The Shounen Club 4 June 2006 review

And we move more towards the Shounen Club I knew of when I first began to watch the show.

In the introductions we have various Juniors introduced by name, I guess to give them extra attention as most are the leads for the groups they are in, and then you have Yamada Ryosuke who is still just floating around.

We have the grouping BIG Four, which is not really a group. It is just mainly four Juniors that have special skills, like the baton twirling, that Johnny's grouped together. The only Junior I know is still in the agency is Goto Hiromi.

Nakamaru Yuichi is also introduced and it looks like Koyama Keiichiro in the past month's episodes he is being added to the regulars of the program as a host. The Koyama and Nakamaru hosting team will last for a few years on the program before they are replaced with members from Hey! Say! JUMP, who are the current hosts of the program.

The producer for the episode is Nakajima Yuto and his chosen theme is mania. He talks about the recent thing he is really into, bugs.

The first medley is a mania medley, though they seem to just pick popular songs than anything that directly fits the theme. Like Yuto and his group of little Juniors doing Seishun Amigo. I do find it rather interesting that in this group is Watanabe Shota, who has recently been getting drama roles as I would not have thought him to be in the same generation of Juniors as Yuto and Yamada. It is interesting to see how only recently some of these younger Juniors that have been stuck in the back have been getting promotion from the agency.

To end the medley Kanjani8 show up to perform their song, Sukiyanen, Osaka. Maruyama Ryuhei has really perfected the creeper face.

They have an MC with a group of the little Juniors. Yuto gets to go on about bugs and over his shoulder we can see a little Kyomoto Taiga, confirming that he is a part of the agency by then. It is amazing to see how adorable he used to look.

This is followed by a Ya-Ya-Yah medley. I do not think I really noticed how much Yax3 was Yabu Kota and Yaotome Hikaru centered until watching these episodes as the other two for the most part just seem like back up dancers for the group with how little they have in the way of parts to sing with the other two, let alone anything that resembles a solo line.

K8 is not the only guests for this episode as Yamashita Tomohisa is there as well. He is there to promote his debut solo single Daite Senorita. I have to wonder if NEWS was still together if he still would have had a solo release or not. But I guess that is one question that will always remain unanswered.

After the talk with him he of course performs Daite Senorita. I have always liked this song and overall like Yamapi's solo songs from around this time period in general.

With the theme being mania the game segment is of course another round of Shokura Mania. I still enjoy this game as it is easy to play along with, and it also has those older clips in better quality or of episodes I have not seen.

This time around the seem to have done a better job of picking questions that would be harder to get overall. The last one was too easy so it is nice to see them make it a bit harder.

After the game is a Shokura Medley that has the Juniors singing all the old ending songs for the program. It made remember back when the end songs were actually good. And this medley is one that brings most of the Junior groups together with J.J.Express, A.B.C. and Kis-My-Ft2 performing the medley.

Yamada is featured in the Junior ni Q segment where he talks about having coin mania, which is him collecting coins.

We have an MC segment for K8 where we get to see them in some amazing costumes. Amazing as in so terrible they look inspired. Especially the shoulder pad/flap things that the members use to whack each other with during the MC and Yokoyama Yu even randomly attacking Koyama at one point.

The group performs their song Osaka Obachan Rock. Maruyama, Yasuda Shota and Ohkura Tadayoshi get to play their instruments for this performance, a reminder that this group has always had rock roots.

Yuto has an MC segment where he talks more about his mania. He really does seem to be obsessed with bugs, but that seems to be a pretty common thing for boys in Japan.

The Junior groups then get to cover the song Hakka Candy. While it is hard to see Kyomoto gets a mic and sings during the song. So he hits that milestone rather quickly even though he has yet to have his name said or put on the screen.

The show then only has the end song performance, and the song gooood looks like it is the end song for the season. I do hope they use other songs to switch it out with from time to time as I feel like I am going to get tired of it quickly.


A good solid episode and things have finally shifted to the point that I do not think that I have to worry if I will enjoy the next episode or not.

Having Nakamaru there as co-host with Koyama is great as the two worked well hosting the program for their run. While I felt it was time for them to leave the program when they did having the various members of Hey! Say! JUMP takeover did not end as well as I would have liked as they overtook the program.