The Shounen Club 8 July 2007 review

I feel sad that this is the last of the Osaka episodes for this season. If anything it makes me grateful that in the latest season of Shounen Club the Kansai Juniors have been worked in to be regularly featured in the episodes.

Things start off with dance introductions of all the main Juniors in the episode, starting with Yabu Kota and Yaotome Hikaru, who are being considered as their full group Ya-Ya-Yah.

In the intros we get to see Little Gangs, which is the group of little Kansai Juniors. Much like Junior Boys like group does not have fixed members so much as it is the group certain Juniors get put into until Johnny's figures what they want to do with them.

The main MCs are the same as with the last episode, Koyama Keiichiro and Murakami Shingo. The theme of the episode is color.

The theme medley is a Kansai Color medley. There are not as many of the Kanjuu highlighted as both members of B.A.D. get solos. But Kiriyama Akito proves to already have that magnetic quality for when he performs that just draws you in.

The medley has Hamada Takahiro singing with some of the young Kanjuu which includes an awkward looking Shigeoka Daiki. It is strange to see Shige not be front and center of something as I have gotten used to that over the years.

This is followed by an MC with OSSaN, who get to introduce themselves. I do not believe any of the members of the group are still with the agency. As with Kanjuu their attrition rate seems to be much worse than with the Tokyo Juniors.

Kanjani8 then perform their song, Mystical. Since this is a song that uses the band members of the group they are tied to the main stage. Since this song does not really have choreography it would have been better to let some of the members do something like leave the stage, IMHO.

With Kanjani8 being the next group for the following MC they get to talk about their Eight Ranger skit, introducing themselves with their respective colors. Hina introduces himself as Murakami Purple and the conversation does bring up changing purple with nasu (eggplant, which can have a purple color). Seeing as nasu is the name of his ranger color now I guess that ended up winning in the end.

Following this is Yabu Kota and Yaotome Hikaru performing a solo medley. Yabu sings Arashi no Carnival, which I believe is for the first time on SC. While Hikaru performs his usual solo, Gentles.

Up next is the game segment, which has Yokoyama Yu and Hina as announcers and Koyama as the judge. The Kanjuu have been split into two teams, Naniwa Guts Boys and Osaka Nande Yanenzu.

Most of the Juniors that get to show off their talents I do not recognize and can only assume have since quit. It seems like a complete pity to have a segment like this to showcase some of the lesser known Kanjuu to have them fade into obscurity afterwards. Hamada though gets to do a magic trick with a coin.

Then there is my least favorite segment of the show, Shiroyagi to Kuroyagi. I was hoping they would have only done this once for the month so it could be skipped this episode. Yoko is still the best thing about this corner this time around though he does not do as well as the previous one in making it almost bearable to watch.

Koyama gets to perform a solo this episode, Love Addiction. Like all the recent solo songs from the remaining four member's of NEWS this one does have a CD release with the group's best album. I rather love that this camera view makes it look like it could be a performance in a club rather than a larger venue.

The performance leads into Nishikido Ryo joining Koyama so they can sing NEWS' Hoshi o Mezashite. This is the closest to having NEWS sing the song on the program yet. With only two voices though the song just does not sound right to me though.

The Junior ni Q is about charm points. The first up is Backes Kento, who wrote down that his ears are his charm point.

Fujii Ryusei just draws his charm points, his height and the way his bangs are cut, so he is called over to explain them. And that is it for Juniors that I can recognize and believe to be still with Johnny's.

This is followed by a letter exchange between the members of B.A.D., Kiriyama and Nakama Junta. I found it cute that Kiriyama finished his letter with some Chinese and Junta finished his with some English.

Since the two are on stage already they move into a performance of their song Magnetic. While I love the duo I have not cared too much for the songs that they have been given overall. Magnetic is an alright song but sounds rather dated and more like something that would have been fit right in with the kind of music coming out in the 90s.

It is then time to wrap up the episode. The ending song this time is Mugendai which is performed by K8 solely at first. Near the end the Juniors come out and join then to finish it up.


After not having Osaka episodes last season it felt great to have them back this season. Especially since the Juniors getting introduced here are some of the ones that have gone on to be the main Kansai Juniors. Of course there are also quite a few Kanjuu in the episode that are not seen again, which is sad but I am sure if the Tokyo Juniors only had one month of SC episodes a year they would have the same thing with them.

With the next episode we are back to focusing on the Tokyo Juniors, and we should get the Junior Hey! Say! 7 introduced.