The Shounen Club 13 September 2009 review

And we get a bit closer to the end of this year's worth of Shounen Club episodes as this episode finishes up September.

The song starts up with a performance of Kibou ~Yell~ with Koyama Keiichiro and Tanaka Juri starting things off before the groups and groupings come on stage to be introduced.

Fujigaya Taisuke is the Junior that gets to introduce the theme of the episode, Fight (which in this sense is more as challenging something that fighting someone or something). It is interesting to hear how loud the audience got when Fujigaya came over to do this, one of those signs that Kis-My-Ft2 was on their way towards debut at this point.

We have the usual theme medley to follow this. The "try your best" song types for Johnny's tend to be my favorite so I loved this medley. Though I did have to laugh a bit at Kochi Yugo obviously not really knowing the lyrics to TEPPEN. He probably never would have passed an audition and was lucky to have won the competition he did to join the agency. Of course he has come a long way since then but he was obviously over his head early on.

The Fresh Junior introduction is skipped for this episode so instead of the usual MC after this we have a letter exchange between Morimoto Shintaro and Juri. It is amazing to see the difference in the levels of confidence between the two, but in the end they are both just adorable.

This is followed by a two song performance by Snow Prince Gasshoudan with the first song being Bitter Moon, which is a B-Side on the group's one off single. The second song is LOVE Together, which was one of the closing songs for the program years ago. What I like best about the performance is that they put names to the Juniors in the group so I can actually recognize some of them. The ones I recognize and either know or do not remember hearing about them leaving the agency at least are Shimekake Ryuta, Horinouchi Tatsuya, Kurita Kei and Kishimoto Shintaro. Of those four only Shimekake does not make the final cut for the group.

We get a recycled guest for this episode as Uchi Hiroki is introduced to sit down for a MC segment with Koyama and Nakamaru Yuichi.

The song he performs is 3Piece, which he performs with Question? With this performance it looks like Goto Hiromi is a part of the group and this is the start of Question? being attached to Uchi.

The guys have some fun before starting.

It is then time for the game segment. This is one of the more fun ones even though we are back to the usual participants coming from A.B.C-Z, Kisumai and Q? But the game is Yamanotesen, which is basically they are given a topic to give an answer to. The first topic is the best to use as an explanation as it is the stops of the Yamanotesen (the train line in Tokyo that is a giant loop). Each person has to name one of the stops at their turn and they cannot repeat an answer.

Gekkan Koyamaru is next and it is Koyama's turn. We get a behind stage photo of him and Kato Shigeaki before they give Tegomass a surprise by showing up on stage at the Tegomass concert they had. Koyama tells the whole story and acts out the reactions to the surprise.

This is followed by Yara Tomoyuki and They Budo performing a two song medley, with Yara starting off solo for the first song and They Budo coming out for the second. I think we are hitting the time that Butokan is coming to its end and we will see more and more of Yara on the program on his own or with one of the dance groups.

There is then a Kansai Junior ni Q segment with the theme for them being Favorite Dance. First up is Nakama Junta who put down the coda for the song Romantic. He gives a demonstration of the dance for us of course.

The next Junior answered with Hamanaka Bunichi's dancing, so Bunichi gets a chance to come up and show off his skill.

Next up is Mukai Koji as he answered with the dance for the BOYS song STAY GOLD, and with BOYS being the hosts of the segment they could not just pass that up.

Then Kiriyama Akito gets a turn with his answer of UME Goin On. They pull over one of the younger Juniors to show the dance off as they support him by keeping the rhythm and singing the song. And that ends the segment.

A.B.C-Z is up next for an MC segment. They talk about a game they played backstage at the KAT-TUN concerts.They demonstrate it and it seems like it is a variation of a game that is played in Japan from the information box that pops up. But if you know some basic Japanese it is easy enough to follow and laugh with the guys.

Ebi then perform a new song for the program A to Z. With most Ebi songs it has some really fun choreography for it and overall it is a fun pop song that fits with the group's image.

It is then time to wrap up the program with the closing song. This time it is Hitomi o Tojite, which if you watch TakiCHANnel you should be familiar with. And this ending song is full of a lot of little fun moments, making it a joy to watch.


A good episode that lets us see the younger Juniors that will become more prominent in the years to come. It is also nice to see those little hints of big things to come for Kisumai and feel more assured that it is not just my wishful thinking that the group will eventually debut.