The Shounen Club 2 August 2009 review

And we are back to Osaka this month. This time around I am happy to see that I actually recognize more of the Kansai Juniors than I do not. Unfortunately the video quality is not so great with this file as 2009 was a year of varying quality for the Shounen Club rips.

The episode starts off with introductions as the main Kansai Juniors perform Naniwa Iroha Basho. It is rather noticeable that Nakayama Yuma is going to be pushed a lot in this episode from the get go as he is in charge of the introductions.

Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi are there as the main hosts like usual. And this month we are back to having themes again. Yuma with B.A.D. introduce the theme for the episode Yume (Dream).

We get the usual theme medley and get to see the main Juniors of the month's episodes perform. It is a good mix of the more established and the newer ones. Among the newer Kanjuu is someone who should be a familiar face to current Kanjuu fans, Kaneuchi Toma.

We have the Fresh Junior introductions in the theme song but I do not recognize any of them. But they get the usual MC talk after the medley. Kiriyama Akito is the Junior MC for the segment.

Yuma then performs Akuma na Koi with the members of 7WEST basically filling in for B.I.Shadow. They also perform NYC boys' NYC, which I liked better as some of the members of 7WEST actually got solo lines with that.

This is followed up with an MC with the group, as they are currently Nakayama Yuma w/ Hey! Say! 7WEST, but I will just continue to refer to Yuma on his own and HS7W as 7WEST as I do not think we will be seeing them enough as this version of the group. But in the MC it becomes clear that Shigeoka Daiki is moving up, if not in popularity but at least at being pushed, as he gets to talk quite a bit.

There is then a KAT-TUN/NEWS medley, which is the Kanjuu covering a song from each group and Nakamaru and Koyama joining them for the song that belongs to their respective groups. This works well as the Kanjuu performing are the lesser known so it gives them a bit more screen time instead of just the small handful of Kanjuu that tend to get it.

Up next is the game segment and five of the eight Juniors featured I recognize as still being with Johnny's, which I think is a record right now. The eight are divided into two teams of four and they individually have to go up on a platform to act out a prompt. For each prompt there is a winner chosen and which ever team has the most wins at the end of course wins the game. This is one of those games that it helps a lot to know enough Japanese to tell what the prompts are as not many can be guessed at by what the boys do.

BOYS, which is now a duo with Hamada Takahiro being half of it, then perform a song called Stay Gold. I rather love how they start out in the audience for the song and I like the song as well. I hope it is still performed even though the group does not exist anymore and only Hamada is still with the agency.

There is the return of the Dengonban segment but it is with the Kanjuu. Still dislike this and the Kanjuu really do not add or take away anything from it compared to the Tokyo Juniors. It still feels like a segment that is just there and I cannot wait for it to be dropped from the program.

The Kanjuu also get to do the You no Otegami Yomitai Desu! segment, and like with the Tokyo Juniors they host the segment themselves. It is B.A.D., BOYS and Yuma for the segment and even back then the members of B.A.D. and BOYS seem to be natural MCs. The first topic is about food so the guys have much to say about the subject.The others are about summer vacation and making yourself feel energetic.

B.A.D. do a medley so they do both a unit song and solos though they start off with covering Oretachi no Seishun, which was the song Takaki Yuya sang as a solo for Gokusen 3's insert song. Of course the duo performed it quite a bit with him so it does feel like it is a song for that trio especially as B.A.D. were in the same drama.

This then brings us to the end of the program. The final song is UME Goin On! which current Kanjuu fans should recognize as it has become one of the standard songs for the Kanjuu to sing all together. It has plenty of energy to end the show on a high note.


So we are getting closer to having the current roster of Kanjuu present on the program. We are just mainly missing the Kin Kan and Naniwa Oji members but with this episode we have one more member of Kin Kan around.

So these episodes are pretty bitter sweet to watch now with still so many of the Kanjuu featured in them gone. Especially since recently it was discovered another member of Veteran, Yamasaki Kunta, has left. I really hope that the Kanjuu debut for next year pans out as I think they need it or will have to face losing even more of the better known Kanjuu.