The Shounen Club 4 October 2009 review

This month gives us the return of Hip Hop Jump as the younger Juniors get shuffled a bit.

The program kicks off with a performance by the guests of the episode, NYC boys (but minus the N as I can only assume Nakayama Yuma is busy with filming for his drama). But with the missing member it seems like the boys part of the group got a bit more attention than usual for the performance.

The group get to introduce the theme of the episode, or at least Yamada Ryosuke and Chinen Yuri do as the other four just stand there. But the theme is Ai (Love) and no time is wasted to start off the theme medley for it.

A couple things to note is that the grouping of Juniors around Kyomoto Taiga is now with Kawashima Noeru, Anderson Casey and Yasui Kentaro. This is notable if just because it will mean that it will be more common to see Noeru and Yasui on the program as they are now a part of Kyomoto's group, as Kyomoto keeps a small but regular presence on the program.

Hip Hop Jump is up to five members again, this time the group consists of Tanaka Juri, Hagiya Keigo, Jesse, Morita Myuto and Morohoshi Shoki if I am not mistaken. (None of them get individual name tags on the screen in the episode.) Myuto is the one I am most iffy on as I am terrible with faces and names and I know he is not in the final line-up of the group. But with HHJ finally appearing on the show again and how much the members of the group seemed to change I would not be surprised if I am right about him being there and he is just going to be taken out when they add the two members that will make for the group's final line-up.

The following MC is with NYC boys but it is still basically Yamada and Chinen doing all the talking. Yamada talks about love familial love, bringing up the fact that he did a drama SP about family with Nishikido Ryo. Then Chinen gets to fanboy as he talks about his love for Ohno Satoshi.

We then get more Masuda Ryo promotion as he leads the next medley, which is an English oldies song medley basically with the Juniors singing Can't take my eyes off you (which they use the Japanese title for even though they sing only in English) and Dancing Queen. But for the first song it is Masuda with his usual grouping then for the second we get some mixed-ethnicity Juniors, so some extra screen time for Anderson and Jesse with this.

Up next is the You no Otegami Yomitai Desu! segment, which is hosted by Fujigaya Taisuke this episode. He is joined by Butokan (which I guess is lasting longer than I thought they did) and he gets to read a fan letter for the group and they talk about people they see as the big brother type for them.

Butokan then perform a medley of their songs. In a way I kinda wish this group was still around as some kind of side group as they did work well and they were fun to watch, plus none of the debuted members seem to have schedules that could be busy enough not to be able to fit something for the group in each year. Or at least Johnny's Countdown appearances.

The game segment features the dance game that each participant does a dance move and the next one has to do it than add on a new one. Yamada and Chinen get to play the game so we lack the variety of Juniors we had last time. Hashimoto Ryosuke is fun to watch in this and it is hard to believe that he is the same age as Yamada and Chinen.

This is followed by an MC with Kis-My-Ft2. The 3/4 split of the group is already in affect now, but of course it is not so bad as everyone has matching outfits so they look like they are indeed back of the same group. Kitayama Hiromitsu talks about loving animals and Tamamori Yuta talks about the love between group members and gives an example with Yokoo Wataru.

Kisumai then performs a new song for the show, Ame, which is slow tempo song. I have always loved the song and honestly the unit songs the group gets around this time are all great. There may be little in the way of choreography for this song but instead it focuses more on the vocals with moments in the song where there is little use of instruments and must rely on the vocals.

Junior ni Q is up next and the topic is about the season of autumn/fall. Nakajima Kento is up first and his answer was about writing song lyrics. He even gets to read some lyrics that he wrote.

Kawai Fumito is up next and he talks about the changes in clothes fashion for the fall season. He surprisingly does not talk for very long for his turn.

Following him is Kurita Kei, one of the few younger Juniors I know is still with the agency. He talks about playing sports for the season.

Yokoo Wataru is called over next and he talks about taking walks during the season. Nakamaru Yuichi comments that it does not seem to be the kind of thing people would assume he would do.

Next is Kochi Yugo. He is so quiet though, which is probably mostly camera shy-ness. He talks about dancing and wanting to get better at it soon.

Then all of Question? is brought over to talk about their answers as they all ended up being similar. With this is is confirmed that Goto Hiromi is a part of the group as he is with them.

A.B.C-Z is then up to have an MC segment. We get to see a baby photo of Kawai then pictures of all the older members of the group when they were little Juniors. I think it is easy to forget that all four joined Johnny's when they were pretty young sometimes and these are a good reminder of how long they have been around.

NYC boys is up next though, starting with Yamada and Chinen doing solo songs before being joined by the rest of the group to perform Dial Up. And I honestly thought Kikuchi Fuma's habit of making strange faces when performing was only a recent thing but this performance proves me wrong as he is doing it here as well. I really want to know why he does this as it makes him look so goofy and strange.

It is then time for the final song of the show, which is Wana. It is rather nice to see these older songs getting brought back for the Juniors to perform on the show again. The stage is beginning to look really crowded these days, though this is the end song that has both the younger and older Juniors performing so it is not all that surprising, especially with groups being created for the younger Juniors.


So with this episode we are getting closer to how the Juniors were when Sexy Zone debuted. Just need Snow Prince Gasshoudan and HHJ to get their final line-ups and then JaPAnese Hi! needs to happen, which actually is not too far off now that I am almost done with the 2009 episodes. Even though debuts will not happen until 2011 I am feeling pretty excited for them as I know that they will happen, instead of hoping or guessing that they will.

And one thing I enjoy with going through these episodes again is seeing things happen and knowing about how they will pan out. It puts the episodes into a different light and allows you to notice things you may have not thought twice about when you watched it when it was new.