The Shounen Club 4 July 2004 review

After the video issues with the past two episodes I am happy to see that this episode is just fine. Which is good as this looks to be a time of a lot of rearranging of Juniors and formation of new groups.

With this introduction we get a few line up changes with the newer groups and one of the older ones. The one older group is Ya-Ya-Yah that for this episode is introduced as a seven member group, with Matsumoto Kohei being added in.

Kis-My-Ft. has lost their younger members but from the introduction they could still be a six member group as two other Juniors dance with the older four in the front. But since the older four are the only ones seen performing later on I will say that they probably have just dropped down to being a quartet now.

While J.J. Express has kinda lost Matsumoto they are still a quartet with a new member added onto the group. Also while they do not get a name tag the other group of four little Juniors here with JJE are introduced as A.B.C. Jr. I have been able to make out that Senga Kento is a part of this group and I think Nikaido Takashi is as well, but no sign of any other of the younger Kis-My-Ft2 members in the group yet.

With that over KAT-TUN, Jimmy Mackey and Inoo Kei talk a bit on the stage about summer to try to get around to the theme of the episode, tokimeki (which is heart beating quickly in usually a romantic context).

The first medley is a Tokimeki Medley and of course is lead by KAT-TUN. Thankfully other Juniors get to participate in it. Like Kis-My-Ft. but as a quartet which helps back the fact that is their current line up.

While Taguchi Junnosuke does not perform with his group for this medley he does perform, with of course a song that requires no dance moves. he gets paired up with Jimmy Mackey and a member of FiVE that I am just feeling too lazy to look up the name of, especially seeing as he is no longer with the agency anyway.

During this medley we get to see the Junior band playing listed and it is no longer FiVE. Instead we have Question? for this episode. Of course they may have been there for a couple of episodes and I would have not noticed as the band so rarely gets featured on the show.

Yaotome Hikaru gets to do a J-Dairy segment where he talks about trying to win a goldfish at a summer festival.

This episode gives us a KAT-TUN medley, which I guess the main difference between this and the usual medleys is KAT-TUN singing their own songs.

The game for this episode is Attate Pon! with Imai Tsubasa being the special guest for it and the episode.

For the panel who have to guess which fact is true we get some new faces to the segment, which is nice, especially as there is only one KAT-TUN member this time.

Tsubasa gets to do a medley himself as the guest of the show. I still fail to become a fan of his even though he has a nice dramatic flair in this medley which does make it interesting.

We get a performance from JJE in the middle of this with Yabu Kota being added to the group for it. This makes things quite confusing about which members are meant to be in which group, with Matsumoto and Inoo Kei having those matching outfits and all. But I imagine this will be cleared up in the next episode or so.

I am so glad this file is good or I would have probably missed this Junior, as it was hard to tell who he was in the introduction. Arioka Daiki is now present and accounted for, and as a member of J.J. Express going to be easy to keep track of.

Ikuta Toma returns via VTR for another Toma Scoop segment. This time he gets to talk to all the members of V6. Probably the most interesting topic they talked about was the fact that V6 used to host the Junior that Shounen Club replaced, Music Jump, so they used to have regular interactions with the Juniors from that program.

Ueda Tatsuya reads a letter from an Akanishi Jin fan that asks about what food must someone have to be able to cook to be his girlfriend. And we learn that it is pasta. I wonder if Kuroki Meisa knows how to cook pasta...

A.B.C. get their own medley to perform, and have inherited one of the outfits that KAT-TUN used to wear. I could not help but notice that Kis-My-Ft. was back dancing for them, which just felt weird watching.

We have a segment of O-Nakamaru where he and Ueda Tatsuya have to try to get the audience to decide what is the better romantic location for the summer, the ocean or the mountains. They both try to convince the audience of the appeal of each, Nakamaru Yuichi for the beach and Ueda for the mountains, by acting out a romantic scene by themselves.

KAT-TUN sing a cover of SMAP's song Celery which they also have some of the little Juniors come join in on. We also get to see a couple of the members of Question? like Fujiie Kazuyori here.

Since this is another light dance song Junno is present for this one. And it is really nice to see him back with the group. Hopefully by the next filming he is recovered enough to perform with them for all the songs.

It is just KAT-TUN and the little Juniors from the previous song that sing the outro song for this episode while the other Juniors back dance for them.


So happy to see Arioka on the show finally. As well as Question?, though I guess it will still be a while before they get to do something more than be a backing band for the other Juniors.

Next month we get a recap episode, which I think is probably in part because of SUMMARY, with 2004 being the first time it is held with NEWS and KAT-TUN being the lead groups for it.

Not to mention Kanjani8 have their major debut soon so they should be coming back to the program for that. So there looks to be plenty to look forward to as the Juniors go through this period of change.