The Shounen Club 8 June 2008 review

This episode opens up with a song for all the Juniors to sing, this time being the rock version of Naniwa Iroha Bushi. The guest for the month, Yasuda Shota, comes out near the end to sing with them.

With Yasuda on stage the theme of the episode is revealed, ROCK (as in rock 'n roll music), and he with the hosts of the program, Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi, talk a bit about the topic.

The theme medley has a mix of the grouped Juniors and members from Junior groups. And we can see the ever changing Morimoto Shintaro grouping. Of course the usuals are there, Kyomoto Taiga, Anderson Casey, Morita Myuto and Kawashima Noeru but it seems like Uekusa Yuta and Camu Cade are sorta in the group, as they are at least wearing the same outfits as the other five.

This episode has a letter exchange segment with Hamanaka Bunichi and Senga Kento. It is a fun one to watch with the reactions they each get from each other and one that I really wish I had subtitles for.

Of course with Butokan members doing the letter exchange it means that Butokan is up next to perform. The group performs a new song, Sweet Butterfly, which has a bit of a rockish sound to it. But like with all of Butokan's songs it is really the dance that stands out the most for it.

Yasuda then gets his MC segment where he talks about rock 'n roll. They talk about his clothes a bit which leads to talking about what a "rock image" is.

He then performs Kanjani8's Mystical as a solo, with the four younger members of Kis-My-Ft2 providing some back up vocals. The song does not sound quite right without Shibutani Subaru's vocals to me.

There is then the game segment which Yasuda has some use as a judge as this time the game is to act out prompts and Yasuda has to choose which was the better one.

The first prompt is a dog that wants to be fed and it has Nozawa Yuki and Sanada Yuma competing against each other. Both are memorable but for different reasons.

Then it is Miyata Toshiya and Tamamori Yuta up next having to say something lovey-dovey. This is more interesting for me to watch now after watching Kis-My-Busaiku to see how much these two have gotten more comfortable with this kind of thing.

Fujigaya Taisuke and Senga then have to try to do Yamashita Tomohisa's dance for Daite Senorita.

Then finally is is Goseki Koichi and Kawai Fumito to act out coming home. This is prompt that probably needs subtitles to get as the rest are pretty easy to follow along without them.

Up next is a performance by Question? who do a cover of the Otokogumi song Mihari. Mihari is my favorite Otokogumi song but it is thanks to this performance by Question? that I even knew it existed. This is why I enjoy the fact that the Juniors will cover these older songs as I do not see how else I would be able to hear some of them with how hard it is to track down releases from the older Johnny's groups.

We have the Kansai Junior ni Q VTR segment for this episode and the theme is about dreams. The first Kansai Junior up that I know is still with the agency is Fugal Shawn Goku. He talks about studying and the fact that even though his father is from America Fugal only understands English and does not really speak it.

Hamanaka Bunichi is called over in this one and he wrote down training but he does not seem to want to talk. And that is it for this segment.

A.B.C. then have an MC segment and they are asked about who their favorite rock act is. Goseki answers with The Rolling Stones, then Tsukada Ryuichi answers with Aerosmith and Totsuka Shota with The Blue Hearts' front man Komoto Hiroto. When it is Kawai's turn he gets up and has music start so he can do his Matsumoto Jun impersonation. He then answers the question with Okamoto Kenichi.

The group then perform the song Shelter though Nakamaru at first tries to go on stage with them but is called back by Koyama. But he does actually join A.B.C. for the song about halfway through to do his beat boxing.

It is then time to end the episode and the song for that is OH! MY DREAM. As the song seems to be for the older Juniors to perform it is really worth sticking through to see the little cute moments that pop up in the performance.


I kinda feel bad not having a lot to say about the episode, because it is not a bad episode at all, but this is just the era where things just felt solid. There was a good balance between Juniors and debuted Johnny's when it cam to focus and for now not much is changing from month to month. Of course that is bound to change in the second half of the year if memory serves me right though.

In any case the next two episodes are the Osaka episodes for the year and there should be plenty to mention about them.