The Shounen Club 13 May 2009 review

These episodes seem to be the ones to hunt down for those who are fans of the current lot of Juniors as quite a few of them are getting introductions in them.

This episode opens up with the main Juniors of the episode singing LOVE & PEACE as they are introduced.

Hashimoto Ryosuke with Kyomoto Taiga and Uekusa Yuta introduce the theme. The theme of the episode is Shiawase na Shunkan (Happy Moment).

The theme medley was pretty enjoyable and my personal highlight was the Hasshi lead performance of Kumori nochi, Kaisei, which is a favorite song of mine. Hasshi's voice does not really fit the song though, but thankfully Totsuka Shota's does as he joins him later in the song.

There are quite a few familiar faces with the Fresh Juniors this time around. They have Hagiya Keigo, Muraji Shonosuke and Morohoshi Shoki in this lot.

The first MC of the show then focuses on the Fresh Juniors with most of the focus on Muraji and Hagiya. Though personally I think Shoki stands out the most with a smile almost never leaving his face the entire time. At the end the Fresh Juniors are sent out to take their positions on stage and Hasshi tries to pull the gag Nakamaru Yuichi did in the past by going with them but nobody tries to stop him having him stop himself and complain about it.

Next is a medley featuring mostly the younger Juniors, with Morimoto Shintaro being center for most of it. I seems we are entering the phase of Shintaro becoming more relevant than his debuted older brother as he gets some really strong pushed from Johnny's around this time.

This is followed by a Gekkan Koyamaru segment with Nakamaru up for sharing photos and he shows photos from a trip to Okinawa with Masuda Takahisa.

Question? then perform Sneaker Blues, which is a Kondo Masahiko song. While it does sound like they tried to update the song a bit with a bit of a harder rock sound it still sounds rather dated overall.

It is then time for the Junior coliseum segment. We only get four Juniors participating but it is the game where each participate does one dance move and the next much add on another until someone messes the combinations up. So pretty much a game that you cannot have a lot of participates for if you want it finished in a timely manner.

While the last episode had plenty of guests this time there is only one, Yamashita Tomohisa. Kinda wish they had all of NEWS again since they were there as they were the guests for the first episode of the month. But Yamapi performs MOLA, which was his current solo song at the time.

He then does an MC with Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru. When asked about what his happy moment is he goes for saying being there right now.

We have another food topic for the Junior ni Q segment. I am disappointed with that as the theme of the episode would have been a good one for the segment as well. In any case of the Juniors featured that are still with the agency we first have Kyomoto being called over with Uekusa.

Next up is Shintaro who is given a pretty long time to talk about his answer.

Then it is Tanaka Juri up to talk about sushi that his father makes. He is not able to escape having his brother Tanaka Koki being brought up by Nakamaru.

It is then an MC segment with Kis-My-Ft2 who showcase a letter from a fan from Taiwan. They read the letter and spend some time talking about it before heading off to the stage for the group's performance.

The group does a medley which includes Fujigaya Taisuke and Kitayama Hiromitsu singing Tsuki no Michi. Still love this song and I am happy to see it being performed by just about anyone on the program.

After that medley is done it is time for the final song of the program. Being the second episode of the month it is only with the older Juniors and they sing Zenbu Dakishimete. The number of older Juniors is growing though as Nakajima Kento is now a part of the grouping. I keep forgetting that he is one of the oldest members of B.I.Shadow.


I do not think I realized how many of the prominent current Juniors had their introductions to the program around this time. Most of them fall to the back for a while though before catching the little breaks here and there that lead them to be some of the better known Juniors at the moment.