, where they have to act out something to represent an animal that each have to copy so the last person in line has to guess what the animal is.

The losing team had to do an extra round to see if they would get a batsu game or not and well I think the screen cap gives away how that went.

After that we get a song from the little Juniors lead by Yabu Kota. But this does give us some screen time for a little Inoo Kei.

As well as a little Senga Kento. And I swear Senga looks so terrified any time he has to use a mic. Which is strange to see as he looks rather happy and energetic when he is just dancing.

We get a VTR segment with this episode and it is with Kamenashi Kazuya and Akanishi Jin. They are out to do an interview with one of their sempai.

The sempai ends up being Domoto Koichi. I think the most interesting part of the interview is when they bring up that Koichi wrote the lyrics to the theme song of Dream Boy. Mainly because this musical will become KAT-TUN/Kame's in the future so it is an interesting thing to see in retrospect.

KAT-TUN lead a Rock medley, and the highlight for me is Ueda Tatsuya singing TOKIO's song Glider while of course playing guitar. Probably because he looks like he is enjoying himself and in his preferred element.

Ueda gets to do a MC on his own where he tells about a crush he had when he was much younger to tie in to the theme of the episode, deai (meeting). I guess this somehow leads into the next medley which uses the younger Juniors.

Ya-Ya-Yah get to sing a medley, which starts off just being Yabu Kota before he is joined by Ayukawa Taiyo and Yamashita Shoon. The other two members of the group join them late but again it seems clear looking back at this point which members of the group Johnny's wants to keep promoting.

During one of the songs we get some of the back dancing little Juniors that get to sing as well, Inoo Kei again as well as Tamamori Yuta.

We get another talk with Kis-My-Ft. though like before Masuda Takahisa is the main spokesperson and since there are no member introductions is the only one who gets to talk this time.

In this performance they cover Hikaru Genji songs again but the older four members of the group get to sing more, though Massu is still treated as the main vocals of the group.

We get a bit of a talk, with Jimmy Mackey as the main MC as he reads a letter from Taguchi Junnosuke. I finally realized why Junno is missing, this is back when he broke his leg so he will not be seen for a while as he recovers from that. This letter he wrote pretty much asked everyone to forgive him for any problems his injury may have caused with work and that he hopes to get better soon.

The five present members of KAT-TUN perform a new song, which is one of the ones that did manage to make it onto a CD, My Angel, you are Angel. It is a nice ballad, not one that I love but if I have it playing it will usually just let it play instead of skipping to the next song on my playlist. I love how they have the back stage in darkness so the penlights of the audience on the stage can be seen looking like a mini starry field.

One thing to note is that out of all the Kis-My-Ft. members on the stage for the end song only Fujigaya Taisuke and Kitayama Hiromitsu have mics and get solo shots during it. So I think it is safe to say that even from the start of this group they were meant to be the main faces of the group, just things were thrown off with having to use Massu for the group.


Now that I remember that Junno had broken his leg his inclusion in this episode despite not being there makes a lot of sense. I am sure there were fans really worried about him and his place in KAT-TUN after an injury like that, so having him highlighted as being a member of the group, even though he was not there, was partly to relieve those fears. Especially as he probably will not be seen on stage for a while.

When first getting into fandom one of the early things I learned about NEWS was that they were paired with another group called KAT-TUN. This was also the way I discovered about the Johnny's agency and all the acts tied to it. But I think with this season of SC you can see the start of the lumping of NEWS with KAT-TUN that probably peaks around the time they co-headline the first SUMMARY concerts.