The Shounen Club 1 November 2009 review

And it looks like we finally have the members of Snow Prince Gasshoudan gathered as a news group of tiny Juniors come in.

Like the previous episode this one has some of the usual things changed up. The first of these is that Arioka Daiki is there at the start of the program to introduce all the Juniors and the hosts while performing the opening song, Can do! Can go!

We get a glimpse of the Snow Prince Gasshoudan line up with all the tiny Juniors in it, which means pretty much all the Juniors older than Morimoto Shintaro are out.

And instead of going into the standard episode introduction and reveal about the theme of the episode the guest of the episode, Takizawa Hideaki, is introduced and he performs a song, Hikari Hitotsu. Since A.B.C-Z is missing for the episode he has Mis Snow Man and Kis-My-Ft2 back dance for him in this performance.

We then get that usual introduction talk and Kitayama Hiromitsu gets to introduce the theme of the episode, Color. He asks Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi about their image colors and Koyama brings up his is purple and Nakamaru avoids answering.

This is followed by B.I.Shadow performing NYC and Lalalila. The group is really coming along now, especially since Kochi Yugo is much more comfortable on stage and is showing signs of improvement from how he was even just a month ago. No surprise there though as they had been performing quite a lot to promote the NYC boys single.

The following MC is with a few Juniors, though only two of the three are still with Johnny's. Shintaro of course gets the main focus as he has a movie that he is starring in to promote, Snow Prince. Arioka gets a turn to talk and he brings up that Hey! Say! JUMP do not have image colors but since they need to be able to tell their mics apart during concerts they janken for which member gets what color. They do ask which colors the little Juniors like and Shintaro answers with black and Tanaka Juri with yellow (which was the image color for his brother Tanaka Koki).

The next performance is introduced as a Morimoto Shintaro medley. We do get a new song Shintaro has not performed yet on Shounen Club, STAY HOPEFUL. It's lack of performances is probably for the best unless you like the vocaloid sound. But there is another song, Chou, which is a more cool song, like in the lines of Bitter Moon, which helps make up for that first song. I would like to see this song performed again, if not by Shintaro I would be happy with any of the Juniors. And the medley is closed out with Bitter Moon.

Butokan is still around for this episode, though they are missing a couple of members. They talk about image colors and Yara Tomoyuki picks grey. Senga Kento brings up gold while Yamamoto Ryota is told by Yara he would fit silver.

The group performs C=Normal after a long dance introduction and honestly it feels off to me. Hamanaka Bunichi's vocals are sorely missed as Yara just does not fill that spot in the group well but being the lead of the group he is the one made to pick up on the vocals with Bunichi gone and for this performance is basically the sole vocals as Senga only has a head mic and Yamamoto none at all.

The You no Otegami Yomitai Desu! segment is next and is hosted by Fujigaya Taisuke, Kitayama, Tamamori Yuta, Nakajima Kento and Yugo. Or Kitayama and Fujigaya do most of the hosting while the others help answer the questions in the letters they read.

Kis-My-Ft2 are up to perform next and they do what was a new song for the show back then, Tension. This was also the song and performance they did when they got to go on Music Station in the same year. It really puts their roller skating front and center. While they were fine for their MS performance Tamamori manages to mess up here. I would blame the head dress they made him wear for this.

This is followed up by the game segment and this time around the game they are playing is Introdon, which is where they are given only a few seconds of the start of a song and they have to guess the song title as well as who sings it. You just have to be a Johnny's fan to be able to play along with this one.

Then it is the Junior ni Q segment with the topic actually tying into the theme of the episode as the Juniors are asked about their favorite color. Yugo is up first to talk about his answer of green.

Takada Sho is up next with his answer of orange. He explains that he likes the color because it is a one that looks lively. And if I understood the rest he mentioned being in orange for his first main performance on SC.

Kyomoto Taiga then gets to be brought over to discuss his answer of purple. He explains that the color brings up his tension levels.

And finally we have someone from Mis Snow Man get some camera time for this segment with Miyadate Ryota getting called over. He put down red as his favorite color and shows off some bracelets that he always wears that have red in them.

We finally get an MC segment with the guest for the episode, Tackey. Since he already discussed colors at the start of the episode the topic was instead mainly about his musicals and the work he puts into them.

He then has his second performance for the episode with a medley starting off with Ai Kakumei then moving into Sha la la.

This leads us to the end of the program. The final song performed is Hitomi o Tojite and it is just the older Juniors performing. Arioka does join them part way in but the stage looks oddly empty without A.B.C-Z around.


I cannot recall why A.B.C-Z is missing from this recording. I am sure they were either busy with back dancing for concerts or were doing a play. I do not think they had their own concerts this year, but I could be wrong about that.

I am pretty certain Arioka helping with the hosting for this episode was a part of the plans of having members of HSJ eventually take over as MCs for the program. When the new season for the show begins in April 2010 they will have an official place as helpers along side Koyama and Nakamaru, which will be the final season those two are the MCs on the program. Looking back the transitions from hosts to hosts for the program do tend to have some easing into the new status quo. This is why if for the April 2014 episodes we no longer have HSJ members as hosts and it is just Sexy Zone and A.B.C-Z doing the hosting duties I would not be surprised in the least.