The Shounen Club 11 October 2009 review

Had some bad weather that knocked out power for about a couple days at my house so I am afraid I fell behind on the things I had scheduled for the blog. Will be working to catch up, again, so things get posted when they should. Until then things will show up when I can get them up.

Watching the opening performance where everyone gets their introductions as they sing Seishun Amigo it is apparent already that the main groups to be paying attention to are Kis-My-Ft2, A.B.C-Z and B.I.Shadow. The former of course are just the most popular older groups while BIS is getting a lot of promotion, mostly thanks to being included in NYC boys.

The Junior that gets to help introduce the theme of the episode is Akun Igo, who is sadly no longer with the agency. Though I cannot fault him for that as Question? really goes nowhere in the end. But the theme for this episode is Nakama (comrade, friend, co-worker, etc...).

Instead of the usual theme medley the guest of the episode is introduced, Hey! Say! 7. They go ahead and perform their unit song Nounai Dance before moving on to sing Mayonaka no Shadow Boy. The change from the first song to the second is rather jarring as the songs sound so different and there is no lead in from the first song to the second.

The topic that is first brought up for the MC portion with HS7 after this is about Hey! Say! JUMP having their Tokyo Dome concert that year. This of course was a big step for the group as their first Tokyo Dome concert was their debut concert and it was more HSJ with Juniors than a HSJ concert like this second one was.

This episode continues to change things up as the next performance starts off by showcasing some of the Juniors who can play instruments. The focus is on the ones that can play piano/keyboard and then Goto Hiromi and his violin. We even get a couple of dancers randomly on stage to perform with Goto's piece.

This segues nicely into Snow Prince Gasshoudan's performance of Bitter Moon with the start of that song being instrumental. I do like the use of the conductor sticks in the choreography, though it does partly seem that they were included to give the Juniors a prop to be focused on instead of their lack of dancing at parts. With a group of so many young Juniors though I think it is forgivable.

There is then a letter exchange segment with two members of Question? Only Ishigaki Daisuke is still in Johnny's now sadly.

The nice thing about Goto being in Question? now is that the band gets two new songs that I absolutely love. The first being FROZEN SKY and the other being Beast Soul, both which are performed by the group in this episode.

The game segment is the return of the - o Abake segment, this time featuring Kis-My-Ft2. Kisumai is definitely a group well worth doing this for as they are a group comfortable enough to poke fun of each other. They are a lively bunch as most do not even bother to wait for Koyama Keiichiro or Nakamaru Yuichi to tap them for their turn to speak up. It is a must watch for fans of the group, especially if you can find the subbed clip of it.

This is followed with a Gekkan KoyaMaru segment with Nakamaru showing off his pictures. He went with the theme of "pet" so he got to show off his two dogs.

Kisumai are then up to perform and they do Inori. While they have had the song for a while they have changed up the choreography for it and added props, also Tamamori Yuta is moved to a center position even though the solo lines have not changed so he still has none.

While we get to see Kansai Juniors in the VTR segment it is the dengonban thing that I continue to dislike. I will note that Kamiyama Tomohiro seems to have grown a lot in the past couple of years as he seems to be in the awkward teens here.

A.B.C-Z get an MC and they answer a letter asking for examples of other poses that would be interesting to do for a photo. Of course we get plenty of examples from the members of the group for this.

With the MC we do get a performance from the group as well. After a dance intro they perform their ballad Ashita no Tame ni Boku ga Iru. It is nice to see the group change things up like this and have a number that they do not rely on their acrobatics so much to stand out.

Another thing to set this episode apart from the usual is that instead of having an quick MC with Koyama and Nakamaru between the second to last and last performance of the show both just merge into each other. The first song is Can do! Can go! and is performed some of the younger older Juniors, or more specific with EbiKisu.

EbiKisu show up for the second song, REAL DX. Koyama and Nakamaru also join the Juniors in the final performance to make it stand out even more.


With the episodes for this month over things look like they are set for the coming years for the most part. The groups getting promoted now are pretty much the same groups that will continue getting promoted for the next couple of years.

I am enjoying hearing the songs I loved from this time being performed again, though most I do have CD versions of now. It makes me wish Johnny's would go back to doing Junior groups again so we can have others follow in the paths of EbiKisu.