The Shounen Club 12 August 2007 review

And we get another NEWS-centric episode with some Juniors here and there.

The episode begins with the main Juniors being introduced followed by NEWS. No changes from the previous episode so there are no surprise Juniors getting some promotion in the episode.

The theme is a continuation from the past episode, Natsu part 2 (summer part 2). The theme medley this time was mainly NEWS though Nakamaru Yuichi and a few of the Juniors are mixed in. Such as Yamashita Shoon and Ayukawa Taiyo singing with Kato Shigeaki to start the medley off.

B.A.D. get to join Nakamaru to sing the lone KAT-TUN song in the medley, Yorokobi no Uta. I do not remember that song having a connection to summer, so I suspect it was in there to have a KAT-TUN song for Nakamaru to sing and it was a recent single for the group.

The first MC segment is with BOYS and OSSaN, with each group talking about something in relation to summer for them. For OSSaN it was the fact that the summer was their group anniversary while with BOYS they picked going to the beach.

All three Kansai Junior groups take the stage for the following performance of the song Blow out. It is a rock song sung by all the groups and it still gets performed by the Kanjuu in concerts.

The next MC has Shige sharing something connected to summer. He tells a story about going on a vacation with Koyama Keiichiro to Hawaii and finding a lizard on a piano while there. Koyama was the one who found out and let out a yell, that Shige continues to imitate throughout the rest of the conversation.

After Shige and Koyama go to get ready on stage Taiyo and Shoon come out to give their summer stories. Taiyo's was about peaches while Shoon tells a story about his family going to see the fireworks and his father taking a lot of pictures but forgetting to have put any film in the camera before hand.

NEWS then performs SHOCK ME, which is one of their B-sides. The song has plenty of breaks between lyrics to have the members show off various dance moves.

The game segment is NEWS mania, but since they do not have most of the known Juniors it is different from past mania segments. The members of NEWS are the participants with Nakamaru the host with Shoon and Taiyo as supporters. The members of NEWS are asked questions about each member and they have to write what they think is the correct answer. The one(s) that got the most wrong have to do one of the usual embarrassing love confession/saying things to the camera.

From early on it is safe to say Koyama and Shige would not be the losers of this game seeing as being the close friends they are they were pretty much guaranteed to get the questions about each other right. It was interesting to see which questions stumped everyone and which everyone, or pretty much everyone, easily got right.

Nakamaru then gets to talk alone in a MC segment and talks about going with friends to an onsen during the summer.

Up next is FIVE performing their song I&I. I cannot remember if the group performed on the show before or not, especially since it is now usually Question? on the program as the live band. Of course this group is no longer in Johnny's. They quit and started over under the name Plan-B and seem to be doing well for an indies band.

The Junior ni Q segment focuses on the Kansai Juniors that are there for the month. Nakama Junta is up first and his answer is yukata, the traditional dress that is mostly worn by girls at the summer festivals.

Yamasaki Kunta gets asked about his answer of kimodameshi, which is the tests of courage that Japanese youth do where they enter a scary looking place.

Kiriyama Akito is the last one the have talk about his answer, which is his birthday. He is probably pushing it a bit for it being summer related as it is August 31st, which is the last day of the last month of summer.

Nishikido Ryo then gets to talk about summer. He talks about going to the ocean in Okinawa and tacks on getting a scuba license which Koyama has to point out is a lie.

Ryo performs a solo song then, code. I have never been overly impressed with Ryo's solo songs. It is not that I think they are bad but they have the tendency to sound similar to each other. I am amused at the fact they used grawlix for his yeahs in the song seeing as grawlix is traditionally used to replace printing swear words.

The episode closes out with NEWS performing their comeback single, Hoshi o Mezamashite. I love this song; it was the first NEWS song I heard and I have loved it ever since. And I think the stage fog works well for this performance, if just because of how the black outfits look in contrast to it.


With this month done we should be getting back to the Tokyo Juniors again officially with the next episode. I am excited for that as it should mean seeing the Junior Hey! Say! 7 performing on the program. Also it means we are nor far from Okamoto Keito making his SC debut in all his awkwardness.

But I was happy with this detour to all that as we get the return of NEWS as guests for the program and get to see a bit more of some of the Kanjuu.