The Shounen Club 7 March 2010 review

And this quickly turned into a bittersweet episode to watch as the guest is someone no longer with Johnny's. I also still seem to on a string of bad luck as my laptop is messed up so I have to use my notebook in place of it until it is fixed. So reviews don't look like they will be back on track in the near future after all.

Things start off with a medley performed by the main Junior groups and groupings. Hip Hop Jump has changed members again as this time there are five of them. Not sure if Jesse is actually out or not as I did not spot him anywhere else so he could have just missed the taping for the month for whatever reason. The coming months should shed light on that.

The medley ends with the guest of the episode, Tanaka Koki, performing the KAT-TUN song Yorokobi no Uta with Juniors Takada Sho, Masuda Ryo and Kishi Takayoshi. Thankfully the song begins with the three Juniors as Koki quickly overshadows them once he joins in.

With the first medley done the usual intro talk begins with Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi joining Koki. Yuto and Takaki join them to introduce the theme of the episode, Oto (sound).

Instead of a theme medley there is a special collaboration with Koki and the Juniors as Hip Hop Jump perform Top Checker with him. Or basically this is a chance to have Koki with his younger brother, Tanaka Juri, together performing.

The first MC segment is with Yuto, Takaki and randomly Igo Akun. They all talk about instruments, or in Takaki's case JUMP Band. But Yuto talks about playing drums and brings up JUMP Band first that leads into Takaki speaking, as he was the vocalist of this grouping. Then Akun of course talks about playing guitar but only talks briefly.

None are in the following performance though as it is instead Snow Prince Gasshoudan performing the song Sekai ga Hitotsu ni Naru Made, which was the B-side song to the past Junior group Ya-Ya-Yah. But it remains a song that is given to the younger Juniors to perform from time to time.

The next segment was You no Otegami Yomitai Desu! with members from A.B.C-Z and Kis-My-Ft2. This was a fairly Kisumai heavy segment, which is looking to become the norm from the past couple of episodes.

The following performance is by Kisumai and Fujigaya Taisuke produced it for them. The song they performed was Hair and I actually liked how Fujigaya changed things up with the choreography. It did help give it a bit of a fresh feel to it.

It is then time for the game segment and this time around it is a dance quiz. It is mostly the usual suspects for which Juniors participated in this. Like all dance quizzes this is pretty easy to follow. I am rather amused that Hashimoto Ryosuke has a tendency to remember the lyrics to a song but not a name so he has to hope that if he sings it someone on his team can recognize it.

A.B.C-Z then are up next to perform. They do a medley of songs which includes Vanilla, STAR SEEKER, and Crush. It starts off with each of those songs getting short dance previews before the group goes on to do a full performance of Vanilla.

After that it is time for the Junior ni Q segment. The topic is memorable songs. After Koyama and Nakamaru quickly go over one that is memorable for them they start to call Juniors over. Kyomoto Taiga is up first and his choice was Seishun Amigo. And when they call him over they notice that Koki is in the practice room where the Juniors are so he gets highlighted for a moment before they move on.

Yasui Kentaro is called over next and his song was Ultra Music Power. I did not catch why he picked it but his age was brought up and of course the hosts were surprised that he was eighteen. Koyama then brings up that he remembers the outfit that Yasui is wearing from back when he was a Junior and guesses that it might have been one Kato Shigeaki wore.

Considering the guest of the episode it would have been more surprising to not have Juri called over. His answer was the rap from SIGNAL, which of course was written and performed by his brother Koki.

Sanada Yuma is brought over next and his choice was Sekai ga Hitotsu ni Naru Made. The sign language used in the choreography of the song is what left an impression on him as he could see the fans do it during the song as well.

The segment is followed by an MC with Koki and the hosts. The talk is mostly centered around the theme of the episode and Koki talks about sounds like that from a guitar and of course is lead to talk about rapping.

He then gets to do another performance this episode but he gets to lead this one and it is a medley that he is joined by Nakamaru with. It starts off with Koki performing a solo song I DON'T MISS U, which was never released on a CD. The second song in the medley was KAT-TUN's ONE ON ONE that has Nakamaru join him in the performance as they both wrote the lyrics to it. This is on the debut album for the group.

This leads us to the end of the episode with the final song to be performed. The song is THE D-MOTION, which at the time was the latest song from KAT-TUN. So we get Koki and Nakamaru performing again but EbiKisu get to join in singing the song so it was not just Juniors back dancing for it.


I was caught off guard with how much seeing Koki in the episode affected me. He was never my favorite member of KAT-TUN but I always had a bit of a soft spot for him. He seems to be doing well enough post-Johnny's, but it is sad to know that we will never be able to see him with Juri or any other Johnny's on a program like this.