The Shounen Club 2 November 2008 review

And with this episode we sorta have B.I.Shadow now.

From the introduction at the start of the program the three original members of B.I.Shadow have definitely been grouped together as a trio but they are introduced with their individual names instead of a group name like Kis-My-Ft2 and A.B.C-Z were before them.

In the introduction we get to see the guests of the episodes, Kansai Juniors Nakata Daichi (ex-Johnny's) and Hamada Takahiro, who form the now duo of BOYS.

Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi then properly introduce the two as the guests of the episode and talk about who they get a lot of fan letters letters asking for more Kanjuu on the program. The theme is then announced, DANCE.

We get the usual medley to follow that and it is a mix of the Juniors in groups and grouped Juniors performing the songs. And of course when they do a KAT-TUN song they have Tanaka Juri do the rap for it as he gets consistently pushed as a mini-version of his older brother, Tanaka Koki.

And even though they are still not being called B.I.Shadow I will be calling the Nakajima Kento, Kikuchi Fuma and Takahata Misaki trio that, as that is what they should become shortly. But BIS perform Mayonaka no Shadow Boy in this medley, beating Hey! Say! JUMP to perform the song themselves on the program first. Though they do have Yabu Kota show up as he seems to have nothing to do but be a guest on the show at this point.

The following MC segment has the four, Yabu and BIS, talking to the program's hosts. Yabu gets to talk first and is asked about dancing and then we get some basic introduction information from BIS, which is what sempai they admire. Nakaken of course says Yamada Ryosuke and Fuma gets to spare Yabu's feelings by telling him that he is his admired sempai.

The four of them then perform School Kakumei, which is a song Yabu wrote the lyrics to. It seems like BIS is being used as a replacement HSJ for this episode, but at least there is a new group of Juniors to focus on post-HSJ debut.

Up next is an MC segment with BOYS. They talk about dancing for their sempai as well as songs they like the dance of.

They then perform first for a divided performance. They perform the song Battle, which I hope is still being used by the Kanjuu as I like it. Perhaps not so much as a CD track but more for a performance song.

The second part has three of the five members of Butokan perform Grateful world before joining BOYS in performing Battle.

It is then the game segment of the episode and it is a dance quiz. These are fun as it is easy to follow along even if you do not know much Japanese and it is interesting to see who knows which songs. Though the best is when they have them do something really challenging with it, like do the dance with dumbbells.

And the final round where they have to sum up a dance with a single dance move is pretty fun to watch, especially since Kawai Fumito is up for his team.

Following this is a special stage with a Kis-My-Ft2 vs A.B.C-Z performance. This is basically each group performing one of their group songs in a mash-up, Kisumai with Kaizoku and Ebi with CRUSH. At the end they are performing both at the same time and while it actually works when they are switching off it does not seem to be so seamless with both songs being sung at the same time.

There is then Junior ni Q with the topic being something you want to boast about. First up is Nakaken who does not look as nervous as the last time he was on the segment, and he shows off being able to sound like a window being wiped.

Then it is Morimoto Shintaro, unfortunately I could not really follow what he was talking about outside that it had something to do with his father.

Kyomoto Taiga gets called over and he shows off some of his impersonation skills, starting with Totsuka Shota.

They then go to end the segment but Miyata Toshiya rushes over to stop them so he can get a turn. He tells a story about the door at a convenience store near his house, I could not get exactly what he was saying about it though.

Hamada and Nakata get to do a letter exchange segment, and as expected from Kanjuu they get the audience laughing. I was able to catch Hamada talking about the fact that they have known each other since they went to the same audition and Nakata brought up that it has been six years since they have known each other.

The duo then perform a song, Give Me. It sounds familiar enough that I want to say that it still gets performed by the Kanjuu. Either that or I just remember it well from this performance, as I do like the song even though it does sound a bit dated by today's standards.

It is then time to wrap up the episode with an ending theme. This time the song performed is REAL DX, which starts with just Kisumai and Ebi but eventually BOYS come back on stage to perform the song with them.


If I had to pinpoint the turning point for when the Kansai Juniors began to have their rise I would pick 2008 to be the year. Back then I was not really into them back as a current fan I am finding it interesting to see how they really start to build a presence on Shounen Club with this year with not only being guests on the show for the Tokyo episodes but also having the Kansai Junior ni Q segment. It is hard to believe a couple of years ago the Kansai side of things was mainly just Kanjani8 with little focus on the Kanjuu. They have come a long way and I really hope it all builds up for a debut for the older ones soon.