The Shounen Club 10 December 2006 review

And we hit the last fully new episode of the year for 2006, but are still an episode away from wrapping the year up. 

We get another introduction to the Juniors with them all singing the song Beautiful. Only thing I feel worth noting is that the growing separation between J.J.Express and Nakajima Yuto's grouping of Juniors continues as they are introduced separately without having the other group hovering around them.

The producers for this episode are Yabu Kota and Yaotome Hikaru. The theme for the episode is Nakama (this came mean co-worker, group member, friends, etc...). Yabu explains the reason for the theme a bit bringing up how all the Juniors are nakama (so I assume co-workers is the meaning they are aiming for).

The theme medley is not really centered on the theme of the episode. It is a Special Hit Medley for songs from 2006 and 2005. But I guess if you take into account the members of the debuted group could also be considered nakama for all being in the same agency it could work in that way to tie it in.

We get the usual MC break afterwards that has Yuto and Hikaru talk about things that nakama do. Like with Yuto he talks about how Kamenashi Kazuya would give him words of encouragement.

The next performance featured Nakamaru Yuichi performing Kizuna with Yabu and Hikaru. It still sounds weird to be to hear anyone else but Kame sing this song.

There is a special letter exchange that instead of featuring Juniors like usual instead features Tegomass. I do not care for having debuted Johnny's do this segment but since this is the first time it is being done and will not become the norm I will give it a pass. That and both Masuda Takahisa and Tegoshi Yuya never got a lot of time being spotlighted when they were Juniors so this kinda feels like make up for that.

They follow up by performing Sunadokei and Miso Soup (the English version of the song this time) together. The latter gives us awkward English lyrics and some classic Engrish from the duo, the best/worst coming from Massu.

For the game segment we get the return of the Domo-kun and Nanami-chan teams, this time lead by Koyama Keiichiro and Yabu. I want to believe that Yabu was made team captain because they did not want him being the only member of his team to participate again like last time they did this.

I would love to have the guys get a game segment that uses toys again as they had a blast playing around with them here. Especially Hikaru who decided to show off how excited Domo-kun was.

And we get a reminder that this is all taped in front of an audience as for one of the rounds after Koyama gives the hint of Ojii-chan (Grandpa) someone in the audience decided to take advantage of the lull in noise to get Inoo Kei's attention by calling out his name. This ends up becoming a joke as Inoo is then referred to as Ojii-chan for the rest of the segment.

This seems to be the year of new songs for Ya-Ya-Yah as they debut a new one with this episode, Te o Tsunaide Yukou. It is a slow paced song and the group had a hand in writing the lyrics for it according to the credits. I have always liked it but I doubt it will be a song brought back for others Juniors to cover.

This Junior ni Q there is only one Junior that is still with the agency, but I also want to include the members of Yax3 no longer with Johnny's just because. Starting off with Ayukawa Taiyo who got to tell the story how Koyama was able to lend him a pair of clean underwear after he forgot to bring some.

The one Junior still with the agency featured is Nozawa Yuki. He talks about Senga Kento as one of the Juniors that goes home the same way as he does and even says that out of all the Juniors Senga is the sempai he admires the most.

Yamashita Shoon is up next and he gets to bring his younger brother, Leon, over with him as they talk about various things they do that give them a sense of being nakama.

We get to see a bit more of how JJE is shaping up now that Yuto and the Juniors grouped with him are starting to be be distanced. JJE gets a new song, Shounen no Mama, which only the remaining JJE members perform with Yuto and his gang showing up for the song Carnival Carnival, which is a song they have done before. So I can only assume anymore new songs for JJE are going to be for the remaining group but the older songs the group has will still be collaborations with the younger Juniors.

There is then a MC with members of Kis-My-Ft2 and Senga gets to talk about something nakama do, which for him seems to include bathing. Kitayama Hiromitsu helps out with the explanation part of it. Yax3 is there as well with Taiyo giving his answer, and the members in the back try to be seen over those in front by jumping up and down.

This is followed by a Yax3 medley that starts with Yabu then Hikaru singing their solo songs. This means the return of Angel Come To Me with Yabu. I really would love to know how the lyric subtitles are done as they have managed to get even worse than before with the Engrish to the point words are just being made up now.

The show closes out with a Christmas song medley. I can only assume because they are not recording a new performance for Christmas with the special episode later in the month.

The game segment was definitely one of the main highlights of the episode. You could tell the guys were having fun and the unexpected elements that it had in it kept it fun to watch as a viewer. And everything else was as solid as usual.

Next episode is the final for 2006, which is mainly a recap episode. Then we are on 2007 episodes and coming up on a new season. Personally I am pretty excited for that as 2007 will be Hey! Say! JUMP's debut and the episodes I started with when I first began to watch the program. Of course with it being so many years ago very little is well remembered but should still hold some familiarity with them. But it will still be great to finally hit that point with the show.