Piece Ep. 13 first impressions

And finally I have made it to the end of this drama. I really should have finished up months ago as I did enjoy it.

Once the recapping of the last episode is done we are given a flashback scene with  Nishida Remi (Arai Moe) and Origuchi Haruka (Mizuno Erina). Remi tells Haruka that she hates herself for everything and Haruka tells her that maybe it would be better to forget everything. Remi follows her advice and asks like Haruka's still a stranger to her. In the present day after confessing all of that she breaks into tears, feeling regret for pretending that Haruka meant nothing to her when she was actually a dependable friend in the hardest part of her life.

Suga Mizuho (Honda Tsubasa) then comforts her friend, finally knowing the painful things she went through without ever letting anyone know. After some time passes Narumi Hikaru (Nakayama Yuma) and Maruo (Sakuma Daisuke) show up at Narumi Hiro's (also played by Nakayama Yuma) place.

Hikaru gives his brother the letter from Origuchi to read, finally keeping his promise to her.

There is a flashback to when Hikaru visited Origuchi in the hospital before she died. Origuchi believed that the two bothers were actually closely connected which is why she thought she could trust Hikaru in giving the letter to Hiro.

In the letter Origuchi tells Hiro that she loves him and thanks him for having known him in her life.

In the morning everyone is still around. Mizuho and Remi talk about the guy who got Remi pregnant and Remi feels like she should find him so she can at least end things properly.

Maruo has come to peace over what happened with him and Hiro those years ago and goes so far to tell Hiro that it would be okay for him to visit him.

Hikaru talks to Yanai Takashi (Matsumura Hokuto) and seems to just want to rile the other guy up. He fails though as Yanai has reacted differently to learning the truth than what Hikaru was probably expecting. Mizuho then shows up and Yanai leaves the two to talk.

Mizuho confronts Hikaru about knowing about Origuchi but doing nothing and for waiting so long to give Hiro the letter. Hikaru just acts in his usual aloof manner. As Hikaru walks off Mizuho finally tells him that she does not regret the relationship they had and she is willing to accept him for who he is without getting into his past because she believes in him and the fact that she will see him again. She hugs him then they part to go their separate ways.


I think the only part of the end that I did not care so much about is Mizuho and Hikaru. Probably because Hikaru does not seem to have changed throughout everything. But I guess that is to be expected as it really was Mizuho's journey but Hikaru's future seems rather bleak as he still has no direction and has not really done anything to change himself. But who knows, perhaps it is Mizuho's change that will make him want to do the same now or something. And I am glad they did not end up together immediately for the "perfect" happy ending as again, I don't think Hikaru is at a place at the end that he could give Mizuho the kind of relationship she wants from him.

Overall though I enjoyed this drama and it renewed my faith in this drama block after the lackluster Sprout.

The Shounen Club 8 June 2008 review

This episode opens up with a song for all the Juniors to sing, this time being the rock version of Naniwa Iroha Bushi. The guest for the month, Yasuda Shota, comes out near the end to sing with them.

With Yasuda on stage the theme of the episode is revealed, ROCK (as in rock 'n roll music), and he with the hosts of the program, Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi, talk a bit about the topic.

The theme medley has a mix of the grouped Juniors and members from Junior groups. And we can see the ever changing Morimoto Shintaro grouping. Of course the usuals are there, Kyomoto Taiga, Anderson Casey, Morita Myuto and Kawashima Noeru but it seems like Uekusa Yuta and Camu Cade are sorta in the group, as they are at least wearing the same outfits as the other five.

This episode has a letter exchange segment with Hamanaka Bunichi and Senga Kento. It is a fun one to watch with the reactions they each get from each other and one that I really wish I had subtitles for.

Of course with Butokan members doing the letter exchange it means that Butokan is up next to perform. The group performs a new song, Sweet Butterfly, which has a bit of a rockish sound to it. But like with all of Butokan's songs it is really the dance that stands out the most for it.

Yasuda then gets his MC segment where he talks about rock 'n roll. They talk about his clothes a bit which leads to talking about what a "rock image" is.

He then performs Kanjani8's Mystical as a solo, with the four younger members of Kis-My-Ft2 providing some back up vocals. The song does not sound quite right without Shibutani Subaru's vocals to me.

There is then the game segment which Yasuda has some use as a judge as this time the game is to act out prompts and Yasuda has to choose which was the better one.

The first prompt is a dog that wants to be fed and it has Nozawa Yuki and Sanada Yuma competing against each other. Both are memorable but for different reasons.

Then it is Miyata Toshiya and Tamamori Yuta up next having to say something lovey-dovey. This is more interesting for me to watch now after watching Kis-My-Busaiku to see how much these two have gotten more comfortable with this kind of thing.

Fujigaya Taisuke and Senga then have to try to do Yamashita Tomohisa's dance for Daite Senorita.

Then finally is is Goseki Koichi and Kawai Fumito to act out coming home. This is prompt that probably needs subtitles to get as the rest are pretty easy to follow along without them.

Up next is a performance by Question? who do a cover of the Otokogumi song Mihari. Mihari is my favorite Otokogumi song but it is thanks to this performance by Question? that I even knew it existed. This is why I enjoy the fact that the Juniors will cover these older songs as I do not see how else I would be able to hear some of them with how hard it is to track down releases from the older Johnny's groups.

We have the Kansai Junior ni Q VTR segment for this episode and the theme is about dreams. The first Kansai Junior up that I know is still with the agency is Fugal Shawn Goku. He talks about studying and the fact that even though his father is from America Fugal only understands English and does not really speak it.

Hamanaka Bunichi is called over in this one and he wrote down training but he does not seem to want to talk. And that is it for this segment.

A.B.C. then have an MC segment and they are asked about who their favorite rock act is. Goseki answers with The Rolling Stones, then Tsukada Ryuichi answers with Aerosmith and Totsuka Shota with The Blue Hearts' front man Komoto Hiroto. When it is Kawai's turn he gets up and has music start so he can do his Matsumoto Jun impersonation. He then answers the question with Okamoto Kenichi.

The group then perform the song Shelter though Nakamaru at first tries to go on stage with them but is called back by Koyama. But he does actually join A.B.C. for the song about halfway through to do his beat boxing.

It is then time to end the episode and the song for that is OH! MY DREAM. As the song seems to be for the older Juniors to perform it is really worth sticking through to see the little cute moments that pop up in the performance.


I kinda feel bad not having a lot to say about the episode, because it is not a bad episode at all, but this is just the era where things just felt solid. There was a good balance between Juniors and debuted Johnny's when it cam to focus and for now not much is changing from month to month. Of course that is bound to change in the second half of the year if memory serves me right though.

In any case the next two episodes are the Osaka episodes for the year and there should be plenty to mention about them.

NEWS celebrate an anniversary!

It has been announced that NEWS will have a special anniversary event in the Tokyo Dome in September this year to celebrate the group's tenth anniversary.

Oricon Style (Japanese)


Honestly it is always in question when NEWS officially debuted. Even though their first single was released in November of 2003 it was a release that was only sold in 7-11s so there are no sales figures for it. Their first major debut is with the single Kibou ~Yell~, which was released in May of 2004. But it looks like the group is side stepping that issue by instead by using the month the group was formed instead.

I am just glad the group is celebrating an anniversary as this will be the first time they will have done so. Though I would say the tenth anniversary is probably more important than the fifth anyway.

And while I would normally be worried about the group being able to fill up the Tokyo Dome since this is an event and not a concert I think Johnny's must have some idea to make sure there are not going to be a lot of empty seats for it.

Young and Beautiful! Sexy Zone

I think I am finally realizing that to follow Matsushima So and Yo Marius I am going to have to follow a bit of the group they belong to. So I have some more Sexy Zone news to share.

The group will be supporters for Women's Volleyball again this year and will have a new song for it, Young and Beautiful!. There is no word of a single being released for the song.

Sanspo article (Japanese only, 3rd page has song title)


I have two hopes for this song, one is that it is good first off and the second is that So and Marius get treated like they are a part of SZ and not just the leads for the Junior back dancers. I think the chances of the first hope being met is high as volleyball support songs tend to be songs I like. It is really the second hope that I feel has the greater chance of not being met post-Bad Boys.

If anything at least the group will have something new to perform on Shounen Club and will most likely get another single out before the end of the year. I can only assume that the lack of a single being mentioned means they may be going for another double A-side and we have to wait to learn what the other song/tie-in is.

The Shounen Club 1 June 2008 review

And we have the Juniors that were missing from the month before back for this episode.

The episode starts off with a song for all the main Juniors to sing, which is Anniversary. And the Takada quintet (which is the MasuRyo quartet with Takada Sho) is now a part of the usual introductions for the program.

The theme of the episode is Toki (time) and like usual the theme medley is up first. There is a mix of the grouped Juniors and members from the Junior groups this time around. Like Tamamori Yuta and Miyata Toshiya joining Yamashita Shoon for a song. And all of A.B.C. with parts of Question? also perform in the medley.

And finally the Junior Boys get on screen name tags when they perform their song for the medley. And I think this was about the time I began to notice them though did not do much to actually follow them as I was pretty focused on Kis-My-Ft2 and TOP3 at the time.

Near the end the guest, Yasuda Shota, for the episode joins the Juniors to sing a Kanjani8 song. And we get the usual ending with everyone singing.

This is followed by an MC segment with TOP3. Each has a board that has a pie chart dividing what they do in an average day. I can only assume that it has to be for a day off as none have school listed. Sanada Yuma seems to spend a lot of his time sleeping and Hashimoto Ryosuke has a rather large block of time dedicated to playing with friends.

TOP3 then perform the Junior song Hanasanai de Ai. The song starts off with just Hasshi singing then the other two come in later with solo lines and even back then it was easy to tell that Sanada and Nozawa Yuki were not strong singers. But with Hasshi with them it all balanced out as he was the lead vocals of the trio.

We get the first Heisei Post segment without any Hey! Say! JUMP members and Nakamaru Yuichi has taken it over. Though it shows signs of what this segment will turn into when Nakamaru brings out Yasuda to help answer the fan postcard asking about what to do about fighting with a friend.

This then directly leads into the MC segment with Yasuda as Koyama Keiichiro comes out to join them. They talk about the song Yasuda will perform as he wrote both the music and lyrics for it and performs it acoustic with him playing a guitar.

The song is called Sorezore no Kimi to. I rather like this song because it has a really nice calming sound to it. And it is nice that the audience is quiet for the song so it feels like you are getting the full impact of it.

The game segment is next and we get Kanjani8 Mania for this episode. Each member of each team get a board to write down their answers to the questions about K8 and Yasuda of course judges. Judging in this case though is just talking about the answers as there are definite answers. They are all in the "Who is the most __?" format with the first being good a cooking, the next about who is moved to tears the easiest, then the final one about who is the best sempai.

Nakamaru gets to have revenge on Koyama for showing his photo from when he joined the agency by pulling out a photo for Koyama from when he joined the agency.

After that there is a Kis-My-Ft2 medley. For the second song of the medley, Ready?, it is the group without Fujigaya Taisuke and Kitayama Hiromitsu, as they have gone offstage to put on their roller skates, and it is interesting to see the two mainly featured in the song are Senga Kento and Nikaido Takashi. It makes me realize that I do not remember when things changed and Tamamori starts to get pushed but I have the feeling it is probably in 2009 or 2010.

The VTR segment is up next and it is a Junior ni Q segment. The theme is about when in time you would go if you had a time machine. And all the Juniors shown are still with the agency. Nikaido is up and he wants to go back a few months to when Takizawa Hideaki was guesting and the judge of the game segment because he says he did not read the atmosphere right and wanted to apologize. I guess he must be talking about when he was answering his questions with Imai Tsubasa's name and I can only assume Tackey gave him a hard time about it.

Then it is Morita Myuto who wants to go to the future when there will be flying cars. He figures that it would be forty years in the future, but I do not share his optimism for that.

Masuda Ryo is brought over next and he wants to go into the future as well. He put down he wanted to go ten years into the future to see his twenty-five year old self. He also mentions Nakamaru but I did not get how that tied in.

Up last is Kitayama who wants to go back to when he was a Fresh Junior to give himself advice. They get to talking about some of the dances they had to do as Fresh Juniors and Koyama brings up that for one concert he had to do a dance without a shirt and we get "dance" moves with it.

Butokan is up next, starting out with an MC segment. Of course we have all five members back again for this month after being down to three in the past month. Yara Tomoyuki gets to show how he spends his days and unsurprisingly it is full of dancing, from lessons to even street dancing.

The group then performs Now and Forever. At this point there does not seem to be a lot to be said about the group performing the song as they are consistent with it. I think I would have liked to have seen the group perform something else as the song is rather generic and it is really the performance that makes it stand out.

And then we are at the end of the show and the song used to close out with is KAT-TUN's PRECIOUS ONE. While it is mainly the older Juniors performing the younger Juniors are around to mainly back dance. That is until near the end when they have some "alas that work surprisingly well in the song.


While K8 is always great to have as a guest individual members do not have as much of an impact if this episode is to go by. It makes sense as K8 shines best with group and member interactions, which you are not going to get when there is only one. And Yasuda seems to be a bit on the quiet side compared to some other members of the group.

But even with that taken into account this was another solid episode of the program. I think at this point it is easy to see that the members of TOP3 are bound to go far though in the end it is not all together. In fact it should only be a couple months or so before Hasshi is added to A.B.C. to make that group A.B.C-Z.

Sexy Zone's summer of concert releases

Between the already announced Johnny's World concert DVD/BD and this Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 DVD/BD release SZ fans are going to have some light wallets by the end of summer. This DVD/BD will be released August 28th and will have a limited and regular edition with both being the same for each format.

The regular edition will just have footage from the May 6 concert at Yokohama Arena.

Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 [Regular Edition] / Sexy Zone (DVD)

Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 [Regular Edition] / Sexy Zone (BD)

The limited edition will have the same concert but it will also have a second disc that will have footage from another concert at the venue as well as a documentary for the tour.It will also have a special photo book at a set of trading cards that will feature each member in a solo shot.

Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 [Limited Edition] / Sexy Zone (DVD)

Sexy Zone Japan Tour 2013 [Limited Edition] / Sexy Zone (BD)

All the versions will come with a bonus poster as a first press bonus.


I have to admit as a Hey! Say! JUMP fan I am quite jealous of a release like this for SZ. If HSJ had their concert DVD releases like this I think it would have helped make up for the lack of CD releases a bit, especially if it meant having some footage of all the concerts they did that did not get DVD releases. Not to mention that with BD the whole region coding is not as much an issue as the regions are much larger and North America and Japan share the same one, so for me there would be no issues with having the right player to watch them.

Concerts are an important part of following Johnny's, as they are one of the big ways the groups set themselves apart with how theatrical they are. And they give group members that may not get a lot of attention in other activities a time to shine, so they are great for fans of those members. In fact if I had the money for it I might actually pick this up for Matsushima So and Marius Yo, as I am sure I would see more of them than what I have been able to see of them on Shounen Club.

Johnny's Under 100: Masuda Takahisa

Masuda Takahisa

Groups: NEWS, Tegomass

Birthdate: July 4, 1986

My second favorite member of NEWS. I am just in complete love with his smile and enjoy his easy going nature and he seems like the kind of person you can just relax around. And he has one of the more interesting fashion senses in Johnny’s.

He has never seemed to have a lot of confidence though, but I hope now with NEWS being a smaller group he will gain some as there is no anyone to get stuck behind now. And while his voice is not the most powerful he does have good control and a unique tone.

The Shounen Club 11 May 2008 review

As I visit with family this weekend here's the next Shounen Club episode review.

For this introduction Totsuka Shota calls out the names of the main Juniors of the episode. And I will call this Junior grouping the MassuRyo quartet, as Masuda Ryo is the only Junior I know that is still with the agency out of the four of them.

The theme of the episode is Friends and unlike last episode the theme medley follows the theme introduction. There are some changes to the way the medley has been divided up among the Juniors, with the MassuRyo quartet being the only Junior grouping to perform. Then it is solo performances for the four KisuEbi members present with the MassuRyo quartet with a few other Juniors finishing the medley.

The following MC has a few of the younger Juniors talk about their friends, who are all fellow Juniors. Kyomoto Taiga and Morita Myuto both have each other as friends. Kawashima Noeru put down Anderson Casey and Takada Sho put down Nakayama Yuma.

TOP3 then perform the song Genkai Meter, which will follow Sanada Yuma and Nozawa Yuki to Mis Snow Man. I really loved this group and thought it worked well as Hashimoto Ryosuke had the voice to be lead vocals and Sanada and Nozawa's voices are better as supporting vocals than with solos lines.

The next MC segment features Sanada, Nozawa and Camu Cade. They all talk about each other with the highlight being Sanada talking about Nozawa getting scared about ghosts.

The next performance is with parts of Question?, Goto Hiromi and the two Juniors that are getting pushed for now but one definitely left the agency and I would not be surprised if the other did as well. They perform Julia, which is an old TOKIO song and I am certain they slowed it down for this performance. But Goto gets to show off his violin skills with it.

Then it is time for the game segment. To go with the theme of the episode both teams need to give the same answer to earn a point. So if two people have the same answer they earn a point and each answer that is the same after that is another point. The questions do not have definite answers so being correct is not an issue. The issues asked are what color do they think Koyama's image color should be, what animal does Nakamaru resemble and who is the most admirable in KAT-TUN.

Then they move to a charades game for the second part of the segment. This is always a fun game to watch with how creative the guys can get as well as for the joy of seeing them just doing silly things.

There is then a Kansai Junior ni Q, hosted by the members of BOYS, Nakata Daichi and Hamada Takahiro. The theme of the corner is charm points and there are quite a few Kanjuu highlighted that are still with the agency. First up is Muro Ryuta who is currently a member of Veteran. He put down something about the shape of his ear.

Next Kanjuu still with Johnny's is Backes Kento who put down his eyes. So of course we get a good look at them.

Then is Shigeoka Daiki who wrote about his dimples. This is a rather easy segment to watch with little Japanese knowledge with how they showcase each charm point.

That said I did not quite get what Fujii Ryusei wrote but in the end it came down to his height as he is only thirteen here.

Then to finish the segment is Mukai Koji who wrote about his ears as they are rather large for the size of his head. They bring over his older brother, who quit Johnny's a couple yeas back IIRC, to compare. And that finishes off the segment.

The following MC is just between Koyama and Nakamaru as they discuss the friends they have, which is Kato Shigeaki for Koyama and Masuda Takahisa for Nakamaru.

The next performance is announced as a Hey! Say! 7 medley but it is just Yamada Ryosuke singing a solo with the group coming out to sing one unit song, Wonderland Train. At this point it is clear to see that Yamada has been moved to being one of the more heavily promoted members of the group, especially of HS7.

We get the return of Heisei Post, which looks to have Nakamaru as the host to replace the members of Hey! Say! JUMP when they are not on the program. HS7 though are featured in the corner and read some letters from fans. When discussing e-mail Okamoto Keito speaks up about Nakajima Yuto's use of emoji and cute way of signing off, which leads to Yuto becoming embarrassed.

Another letter asks about which members can to back flips and of course Chinen Yuri says he can do that. He is even asked to give a demonstration, which he of course does.

Then there is a performance of A Ha Ha with the same group of little Juniors as last time, so basically Morimoto Shintaro and his group of four other Juniors. It is a bit strange to hear Kyomoto Taiga being shouty with his singing but this was probably before he began his vocal training.

This then leads us to the final song of the program, BEST FRIEND. Honestly I do not care too much for this song. It sounds like it belongs in another decade, like maybe a rejected Hikaru Genji song. But it is nice to have an ending theme that both the older and younger Juniors can perform in.


Honestly the only thing I feel that is missing from this episode are the rest of the group members of Kisumai and Ebi. This is pretty much what I would consider to be a standard episode and what I wish to see more of with the newer episodes, that is a much greater focus on the Juniors and less on the debuted acts. I do not mind having debuted Johnny's hosting the program but I expect the Juniors to be the focus and get the lion's share of the performance time. They are supposed to be the up and coming Johnny's that have the greatest potential to debut and it would make whatever group they debut in be stronger if they get a sizable fanbase built for them when they are still Juniors.