The Shounen Club 9 November 2003 review

Watching this episode I realize that I must have not watched it before. Because honestly there is so much that comes off as strange with it as there is no mention of NEWS whatsoever in it. And I think it really helps show why people were not convinced NEWS' debut here would lead them to being a debuted group instead of a temporary one.

So this episode begins with the usual introductions which includes one for K.K.Kity this time around. And five members of NEWS are not seen at all in the episode, Nishikido Ryo, Uchi Hiroki, Masuda Takahisa, Tegoshi Yuya and Moriuchi Takahiro. Though in a way I am glad not to see Massu back dancing as I hope he would be promoted to performer it still makes for an odd episode.

The main MCs for this episode are Akiyama Jun and Yamashita Tomohisa, so it is like everything has been reset for pre-NEWS debut standards.

KAT-TUN gets to sing the first song of the episode, and I just want to mention that I do not care for their outfits for the performance here at all. Mainly because I do not think that red and pink go together at all.

After that Inoo Kei begins his turn of being one of the more pushed little Juniors. And for those wondering why he ended up debuting I think this time period played a big part of it.

Or KAT-TUN is made to explain what the theme of the episode it, space, by informing everyone of some kind of solar occurrence that was happening around the time of this episode and used the little Juniors, Inoo and Matsumoto Kouhei to help them.

Somehow this leads directly into Nakamaru Yuichi doing a showcase of his beat boxing. Though I have admire him for finding something he can do to make him stand out among the Juniors and then having it actually pay off.

We then get a Space medley with K.K.Kity being the main group for it. Though to note Massu is not one of the roller skaters for them this time around.

We get the return of screechy Yabu Kota voice with him leading the vocals of the song, Kono Hoshi de Umarete, to end the medley.

The most important thing with this episode is the appearance of this little Junior that some might recognize as Tamamori Yuta. Or at least to me as now the only Kis-My-Ft2 member I have yet to spot is Senga Kento.

There is a talk with KAT-TUN and they speak about wishes, I guess going of the whole wishing on a star thing. We learn that Kamenashi Kazuya wished for an older sister when he was younger.

We get some VTR as Toma goes to find Tackey & Tsubasa to interview backstage somewhere. I think this is a good reminder of how much better T&T are as a duo than they are solo as they are actually interesting together for me.

T&T are the guests of this episode and they start off by performing their solo songs. Which is a bit disappointing as I do not care for either of them.

But at least with Tackey he brings in a small horde of Juniors to back dance for him.

Looking at the Junior Boys back dancing for Tackey I noticed that Yokoo Wataru was in that number. And while there was also Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. there as well seeing as the three Ks were not makes me wonder if this is one of the early signs of the end of that group.

Yamapi gets to do the talk with Ikuta Toma, Hasegawa Jun and Kazama Shunsuke, which just seems strange as they were in the same group. I guess this could be a sign that Yamapi is no longer in Four Tops and the group is no longer as they have made no mention of that group name for these episodes. It is hard to say though.

The three then do a Positive medley. What this has to do with space I do not know but I think at this point they managed to change the theme into wishes any way with all the talks focusing on that.

Speaking of I believe that is what Yamapi talked about with his segment after it. I was pretty tired watching this so I think I blanked out for this portion. But it did start off with the Toma, Hasejun, and Kazupon all pointing up to him as their end pose and him pointing back at them as he began his monologue.

It then moves onto what begins as a Kame solo dance/sword fight. It is actually pretty fun to watch if you enjoy the usual theatrical sword fighting stuff Johnny's usually does.

This episode gives us Kame's solo song, HA. I actually rather liked it as it went with his voice well and I do enjoy watching Kame perform, even though I am not what you would call a fan of his. But I have no issue with giving credit where it is due.

Like with other solos it ends with his group taking the stage with him to perform a medley of songs. Also I do not think it is possible for there to be an episode without a KAT-TUN performance at this stage.

The MCs have the usual chat with the guests before they go to do their performance. I honestly cannot remember if anything interesting was said outside of Tsubasa talking about a mustache for some reason. It could be his want to grow one as he has done so since, but he looks so much better without it.

T&T perform Yumemonotagari with of course infamous costumes on. I rather miss the ridiculous costumes the pair used to wear and I hope if they performed this song at their recent Tokyo Dome concerts they brought the costume for it back out.

We get a break away from the usual ending song with KAT-TUN singing a song called Rocketman and only having a few Juniors be on stage being their back up singers and dancers with them instead of the usual mix of everyone.


All I can think of to explain the complete lack of NEWS here is that the the performances for this episode was recorded before the ones for the episode that aired first for this month. Though why they did not air them in that order if that was the case is beyond me.

But even so I think it is really apparent why this original debut for NEWS is not really considered as the actual debut and it will be their next single that is marked as their official debut.

There are also some signs of things to come with the next generation of Juniors with Inoo being pushed and Tamamori making his appearance. It will still be a few months before they will get sorted into Junior groups, but it will not be much longer for Inoo, IIRC. And having the members of Kis-My-Ft being lumped together more and more means that group should be coming up soon as well.



Also as a side note there have been things going on with my personal life that has been interfering with me blogging in the past couple of days. And there is a good chance I will have to take a bit of a hiatus for a couple of days next week. But since Blogger now lets you schedule times for posts to go up I will try to see about using that to make sure there are things posted that day even if I am not around the net to do so. But I would expect things to be a bit review heavy for the next week or so as they are the easiest to do in advance. If I have to take that hiatus I will make a post about it at the end of the week.