The Shounen Club 7 June 2009 review

B.I.Shadow is heading towards some major changes for the group with this episode.

The episode kicks off with the main Juniors singing an Otokogumi song, Route 17. With this introduction it is hard not to notice that B.I.Shadow are missing half their group. Sadly this means that the last episode of the show was Takahata Misaki's last before quitting the agency. Matsumura Hokuto will of course be back and we will have the final formation of BIS in the next month's episode.

Of course when the show opens with an Otokogumi song it is not hard to guess that the theme for it will involve rock music. And the theme is indeed ROCK, which Kitayama Hiromitsu and Yodogawa Yoshihiro introduce.

Probably the most annoying thing about the way Johnny's decided to push Tanaka Juri can be seen with the theme medley as they try to force a rap into the song where there was not one in the original song. And since Juri just does not have his brother's talent for rapping it sounds super awkward during the performance of ONE DROP. I really hope they start moving him away from being a "rapper" and just let him shine doing everything else from now on.

We get four Fresh Juniors introduced this episode and I recognize two of them still being in the agency,
Teranishi Takuto and Kurita Kei.

When it comes time to talk to the Fresh Juniors only the two sitting get the chance to do so. So only Kurita gets to do more than say his name. He gets to say that he is twelve and admires SMAP and that this is his first time on the program.

We then move into the guest performance for the episode. The guest of the episode is Uchi Hiroki and he performs one of his songs, Hi Hi Rocky. His voice is drowned out from a mix of the backing track and the Juniors that sing with him for the chorus. So I actually liked the performance, or at least did not dislike it which for Uchi is close enough to like for me.

There is then the usual MC segment with Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi to end Uchi's involvement in the episode. He gets to promote the PLAYZONE musical for the year as he co-stars in it with Kis-My-Ft2.

There is a special medley for the Juniors which is basically Morimoto Shintaro leading two performances with Mis Snow Man having a performance between the two. But it is nice to see these Juniors get to perform as they rarely do so outside of a medley.

Then we are at the Junior Coliseum portion of the show. We get pair battles again, so again it is just members of A.B.C-Z, Kisumai and Question? in this segment. The games are fun though and easy to follow along, and the first game, jumping rope as a pair gave a chance for some fan service to be thrown in.

Question? then performs a special version of TOKIO's song Julia. I can only assume the "special" part of it is the fact that they brought in little Juniors to sing the first part of the song, which is sung like a ballad with the latter half being more rock.

We get the Dengonban segment again and they have made a small change with letting Juniors do a quick answer back if someone before them left them a message. Still do not care for the segment, though this time around there at least is an interesting piece with Miyata Toshiya joining Fujigaya Taisuke as Fujigaya leaves a message for him.

We get another segment after this, You no Otegami Yomitai Desu! I do not think this corner would do so well if it was hosted by any other Juniors than those from the older groups, and it is nice to see more of the Juniors on the program. And Nakajima Kento and Yasui Tadayoshi get some screen time as they get to read and answer letters.

Kisumai is up to perform next a medley that starts with the solo songs for Fujigaya and Kitayama, MARIA and Chikara, before having the other members of the group perform BRAND NEW SEASON. This seems to be the start of having Tamamori Yuta in the center, as he centers for BNS. Then the full group breaks out the roller skates to perform Sennen no Love Song.

We end with a performance by the older Juniors of Midnight Shuffle. It still makes me happy to see that this grouping has expanded quite a bit now instead of it mainly just being A.B.C., Kisumai and Question? as it was for a good while.


A rather solid episode even though I did not care for the guest. At this point things just seem to be going par the course with the usual suspects getting the same amount of promotion as with past episodes. Of course there is the upcoming changes with B.I.Shadow to look forward to, but that is still a month away.