The Shounen Club 2 March 2008 review

And we enter in the final month for this season of the program.

The introduction of the Juniors for the episode is the more basic one with everyone just dancing as they are introduced. While Nakayama Yuma can be clearly seen on stage he does not get an introduction and instead we have the usual groups, Hasshi-trio and Morimoto Shintaro and company that get formal introductions.

The theme for the episode is Namida (tears). Of course the theme covers all kinds of emotions connected to tears, not just sadness.

We get some new Juniors getting featured in the medley, one of them being Yasui Kentaro who looks just about the same now as he did back then.

And like the other recent medley it ends with most of the Juniors featured in the medley joining in for the final song. I rather like this even though the large group that had most of the future Mis Snow Man members in it was not a part of this. But we did get the Hasshi-trio (with Hashimoto Ryosuke making sure to interact with those around him), the Fresh Junior group and the group that had Yasui in it. Plus Nakayama Yuma because he is still being randomly included in Shounen Club.

The following MC segment has a few of the Juniors from the medley asked about times they have cried. Nozawa Yuki talks about crying while watching movies. Kishi Takayoshi is something about his grandfather. Morimoto Shintaro talks about crying on a roller coaster then Jesse talks about crying at a karate match, I believe it was because he advanced to the next belt.

The guests for the episode are NEWS and they perform their single track Taiyo no Namida. I was never a big fan of this song, I do not mind listening to it but there are many more NEWS songs I prefer over it.

NEWS then have their MC talk with Nakamaru Yuichi. While the talk about the theme of the episode they bring up that Masuda Takahisa can be moved to tears easily, and of course Koyama Keiichiro. Koyama brings up a time that while eating Kato Shigeaki started crying, and I believe he explained it that he was thinking about something he had heard earlier.

Following this we get Question? changing things up by performing both Midnight Shuffle and Mezomero! Yasei. While I am glad to see more of the band I wish they would change up the songs they have been performing at least a little bit.

The game segment is another one that is language heavy as the guys have to talk about various topics and have the best story for it. I did get the first answer to the greatest shock prompt with Fujigaya Taisuke talking about being approached by a couple of fans that told him that they like Miyata Toshiya. This prompts Nakamaru to talk about a time that he was approached by a fan that thought he was a member of Kanjani8.

For the final prompt we get more active one where they have to go through a series of cool poses spending about three seconds on each. Koyama volunteers Shige to give a demonstration and Shige decides to go with taking off an article of clothing until everyone stops him from taking off his pants.

Yabu Kota then gets to perform his latest solo at the time, Rain Dance. I really wish he and Yaotome Hikaru would have had their solos released on CD at some point. I actually like the ones from this era even though the two do not have my favorite voices from the group.

The Junior ni Q segment is up next with the theme being tears that they do not forget. Up first is Masuda Ryo who talks about being moved to tears first hearing Michael Jackson's We Are the World. He is then asked about his favorite Johnny's song and he answered with Hoshikuzu no Spangle.

Kitayama Hiromitsu is brought over to explain that for one of his birthday's he received a present that meant a lot to him and he was moved to tears, if I followed the story right.

Sakuma Daisuke is up next who wrote that he cried fighting with his younger brother.

Up last is Goseki Koichi who talks about at a KAT-TUN Tokyo Dome concert seeing Nakamaru cry at the end.

There is then a letter exchange segment between Kyomoto Taiga and Anderson Casey. Kyomoto talks about first meeting Anderson at a KAT-TUN concert and Anderson brings that up as well.

The following performance is A.B.C. with a new song Sayonara Box. I do not care too much for this song though it has the rockish sound that I tend to like in pop songs. The highlight of the song is the fact that they do have a large box that is worked into the performance for this.

Then we have a Hey! Say! JUMP performance squeezed in as the group does the ballad version of Ultra Music Power. I am pretty sure this version was only created so they could perform the song the four times they did at their debut concert.

The episode ends with Hurricane right after. I guess they wanted to make sure they get the end songs in before the season ends. But I am glad as the end songs for this season were good and a fun way to end the episode on. Especially since the boys are willing to be a bit playful when performing them.


I love that we are seeing more and more of the current Juniors show up in these episodes. Of course I am sure that this will be a continuing trend throughout the year. I am anxious to see more and more of Kis-My-Ft2 and the creation of A.B.C-Z which should be coming up closer to the end of 2008 if my memory serves me right. Until then I await to see what other Junior will pop up that I was not expecting like Yasui.

Next month should prove to be a bit more interesting with the episodes as that is when the changes for the new season will start but until then it looks like we will be getting some solid episodes out of these final ones for the current season.