The Shounen Club 3 June 2007 review

I did some quick math and it takes me about three months to get through a year's worth of Shounen Club episodes. So by sometime in 2015 I should be finally caught up with the show. Not sure if I should be happy about that or not.

Nothing really to note with the introductions as J.J.Express and the Little Six are back to their usual groupings for the episode. JJE seems to be missing a member as I only count five to their number, with Fukusawa Tatsuya being the missing member.

The theme for the episode gets to be delivered by Chinen Yuri and Kyomoto Taiga. The theme is Jinx so they get to talk about times bad things have happened to them.

Being a bit of an odd theme it is hard to tell if the theme medley actually works with it or not. My favorite performance from the medley is A.B.C. covering SMAP's Taisetsu. It is one of my favorite SMAP songs and A.B.C. always brings a lot of energy to their performances which make them a joy to watch.

They made another change to Shiroyagi and Kuroyagi by giving the guys little stuffed goats to wear as a necklace. They joke about how the goats are their babies and honestly that was the most entertaining this segment has been. The topic they discuss is which location is better for a family vacation, an onsen or an amusement park. I think the only way to improve this segment now is to keep it short as it drags on for much too long.

This episode gives us a rare J-International performance. I also noticed that I do not see Joey Tee around this episode so there could be a good chance he has disappeared to wherever he went.

This round of performances also has JJE performing Carnival Carnival with Nakajima Yuto, Yamada Ryosuke and Morimoto Ryutaro.

The guest for the show is brought on, with Ueda Tatsuya being the guest though Nakamaru Yuichi tries to pretend he is as well. He then goes on to say that he is Ueda's manager.

The two perform Yorokobi no Uta, which is one of my favorite KAT-TUN songs. It does sound like the main part of the song is not really in Ueda's range though so not the best sounding vocals on the song but the two put a lot of energy into the performance that made up for that.

Like with Kamenashi Kazuya last month Ueda gets a special version of Shokura Mania for the game portion of the show. The first question is to guess who out of 30 of the little Juniors would rather be on a deserted island with, Ueda or Nakamaru.

Next they have to guess/remember a talent that Ueda showed off on a past game segment back when KAT-TUN was still a Junior group.

Then lastly the remaining Juniors have to guess if Ueda can do so much of an exercise (I cannot recall if this has an official name or not) within a time limit. Ueda of course does this with his bare feet, which was probably a smart decision as his boots did not look like they would have given him much traction.

This is followed by a Ya-Ya-Yah MC segment. Yaotome Hikaru talks about the scoreboard showing up incorrectly once he was bowling. And I got that Yamashita Shoon talked about an issue with his hair.

The group then performs Ikujinashi. This is one of their songs that is mainly a duet for Yabu Kota and Hikaru with Shoon and Ayukawa Taiyo not showing up until around halfway through the song.

Continuing with Junior ni Q topics that have nothing to do with the actual theme of the episode the Juniors are asked about their favorite sushi. Only two of the ones asked over are still with the agency, the first being Yamada Ryosuke.

Then we get the other Ryosuke with Hashimoto Ryosuke. I still find it hard to believe he and Yamada are the same age.

There is a cameo for Nakajima as he comes by and swats a fly on the header on the board. He almost knocks the header off in the process though.

There is a MC with Kis-My-Ft2 and they put Senga Kento on the spot to talk about being jinxed. I wish I could follow what was being said as Senga's stories tend to always be funny and I did catch the word "sexy" being mentioned with whatever Senga was prompted to talk about. Kitayama Hiromitsu's talk was easier to follow as he talks about how he had the habit of having the number four (which is unlucky in Japanese culture) attached to him.

The group then performs their song Good-bye, Thank you. For a change all the members of the group seemed to get a good amount of screen time. I wish the group could move towards that again now post-debut.

Then it is time to end the program and this episode has Hurricane for the end song. I guess this song is for when they can have the little Juniors perform still and the other is for when it is too late for the little Juniors to be on stage because of labor laws.


I do not think I will ever come to like the Shiroyagi and Kuroyagi segment. As I mentioned before it feels like it just drags and hearing Yabu and Hikaru attempt to debate on a topic just does not interest me, even with Nakamaru there to help them out. When KAT-TUN were the main Juniors of the program they had their special segments but they tended to be short and some would from time to time bring in others. Of course not all of them escaped being boring as I do recall thinking Ueda's segment was lacking. But at least with Hey! Say! JUMP debuting there is no reason to extend this segment past this season and with the changes it seems like someone knew the segment was not really working out.