The Shounen Club 13 July 2008 review

And now for the second Osaka episode of Shounen Club for 2008.

Like with the previous episode it opens up with the main Kansai Juniors performing an Arashi song, this time it is Kitto Daijobu. We do get something new as Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi show up and introduce the main groups then the theme of the episode, Smile.

And while they did not get announced with the other Kanjuu groups the medley does have the Muay Thai Mukai Brothers, which has little Mukai Koji and his older brother. Last episode they only back danced so it is nice to see them actually perform something for this episode.

Again like last episode Tegomass are brought out early to do their MC and performance for the episode. As they were talking about smiling Masuda Takahisa gets some focus as he is known for smiling a lot. Koyama manages to bring up Kato Shigeaki when the conversation turned to stories about concerts. Then Nakamaru is asked about KAT-TUN and he brings up Taguchi Junnosuke.

The following performance is a Tegomass/NEWS medley, with Tegomass starting by singing Ai Ai Gasa. Then Koyama joins them to perform weeeek. The weeeek performance is fun to watch, but honestly weeeek always is. And I love how with the Osaka NHK Hall when they go to stand on the small platforms instead of just being in front of the stage as in Tokyo they are in between the audience.

With the Heisei Post segment Hey! Say! 7 WEST is brought out to help with the letter answering but Nakamaru remains the host of the corner. The first letter asks about pitching so they have Nakayama Yuma show off the pitching skills from his drama, Battery. Kamiyama Tomohiro is asked to be the catcher for him but I cannot say that it is because of any skill he has with the position. but this is easily the highlight of the segment.

This is followed by a Butokan special stage. The performance starts out with an accent dance, which is basically a dance segment to show off the skill as well as the individual members of a group. They then perform Sweet Butterfly.

This game segment focuses more on the Kanjuu groups as well as the older Kanjuu so there are more familiar faces, and much more of them are still with Johnny's compared to the game segment in the previous episode. Nakamaru is the judge for this game segment which is where they are given a theme to give examples of. The first prompt being summer school, followed by summer beach and summer in Osaka. Subtitles would help with this one but the guys are rather lively which is still fun to watch.

It is then an MC with a few various Juniors, though Backes Kento is really the only one still with Johnny's. the topic is about what made them smile recently and he put down at a concert.

The next performance is Nakamaru with his solo song, SMACK. I am a bit indifferent to the song, as it is not bad but nothing that makes it stand out enough for me to want to listen to it too much. I do appreciate that he has BOYS as his back dancers for the number and that they get some moments to shine with that.

Following this is the Kansai Junior ni Q segment. The topic this time is the person you admire, so we get to hear a lot about what sempai are admired. And we get a Junior ni Q where  only one of the Juniors brought up to talk about their answer are still with Johnny's. That is Hamanaka Bunichi who was put down as an answer for one of the younger Kanjuu so he gets called over and is then asks about his answer, which was Yara Tomoyuki.

There is then a Kansai Junior Rock Medley. It has the usual theme medley run down with groups first getting songs to cover with the final number having them all, plus a few more Juniors added, to finish off the medley.

The final number of the program is Next 100 Years, which is a cover of the J-Friends version of the Jon Bon Jovi song. During the performance Tegomass, then Koyama and Nakamaru join in to finish the song.


After Kanjani8 debuted there seemed to be a huge void left when it came to the Kanjuu. But by now I would say that the Kanjuu are well on their way to having a bigger presence again, and most importantly not just one group of them so if there is a Kanjuu debut there would still be some around to carry on without being dependent on that group.

I am sad that this is the most we see of the Kanjuu during this SC era. And again I am so very happy that with the latest season we get to see more of them. I always feel like I am missing something with the Kanjuu with these episodes as they were only once a year and so much can happen in that time. Though at least with this season the Kansai Junior ni Q segment exists so there are glimpses of the Kanjuu throughout the year with that.