The Shounen Club 7 January 2007 review

Finally we are on the 2007 episodes. I have been waiting to get to these for a while and I am eager to reach the ones in the later half of the year.

With the introductions we get J-International, which was a group pretty much for Joey Tee and had Juniors of international heritage in it. The ones still around with Johnny's that I know of are Casey Anderson, Jesse and Weslee. Other than that all the usual Junior groups are there will all their members present.

The producers for the episode are the little Juniors that make up the grouping Nakajima Yuto is leading. This includes Yamada Ryosuke, Kyomoto Taiga, Morimoto Ryutaro and Morimoto Shintaro. For now I will just call them the Little Five for convenience as this grouping is not going to change much until they get one more Junior added to it in what should only be a few months.

The theme they have for this episode is Gomen ne (I'm sorry). And we learn right off the bat that Ryutaro looks to be the one that has the most to apologize about of the five.

We have the theme medley, though without understanding all the lyrics it is a bit hard to say how on subject the songs were. The usual groups get a song for the medley. I think what caught my attention, and not just for the medley, is that Ryutaro is getting quite a bit of attention. It makes me wonder if he was getting set up to be the next little Junior to be pushed. I am curious if the pushing stays or if it changes when Chinen Yuri shows up or if it moves to Shintaro pre-Hey! Say! JUMP debut.

The first MC is with the Little Five, where they talk about things that need an apology for and Shintaro is Nakamaru Yuichi's armrest.

The following performance is a medley with the Little Five doing the first song then A.B.C. coming in to do the second. A.B.C.'s song is Star Seeker, a rockish-pop song. I would again like to know what the process is for typing the subtitles on screen for songs as there is some Engrish that I do not think should be there. As "jark" was definitely "dark", "glooming" could have been the correct "gloomy" and I am pretty sure "lie" is meant to be "light" for the lyrics.

We are then introduced to this episode's guests, Tackey & Tsubasa, as they start right off the bat with a hit medley performance.

Instead of the usual MC afterwards it is on to the game segment with Shokura Mania. It is a special T&T addition though that has the duo on stage with the Juniors. The two circles the Juniors go in to answer the question are assigned to the duo, one each, as each question will be about them.

What I love about Takizawa Hideaki's interactions with the Juniors is the fact that he is always a sempai that they can have fun with. Like for the game all the questions are set to give Tackey some good natured jabs (like who will never get married) so he can react to them.

Next up is a MC corner with Yabu Kota and Yaotome Hikaru giving apologies. Yabu apologizes to Fujigaya Taisuke while I think Hikaru apologizes to Kawai Fumito for a prank.

Yabu and Hikaru have new solos songs. For Yabu it is Arashi no Carnival and Hikaru has Gentles. They follow the solos up with Itoshii no Playgirl with all of Ya-Ya-Yah. I have not paid as much attention to it but Yax3's image and songs have changed quite a bit as the guys are all older teens now and are getting songs that are less youth oriented than when they started out. It kinda feels like Yabu and Hikaru had to take a step back a bit when they debuted with HSJ.

Junior ni Q has a mix of Juniors still with Johnny's and those not. Starting of though we have future Snow Man member Abe Ryohei. His apology is to his mother for something he did.

Then Arioka Daiki is up. Did not catch what exactly he wanted to apologize for or to. But it has been awhile since he has been featured in this segment. It then wraps up with the Yamashita brothers, Shoon and Leon.

We then finally get the MC with T&T as they talk about the theme. Tackey apologizes to Kawai for sending a lot of e-mail, that is if I got it right. And I think Imai Tsubasa talked about wanting to apologize to a beetle going on a story back when he was much younger.

T&T get to perform again and they sing Kakko Tsukanai Tonight. I do not recall ever hearing this song before but it sounds like the standard T&T song.

We then get Kis-My-Ft2 with a MC segment with the younger four joining in a bit later after getting their skates on. They talk about how Kitayama Hiromitsu and Yokoo Wataru are the two that argue the most in the group and how they deal with that.

Kisumai then get to perform Kis-My-Me-Mine. This will be the first time they perform the song as a full group on the show. And I feel bad for not realizing that Senga Kento does have solo lines in this song. I guess I do not pay enough attention when listening to it and have not watched the performances of it much.

And we get wardrobe issues as Kitayama looses his scarf partway through the performance then Yokoo throws it off stage. I do not blame him as having something like that on the floor when you have people moving around in skates is a recipe for disaster.

We then get a final MC segment with the Little Five where Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru go over the theme with them one last time.

The end song is a new one called Atarashii Yaoke. It is one of those songs where each group takes turns singing a few lines until they all sing together to end the song.


Another solid episode and a good one to see a bit more of the little Juniors. Tackey is a great guest like usual and he really helped make the game segment more enjoyable than usual. This year of SC episodes feel like they have started off right. Of course it will not be long before the season comes to an end, so we should be getting to the next set of changes for the program soon.