Hopefully things will start feeling more settled in by next month's episodes.
We the Juniors singing
Beautiful at the start as they get introduced. Really nothing outstanding since it is the same groups as in the last episode.
We get the same three Juniors introduced as supporters,
Yabu Kota,
Yaotome Hikaru and
Nakajima Yuto. And then to the theme of the episode, Yuujou (friendship).
The theme medley of course follows and it uses a good mix of Juniors for it. One of the personal highlights for me was that they covered
Fantastipo, which is one of my favorite Johnny's songs.
And I think I am slowly getting better at recognizing the members of
Snow Man in these episodes. Of course there are a couple that are pretty easy to spot, like with
Fukuzawa Tatsuya being in
J.J.Express and
Sakuma Daisuke has a distinctive face that makes it easy to spot him. The rest I am starting to notice but still cannot quite put names to faces. Like I want to say this is
Watanabe Shota here, but I could be wrong.
The first MC segment has some of the Juniors talking about things that give them the feeling of friendship.
Yabu picks
Kitayama Hiromitsu for something he did for him,
Fujigaya Taisuke picks everyone gathering around to eat like during a break when the Juniors are working. Then
Takaki Yuya picks birthdays as
Hikaru had given him a present for his birthday.
The guest for this episode is
Yara Tomoyuki, who is from the dance unit
M.A. (
Musical Academy). He performs with
A.B.C., first just dancing then singing the song
Jealous Train.
Yara then does a talk with
Koyama Keiichiro and
Nakamaru Yuichi. he talks about this being his first time on
Shounen Club since it moved to
NHK Hall, as he and his unit tend to be guests on
Shounen Club Premium. He talks a bit about the other Juniors, like knowing
A.B.C. from them both being in
SHOCK then how when he had asked
Morimoto Shintaro if he knew who he was during a guest segment at a concert
Shintaro had told him he did not.
Next up is a letter exchange between
Ishigaki Daisuke and
Yodogawa Yoshihiro, the later no longer being with the agency.
Question? then performs after this and get special back dancers for the performance in the members of
M.A.D., another dance group of
Johnny's.
Then we go on to the game segment of the program. The challenges are very word based so for those who do not understand Japanese, or at least not well, it does make it hard to enjoy the segment this time. Though looking at the reactions of the guys if you do understand Japanese well it is a fun segment to watch.
Joey Tee is then on stage performing a solo song. He makes a much better dancer than he does a rapper/singer. But at least there are a few familiar faces in the back dancers he is given for the performance.
Again we get the Shiroyagi to Kuroyagi corner and it is still boring. This time though I could follow the conversation better as they debated whether it is better to go on vacation to Okinawa or Hokkaido, but still found it boring. I do not think it helped that
Hikaru could not think up of many points to back up his choice.
That and this segment just seems to take away from the general momentum of the program as it is.
This is followed by
A.B.C. performing
Kodoku no Runaway. Like most of the performances on this episode there are back dancers added to the performance when there usually is not. But it gives us some cute moments so I will not complain.
The Junior ni Q segment is next and they seem to be continuing on with having a theme that does not go with the episode theme, as this time is is "lucky color". Most of the Juniors highlighted are with the agency still this time around. First up is
Chinen Yuri who put down that orange is his unlucky color which ended up next to
Miyata Toshiya's answer of orange being his lucky color. So they end up having both of them over.
Up next is
Kitayama who put down his lucky color, red, and lucky number, 4. He explains that he feels red is lucky for him as he was wearing a red T-shirt to his audition for
Johnny's. I could not follow why 4 was his lucky number but
Koyama and
Nakamaru seemed really impressed with his story behind it. I think the first part of it was about the number he was given at audition was 404, but I got a bit lost after that.
After Junior ni Q there is a
Ya-Ya-Yah medley performance. The group runs into the audience for part of it, and I like it when the performances do make use of more of
NHK Hall than just the stage.
It is then time for the final song which is one of my favorite end songs,
Hurricane. It is an energetic song that makes it always feel like you are ending on a high note of the program. And it is one that has the younger Juniors in it, so it is not just the older Juniors performing
This episode is nice to see a bit of the dance Juniors, as they rarely are seen on the program. I do not know much about them but I do know that they have some really dedicated fans for being able to keep track of what is going on with them.
I do hope that with the next set of episodes some things get tweaked from these episodes. Or at least that one corner, the rest I am fine with but I really do not want to sit through another one of those.
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