The Shounen Club 1 March 2009 review

And we have Matsumura Hokuto's first appearance on the program with this episode and Mis Snow Man is officially a group.

Of course you would not see either of those things in the introduction as everyone only has their individual names shown on the screen so there are no group names to be seen. And quite frankly I have failed to spot where Hokuto is, if he is anywhere, on stage as a back dancer in this episode. But all the main Juniors perform GOOD DAYS and as you can see the stage at this point is getting rather crowded.

Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi bring up the topic of spring at first but then reveal that the theme of the episode is Omoide (Memories), and Koyama hints that the guest for this episode is one that has not been on for a while.

The theme medley gives us a good hint of who that guest is when Kamenashi Kazuya comes on stage to join Kyomoto Taiga and Uekusa Yuta in singing Kizuna.

But yes, the guest of the episode is KAT-TUN, who we really have not seen on the program for a while now. They are asked about memories about Shounen Club and of course they can talk about when the show was filmed in a studio instead of NHK Hall. And of course since they were in the same generation of Juniors as Koyama it helps create a relaxed atmosphere as they chat.

Except for Akanishi Jin who is silent throughout the MC then "acts up" as the rest of the group goes to take the stage for their performance on the show. Honestly this is when it gets hard to tell if this is a character he is trying to be or if he really does not care.

The group performs two of their songs, One Drop and Rescue. I don't care much for the former but I love the latter. Rescue is one of my favorite KAT-TUN songs so I am overall happy for the performance.

I cannot help but notice that Jin seems to be trying not to do any dancing with this performance. I think it is safe to say that at this point it is clear that he has no passion whatsoever for being in the group. It is a pity as when he puts effort into things he can do well but this seems to be the phase he has been stuck in for some time where he just does not put that effort in.

Up next is a performance by Question? of the song MOMOKO, which sounds rather dated so I am assuming it is a cover though it is not put on the screen who the original performer of the song is. I really do not care for the song as it is really slow and plodding, making want to fall asleep watching it.

Thankfully it is the game segment next to help wake anyone up who may have dozed off. It is a "revenge battle" game which is just doing some of the past games that a team did not do well at the last time and want another go at it. We get to see the chin-up, human wheelbarrow, and team jump rope games again, or basically the same games from only one of the past episodes. But seeing that this is a March episode it does mean that the season is coming to an end so this is month's episodes are the last chances the teams will have to go against each other to figure out which one wins for the season.

And since it is a March episode then the topic of graduations come up which bring Hashimoto Ryosuke and Senga Kento to the front for an MC segment. Hasshi gets to talk about graduating from junior high while Senga was graduating from high school.

The following performance is with two of the newest Junior units of the time, starting with Mis Snow Man, and being officially listed as Mis Snow Man as well. This is the original nine members for the performance which include, Sanada Yuma, Nozawa Yuki, Fukazawa Tatsuya, Sakuma Daisuke, Watanabe Shota, Iwamoto Hikaru, Miyadate Ryota, Abe Ryohei and Onodera Ikki. Technically the unit was formed with the Takizawa Kakumei musical at the start of the year but it took a little time for Shounen Club to catch up.

B.I.Shadow is the other unit that performs, and they get to perform their first unit song Aishiteru, Aishitenai. And it is once again quite obvious that Nakajima Kento and Kikuchi Fuma are the two of the group that are getting the biggest push from management, especially Nakaken who gets the most solo lines and is now in the center position.

Then it is the Junior ni Q corner which talks about memories from school. The first up is Kawashima Noeru who I believe talks about eating dandelions.

Hagiya Keigo gets called over for the first time and is prompted to introduce himself to the camera. He then talks about playing shogi in gym class.

Goseki Koichi is called over but he does not come alone, he brings with him a fresh Junior, Matsumura Hokuto. Koyama prompts Hokuto to introduce himself, and he rushes his name out. He brings up that he is a NEWS fan and says his favorite member is Yamashita Tomohisa but that Koyama is his second favorite. He also tells them that he only joined Johnny's that month. Goseki then does not bother to talk about his answer.

There is then a letter exchange segment between Tamamori Yuta and Kitayama Hiromitsu. I could only get little bits of it with my limited Japanese but it sounds like one it would be best to see about hunting down subs for, especially if you are a Kis-My-Ft2 fan.

Kisumai then perform and start off with an accent dance before doing their latest song, Kis-My-Calling. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before but I love these outfits for the group. And it is with these that the colors associated with the members really are cemented.

This then takes us to the end of the episode with the final song being ANNIVERSARY. Only the older Juniors perform the song, so I am curious if this means the second episode of the month will have the younger Juniors included in the end song.


Well with Hokuto finally showing up then it probably means that next month will be the final month of Takahata Misaki being with Johnny's. This is based off my memory that Hokuto is almost immediately placed in B.I.Shadow and we do get one month at least of the group having four members when Misaki was still around. But as Misaki goes we get to see the final member of BIS, and the Bakaleya6 as well, show up with Kochi Yugo.

And it is nice to see Mis Snow Man finally. It is really starting to feel like I am catching up to the more current episodes, even though it will still probably be at least another year before I actually am.