The Shounen Club 9 October 2005 review

This episode brings some changes with the Junior groups, one that I have been waiting some time for, so no matter how the episode plays out I will be happy about those.

This episode begins with group introductions. The full eight member group of J.J.Express are shown for their introduction but you can see that they are beginning to separate the group into two with the difference in outfits seen here.

And the change I have been waiting for is finally here, Kis-My-Ft. has become Kis-My-Ft2. This is the original eight member line up as they still have their 'i'. And like JJE there is some separation going between members with the outfits they are wearing. But now that I am thinking about it they just may not have matching outfits for eight member groups which is why this is being done for the two groups.

I was really hoping that once they were done with all the KAT-TUN members producing an episode they would move on to other Juniors, but I guess I should have known better. Kamenashi Kazuya is producing again with the theme of the episode being Kataomoi (unrequited love), which should at least be a familiar Japanese word for anyone who listens to J-pop regularly. Also since his other produced episode was rather balanced for other Juniors to appear I have hope this one will be the same.

And it looks like I will not have my hopes dashed as Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. get to perform a song on their own in the Katamoi Medley.

And then to top that off Kame has them and Kis-My-Ft2 join him in singing Julia, a TOKIO song, to end the medley.

Next is a MC with Kame and Yaotome Hikaru and Inoo Kei. They read a letter from a reader that of course ties into the theme. I am mostly amazed at how much Hikaru has grown. Sure it is not the first time I have had the chance to see that he has grown but having him next to Kame seems to really drive that fact home.

This is followed up by a Ya-Ya-Yah and JJE medley and Kame is becoming my favorite KAT-TUN producer right now. Yax3 are in the outfits that I really wonder how they ended up becoming a set. Sure Yamashita Shoon and Ayukawa Taiyou's match but Hikaru and Yabu Kota's do not in the slightest.

I am really happy to see the newer members of JJE, as it means I no longer have to try to catch glimpses of them back dancing for other groups.

And then all of a sudden Question? has a song in the medley, TOKIO's Jibun no Tame ni. And Yamada Ryosuke gets to be a part of the group of dancers for the number. So I still have at least one person to search out for in the background still.

The game for this episode is Mister X wa Dare da?! and we have mostly KAT-TUN with Kawai Fumito thrown in for the contestants.

It still bugs me that while the audience at the taping gets to see who Mister X is before the big reveal the audience watching the episode does not sometimes. I guess this is to make the TV audience participants in the guessing but I prefer seeing the reactions of Mister X to the answers giving about them.

We have Akanishi Jin as the person to give hints about Mister X. And he looks happy giving out apparent lies about the person that we at least get to hear be reacted to.

I think Ueda Tatsuya's answer of "Today's guest" is my favorite and probably the most logical one, as the guests do tend to be the ones used for this. And he is right as Mister X is revealed to be Imai Tsubasa.

It becomes very apparent that Jin's dissing of Tsubasa was staged as he goes off stage with Tsubasa following him so they can stage him getting a beating and then return with the jackets of the two mixed up.

Tsubasa is able to get back at Jin easily by playing footage from when he and Kame were sent on a "vacation" for winning the first Junior Fight games from the early seasons of SC. This trip to Naha of course included the boys having to wear T-shirts with embarrassing things written on them, eat and drink things that belong in a batsu game and sleep out on the beach in a tent.

Kame talks to Tsubasa about the theme of the episode and Tsubasa gives a story about a crush he had on a teacher when he was younger. Then he gets to plug his solo concert.

He then performs his songs Slave of Love and Get Down. Both are songs are more uptempo, especially the later that is energetic. I think I much prefer these songs for Tsubasa as they help showcase his dancing and have the more interesting routines than his ballads, which I have a tendency to get bored with.

The VTR for the episode has Jimmy Mackey interviewing two members of V6, Miyake Ken and Nagano Hiroshi. He asks the two about the theme and they both give their thoughts about it. It then moves on to the real reason for the talk and that is to bring up the fact that V6 will be celebrating their 10th anniversary that year.

They get a "present" which is to see one of their early performances as a newly debuted group. Since I only knew the group as adults it is strange to see the younger three look so small compared to the older three. It makes sense as the younger ones were in their mid-teens at the time of debut so they still had some growing to do.

We go back to the filming with a MC segment with KAT-TUN. They get to pick various topics about the theme and say something about it. I could not follow it all that well but Tanaka Koki was definitely the highlight of it.

KAT-TUN then perform a song called Seiten no Hekireki, which I am surprised did not make it onto their debut album as it has the rock-pop sound they have been taking on as they have gotten closer and closer to debut.

The following performance is Question? bringing out another new song for them, Kanjite Miro. I like this song, it is thankfully not another ballad so it is something different for the group, which is nice.

We get the usual essay reading at the end with Kame talking about the theme.

Which of course leads to the next to last performance, Kame performing a song called Natsu no Owari with KAT-TUN joining in at the very end. And since he has the small Junior group back dancing more Yamada to be glimpsed at here.

Wonderful world has the next view of the full Kis-My-Ft2 group, it seems strange as they have yet to have their official introduction to let everyone know who they are yet, but I will assume that is going to be in the next episode.

At the very end we get to see Koki doing a flying kick to Taguchi Junnosuke, which is the most interesting this ending song segment has been yet this season.



As I mentioned before I think Kame may be one of my favorite producers for SC, as I think it is becoming more and more apparent that this role does give the guys a good amount of say of what goes into the episode. Sure they may have some things mandated to them but with seeing how much varies with these episodes, and the fact that Kame's second time producing has some elements of this first time, they do seem to be able to have a good amount of influence all the same. And it looks like Kame has no issue with sharing the screen time with other Juniors so it is no surprise that his episodes are not as KAT-TUN heavy as others.

It is nice to see that Jin is not coming off as lazy as he was with the last episode. Maybe it helps that Tsubasa is around so he feels more into his work when there is a sempai around. But I know this is a losing battle as his bad habits of the previous month's episodes are what he is known for these days.

But this is one of the more enjoyable episodes of the season. I have hopes that next episode we will get a proper introduction to Kis-My-Ft2, as that is a new change there to be noted of. So I believe I will have something to look forward to watching that. So these October episodes look to be well on their way to being a good set.