The Shounen Club 9 May 2004 review

Because of issues with blogger the review meant for today ended up getting posted days earlier. I think things have sorted out so I will be trying this again for this episode.

I guess I cannot complain about getting an episode ahead of schedule as that means I am one more episode closer to being able to catch up with the more recent episodes. Not to mention Kanjani8's debut should be coming up soon, and more future Hey! Say! JUMP members are showing up so those are things I am really looking forward to now with these episodes.

In the introduction Kis-My-Ft. are finally introduced as a group and it does look like they still have all their original members intact. Masuda Takahisa is missing but since he is only supposed to be a support member it makes sense why he is not there.

KAT-TUN get individual member introductions and pretty much confirm that they have filled in the role of Four Tops on the show. They have a talk that brings them to the theme of the episode, "tomadoi". When I looked "tomadoi" up I got the English definitions of "confusion" and "wonderment" which I guess they had to be using the meaning of confusion for the episode, even though loosely as I did not really see that theme too strongly in the episode.

We get the first medley then and it is unsurprisingly lead by KAT-TUN. And I really wish there was another group getting pushed as much as them. Not because I dislike the group but because I would just like to see something different. Hopefully with the new groups and K8's debut coming up soon I will be getting that break soon-ish.

Ueda Tatsuya is the MC for after that and introduces a new segment of the show, J-Diary.

The first Junior up for the segment is Inoo Kei who reads his entry from the diary that is him talking about being on the program and the people who have been kind to him there.

This leads into the next medley which has the various Junior groups perform. It starts off with Ya-Ya-Yah making their appearance for this episode.

Then moves on to Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. This is when I notice that they are missing a member and from the name tags it is Totsuka Shota this time.

Then we get the smaller Juniors to perform a song. Even with Kis-My-Ft. and J.J. Express existing at this point we have a mix of the members of those two groups in this performance, with Inoo being the lead and Senga Kento also in the line up. The rest are Juniors no longer with the agency.

Attate Pon! gets a return and the subject of this one is the guest of the episode, Yamashita Tomohisa.

Kitayama Hiromitsu is surprisingly talkative during the segment, though really on one topic, natto. He really seems to come to life talking about the food and it is not surprising as he is a member of the unofficial Johnny's natto lovers group.

Ueda then reads a letter from a fan to lead into the next performance, KAT-TUN performing Tsuki no Michi.

It begins off as a Kamenashi Kazuya solo and after hearing this version and the one Kikuchi Fuma did at one of the Sexy Zone concerts I think I like it best as a solo. Either way it is a lovely ballad and I am happy it got covered recently so more people could get the chance to hear it.

I say this because even though it begins as just Kame the rest of the group join in later in the song. And I just think it sounds better solo than with a group.

This episode gives us a VTR segment with all of NEWS. It is set up as some of the past Toma Scoop VTRs with things written on the back of cards for individual members of the group to do. Koyama Keiichiro ends up being the main MC for the segment, which by now is no surprise as he seems to have picked up that role rather quickly with this group.

Kato Shigeaki gets one that asks to do a love confession to one of the other members of the group. He ends up picking Kusano Hironori and we get to see them play out the scene and Shige get shot down.

This gives some confirmation about what exactly is going with NEWS at the time. Yamapi is left to talk about their major debut single, Kibou ~Yell~, which I guess means the previous single, NEWS Nippon, can be seen as more of an indies release. With that cleared up having Kibou ~Yell~ mark the group's debut makes more sense. Though it is also a bit odd that the single is released May 12th, 2004 yet NEWS is not on SC performing the song to promote it. Instead we have this VTR segment which does show some clips from the PV for the song at the end.

KAT-TUN do a MC as a group and Jin talks about trouble with an escalator that he calls an elevator until Kame corrects him as his story makes no sense otherwise.

After that it is Yamapi up next to perform. He sings a medley of his solo songs so far to kick off the performance.

Yamapi stops to talk about his new solo song between the performances, which seems a bit odd. I think I prefer it when they do this kind of thing before the performance and not in the middle of it.

I rather like the song, TIME, and find it disappointing that this Yamapi solo has not made it onto a CD yet. Though I guess there is always a chance for it to do so one day in the future as long as Yamapi continues with his music career.

We get the return of Tanaka as Nakamaru Yuichi and Tanaka Koki kill some time before introducing the next performance. When they do the introduction they do it by rapping and beat boxing it.

Kis-My-Ft. perform another Hikaru Genji song and I would not be surprised if the outfits that they are wearing used to be Hikagen outfits. They look dated enough if anything.

Inoo Kei randomly shows up during the performance to sing solo lines. I can only assume he was supposed to be a stand in for Matsumoto Kohei, the member of Kis-My-Ft. that has yet to be seen since its formation.

Akanishi Jin gets to sit and talk for a bit to lead into the next performance of the show.

KAT-TUN of course lead the performance but some of the other Juniors join in later, like Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C.

For the final song Kame and Jin go into the seating area of the first floor to be touched by the lucky fans there. And that was the highlight of this performance.


It is a bit odd to see no sign of J.J. Express this episode. I can only think that it was still a new enough group they just did not have the members set in stone yet as I know JJE does not remain as a trio for long. In fact I am sure by next month the line up will have probably changed already, if just to add to it. It is a group I am interested in as a good portion of the members that were in it at some point have debuted; Nakajima Yuto, Arioka Daiki, Inoo Kei, Takaki Yuya, Hashimoto Ryosuke, Morimoto Ryutaro and I am not sure if they were actual official members but they were associated with the grouping, Tamamori Yuta, Yamada Ryosuke, and Chinen Yuri. Not to mention two of the Bakaleya6 are associated with the group as well, Morimoto Shintaro and Kyomoto Taiga. So even though the group went through so many changes it is an important one to keep an eye on because of who some of those members and associated Juniors were.