The Shounen Club 6 May 2007 review

Continuing on with 2007 episodes we get some signs for Hey! Say! JUMP's debut.

Probably one of the most exciting things for me with the introductions is that Nakajima Yuto, Yamada Ryosuke, Chinen Yuri, Arioka Daiki and Takaki Yuya get introduced together at the start. This of course is the line up for the Junior version of the group Hey! Say! 7, even though we do not get that name being connected to the five in this episode. But it should not be much longer as their single will be released in July.

Junior Boys, which is more or less a place holder group for Juniors that have not been grouped but the agency seems to be testing out if they should be promoted to be more prominent on the show, also get introduced. This group of Junior Boys should have most of the future members of Mis Snow Man in it from what I can tell.

Nakajima, Yaotome Hikaru and Yabu Kota look like they will remain the supporters for the show with Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi as the main hosts for some time as they get introduced as such for this month as well. They start off with asking the three which sempai they admire, Nakajima says it is Takizawa Hideaki for him. Yabu says Domoto Koichi while Hikaru goes with Joshima Shigeru because he looks cool when playing guitar. As someone who has seen Joshima play guitar live I completely agree with Hikaru's observation here. But this leads to the theme of the episode being announced Akogare (admiration).

We then get the usual theme medley, with the songs being more or less a selection from the debuted groups which most Juniors are supposed to be aspiring to be. The three of Little Six that are not in Hey! Say! 7 get featured a bit in the medley, which seems overall to be short. But maybe that is because they did not have as many songs in it as past medleys have had.

And it looks like I was not the only one not very impressed with the Shiroyagi and Kuroyagi corner as it already has changed up some by now having Nakamaru being a part of it playing the part of a postman. Still finding the corner on the boring side but not as much as with the previous month's.

Kishi on the far right in the black and white.

This is followed by a Kinki Kids medley that features mainly the members of J.J.Express and Little Six and a few random Juniors. Of the random Juniors the only one I recognize is Kishi Tadayoshi. He is one of those Juniors that will get a bit of a push for a while before falling back into obscurity as I cannot recall the last time I say him on the program.

We get to see Hey! Say! 7 perform together for the first time in the medley. And all five are featured prominently in the medley in general, I guess this is probably why they were pretty much nowhere to be seen in the theme medley.

Kamenashi Kazuya is brought out as the guest of the episode. He gets asked who he admires and he answers that it is Takizawa Hideaki.

Kame performs a solo song, 00'00'16 (Sixteen Seconds), which surprisingly never has been on a CD. While I would not consider myself a Kame fan I do tend to like his solo songs and this one is no exception. And it has some inventive choreography to it.

We get the return of a familiar game with a twist with Kamenashi Mania, which is based off of Shokura Mania. We still have the two teams of Jonetsu Rainbows and Dream Bombers but with most of the older Juniors. They have to answer questions about Kame, the first about how the younger Juniors view him.

The next uses an old VTR, and I have to agree with Kame that it gives off a perverted feeling.

The final question is a challenge with Kame trying to hit a sign ball into the top level of seats in the audience with a baseball bat. The Juniors have to guess whether he will be able to or not.

This episode ends up with two guests as Tegomass is brought out. Koyama makes a remark to the effect that with both sets of guests they have KAT-TUN and NEWS covered. They of course get asked about who they admire and Tegoshi Yuya answers with Kimura Takuya and Masuda Takahisa with Katori Shingo.

They perform Kiss ~Kaerimichi no Love Song~, which is the title track of the duo's second single. It is a nice slow paced song and back when Tegoshi had not developed his over singing habit he now has.

It is then Junior ni Q and we take a break from admired sempai to learn about costumes the Juniors would want to wear. We start off with Morimoto Shintaro who wants to dress up like a ticket taker, like one you find at train stations.

Next is Yamada Ryosuke who wants to dress up like a Roman soldier. And I feel like I am late in noticing that he has defiantly hit his first growth spurt, as I do not recall him being that tall when standing next to Koyama and Nakamaru. Of course at this point he should have made his drama debut with the Tantei Gakuen Q drama SP and the TV series version of it should be on track. Which can actually be figured out from Yamada's hair alone as he had it rather long for the role.

To end the segment they bring over Senga Kento who wants to dress as a pro wrestler, but also put down that he wants to dress as a pirate with Fujigaya Taisuke, who had pirate down as his choice. And we get some cuteness from those two.

Koyama and Nakamaru get to talk about who they admire as sempai, Nakamaru talks about when he was a Junior it was Kinki Kids. For Koyama he talks that he admired Sakurai Sho, which is why he joined the agency.

The next performance is Hikaru singing his solo song Gentles. It is a rather fun performance as Hikaru gets a prop to play with, a gun that shoots out smoke. As well as a movable platform that the main back dancers, Junior Boys, get to move for him.

The end song is Hurricane, which I not only love because it is just a fun song to listen to but because it has both the younger and older Juniors it can highlight some that did not have much time on the stage like J-International here.

While overall I liked the episode I felt having the two guests was a bit too much. I am curious to who the guest of the next episode will be, as if it is either Kame of Tegomass than I do not see why that one could have waited. But with the two medleys there was at least a decent showing of the Juniors in the episode.