The Shounen Club 1 August 2004 review

While this is a recap episode they actually use quite a bit of new footage with the VTR segments so this one will be the only one for this day instead of doing two episode reviews like I have done in the past when there is a recap episode.

This episode begins with a montage segment that has clips shown on the black background with the words "We're Johnny's Jr." going over the clips. Unfortunately they made the words pretty transparent so they are difficult to read at times.

Tanaka Koki and Nakamaru Yuichi are dorks as they try to do the flashlight thing to create a scary atmosphere to introduce the episode.

The lights turn on as the rest of the group shows up to introduce the true theme of the episode, history. This theme works well as not only does it fit well for a recap episode but history is also the theme of SUMMARY for 2004 so it works as cross promotion as well.

While I am usually not too keen on posting screen caps of episodes I have been able to go over I have no such issues with most of it for this recap. The quality is just so poor with those other files it really feels worth it to post a couple from this recap just to see how clear these are. I mean you actually see the Juniors back dancing well enough to tell who they are, like the little Senga Kento here in the pink.

After they are done showing the clips from April's episodes they go back to KAT-TUN. Taguchi Junnosuke gets to start a trend of whoever has to read something wears a pair of glasses. Junno reads promotion for the SUMMARY concerts, focusing on NEWS.

We then get VTR of NEWS, or the ones actually involved in the 2004 SUMMARY concerts. As you can see they are down to six for it as the two Kansai members are with Kanjani8 doing activities with them. All the members are really hyperactive, even Yamashita Tomohisa, so I think it is safe to say that they must be getting used to each other as a group finally as they all seem pretty at ease with each other this time around.

It is then time to look at the clips of the May episodes. So we get to see the full glory of Masuda Takahisa's blue coat here.

And that Yamapi wrote the song, so why it has not surfaced on one of his solo CDs releases is beyond me as he seems to have released everything else.

Instead of going back to KAT-TUN again we get the oldest three of Kanjani8. They are there to promote their summer tour basically. They do outright say that Nishikido Ryo and Uchi Hiroki will be a part of their tour, confirming why NEWS is down to the six they are for SUMMARY this year.

It returns to KAT-TUN just for them to talk about the next item on the agenda, Ya-Ya-Yah's stage play that summer, Stand By Me. We get some clips from the play, which stars the final line up of four members for the group.

We get a Toma Scoop segment that was done when he did his last one with V6. Ikuta Toma had three video tapes of old footage of the older members of the group that he had to grab out of a box and ended up picking Inohara Yoshihiko, so we get to see old clips of him.

These clips are mainly from a program called Idol on Stage, which going from the air dates is the show that probably pre-dated Music Jump as the Junior program. And of course we get some of the more lulzier stuff that came from that generation of idols.

They dedicated a spot for the newly formed Junior groups, Kis-My-Ft. and J.J. Express. Though both performances that they picked are before the more recent line up changes.

When we return to KAT-TUN we get read a letter from a fan that admires the Juniors' dancing. And Junno gets to unleash a pun that actually gets the rest to laugh for a change.

One of the clips we get to see from that June episode is one of the ones I could not watch. It is a performance by Yax3 of their song Sekai ga Hitotsu ni Naru Mada de with Juniors doing the hand motions with them. And as you can see Nakajima Yuto can be clearly spotted in this, and then to the right of Ayukawa Taiyo here is Nikaido Takashi, so it looks like it was a good performance to spot the younger Juniors with.

The episode ends the new footage with KAT-TUN relaying the message that the Juniors are doing their best and for the audience to take care of them, i.e. support them. After that we get footage from one of the ending song performances from the last month so again it really is not worth screen capping.


In the end I would say this episode is more half a recap episode half a promotion episode for all the various live shows the Juniors were involved with that summer. Which is not bad at all as having two recap episodes in one year can get tedious as there is not much more to recap when the next one comes around.

It is interesting to see how busy the Juniors were back then. But it makes a lot of sense since Kanjani8 were just about to have their major debut, KAT-TUN of course had the status of being the most popular Junior group cemented when Four Tops was broken up so it makes sense for them to be paired up with the newly debuted NEWS. And Ya-Ya-Yah was just on a roll at this time.

When I first got into Johnny's I did not see what made some of those groups so popular but after watching all the episodes of SC that I have so far I find myself understanding perfectly well. I feel that I am going to have a lot to write about once I have finally caught up to the current episodes.