The Shounen Club 9 May 2004 review

Because of issues with blogger the review meant for today ended up getting posted days earlier. I think things have sorted out so I will be trying this again for this episode.

I guess I cannot complain about getting an episode ahead of schedule as that means I am one more episode closer to being able to catch up with the more recent episodes. Not to mention Kanjani8's debut should be coming up soon, and more future Hey! Say! JUMP members are showing up so those are things I am really looking forward to now with these episodes.

In the introduction Kis-My-Ft. are finally introduced as a group and it does look like they still have all their original members intact. Masuda Takahisa is missing but since he is only supposed to be a support member it makes sense why he is not there.

KAT-TUN get individual member introductions and pretty much confirm that they have filled in the role of Four Tops on the show. They have a talk that brings them to the theme of the episode, "tomadoi". When I looked "tomadoi" up I got the English definitions of "confusion" and "wonderment" which I guess they had to be using the meaning of confusion for the episode, even though loosely as I did not really see that theme too strongly in the episode.

We get the first medley then and it is unsurprisingly lead by KAT-TUN. And I really wish there was another group getting pushed as much as them. Not because I dislike the group but because I would just like to see something different. Hopefully with the new groups and K8's debut coming up soon I will be getting that break soon-ish.

Ueda Tatsuya is the MC for after that and introduces a new segment of the show, J-Diary.

The first Junior up for the segment is Inoo Kei who reads his entry from the diary that is him talking about being on the program and the people who have been kind to him there.

This leads into the next medley which has the various Junior groups perform. It starts off with Ya-Ya-Yah making their appearance for this episode.

Then moves on to Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. This is when I notice that they are missing a member and from the name tags it is Totsuka Shota this time.

Then we get the smaller Juniors to perform a song. Even with Kis-My-Ft. and J.J. Express existing at this point we have a mix of the members of those two groups in this performance, with Inoo being the lead and Senga Kento also in the line up. The rest are Juniors no longer with the agency.

Attate Pon! gets a return and the subject of this one is the guest of the episode, Yamashita Tomohisa.

Kitayama Hiromitsu is surprisingly talkative during the segment, though really on one topic, natto. He really seems to come to life talking about the food and it is not surprising as he is a member of the unofficial Johnny's natto lovers group.

Ueda then reads a letter from a fan to lead into the next performance, KAT-TUN performing Tsuki no Michi.

It begins off as a Kamenashi Kazuya solo and after hearing this version and the one Kikuchi Fuma did at one of the Sexy Zone concerts I think I like it best as a solo. Either way it is a lovely ballad and I am happy it got covered recently so more people could get the chance to hear it.

I say this because even though it begins as just Kame the rest of the group join in later in the song. And I just think it sounds better solo than with a group.

This episode gives us a VTR segment with all of NEWS. It is set up as some of the past Toma Scoop VTRs with things written on the back of cards for individual members of the group to do. Koyama Keiichiro ends up being the main MC for the segment, which by now is no surprise as he seems to have picked up that role rather quickly with this group.

Kato Shigeaki gets one that asks to do a love confession to one of the other members of the group. He ends up picking Kusano Hironori and we get to see them play out the scene and Shige get shot down.

This gives some confirmation about what exactly is going with NEWS at the time. Yamapi is left to talk about their major debut single, Kibou ~Yell~, which I guess means the previous single, NEWS Nippon, can be seen as more of an indies release. With that cleared up having Kibou ~Yell~ mark the group's debut makes more sense. Though it is also a bit odd that the single is released May 12th, 2004 yet NEWS is not on SC performing the song to promote it. Instead we have this VTR segment which does show some clips from the PV for the song at the end.

KAT-TUN do a MC as a group and Jin talks about trouble with an escalator that he calls an elevator until Kame corrects him as his story makes no sense otherwise.

After that it is Yamapi up next to perform. He sings a medley of his solo songs so far to kick off the performance.

Yamapi stops to talk about his new solo song between the performances, which seems a bit odd. I think I prefer it when they do this kind of thing before the performance and not in the middle of it.

I rather like the song, TIME, and find it disappointing that this Yamapi solo has not made it onto a CD yet. Though I guess there is always a chance for it to do so one day in the future as long as Yamapi continues with his music career.

We get the return of Tanaka as Nakamaru Yuichi and Tanaka Koki kill some time before introducing the next performance. When they do the introduction they do it by rapping and beat boxing it.

Kis-My-Ft. perform another Hikaru Genji song and I would not be surprised if the outfits that they are wearing used to be Hikagen outfits. They look dated enough if anything.

Inoo Kei randomly shows up during the performance to sing solo lines. I can only assume he was supposed to be a stand in for Matsumoto Kohei, the member of Kis-My-Ft. that has yet to be seen since its formation.

Akanishi Jin gets to sit and talk for a bit to lead into the next performance of the show.

KAT-TUN of course lead the performance but some of the other Juniors join in later, like Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C.

For the final song Kame and Jin go into the seating area of the first floor to be touched by the lucky fans there. And that was the highlight of this performance.


It is a bit odd to see no sign of J.J. Express this episode. I can only think that it was still a new enough group they just did not have the members set in stone yet as I know JJE does not remain as a trio for long. In fact I am sure by next month the line up will have probably changed already, if just to add to it. It is a group I am interested in as a good portion of the members that were in it at some point have debuted; Nakajima Yuto, Arioka Daiki, Inoo Kei, Takaki Yuya, Hashimoto Ryosuke, Morimoto Ryutaro and I am not sure if they were actual official members but they were associated with the grouping, Tamamori Yuta, Yamada Ryosuke, and Chinen Yuri. Not to mention two of the Bakaleya6 are associated with the group as well, Morimoto Shintaro and Kyomoto Taiga. So even though the group went through so many changes it is an important one to keep an eye on because of who some of those members and associated Juniors were.

The Shounen Club 5 October 2003 review

As I mentioned at the end of the last review these October 2003 episodes in hindsight are full of clues about NEWS' debut. Of course I doubt anyone watching the show regularly back then could have noticed them for what they are but they do help in figuring out which Juniors are probably on the short list for the next FIVB debut as there are a few patterns that can be seen when you compare these episodes to the ones right before the debuts of the FIVB groups that debuted after NEWS, Hey! Say! JUMP and Sexy Zone.

With the introductions we get the members of the groups introduced listed, which is always nice. And with this we get to see that Junior Boys has grown by one with the addition of Tegoshi Yuya. Like always the others from this group to note are Masuda Takahisa, Kitayama Hiromitsu and Fujigaya Taisuke.

We have several familiar faces back that were missing in the previous month's episodes. So we go back to Akiyama Jun being a MC helper for Four Tops. Jimmy Mackey seems to have more of a presence now as a MC, which is to be expected as he will eventually become the main MC for the show, IIRC.

The first medley is the best five Kinki Kids songs that Ikuta Toma, Kazama Shunsuke and Hasegawa Jun perform the bulk of. 

We then get a letter read to tie into the theme of the episode, friendship. It is an interesting segment to read as while it starts off normally with the boys and crowd looking and sounding excited the moment Kazama gets to the part of the letter that brings up that this fan is hospitalized the atmosphere changes. The boys are completely subdued and it sounds so quiet you could probably hear a pin drop. But the guys do try to lighten things up a bit near the end as it is not meant to be a tearjerker, just a heartfelt letter from a fan that loves the Four Tops. Which in itself is a bit heartbreaking watching the episode knowing that the group is going to be broken up in about a month from the taping.

A Johnny's hit medley is introduced and the opening/closing song for it is actually a song that is not yet a hit. Of course it also goes under a different name than what it will be released as, Peace no Sign, but with lyrics of "to north, to east, to west, to south (We Make a Big NEWS Feel All Right)" and "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 It's Big NEWS!" I think it is safe to say this is NEWS Nippon without a shadow of a doubt. Of course it also helps that the music is exactly the same as well for the song.

Ya-Ya-Yah has all five members present this episode though it would be hard to believe when it is still these three that are front and foremost for the group while the other two are rarely seen.

And we get a couple of other little Juniors getting promoted to be singers. Of course Inoo Kei is the one people will probably recognize as the other left the agency I believe within a year of this episode.

Then we get the start of one of the patterns that has sprung up with FIVB units, the Junior that really has not been seen before on the program being given a seemingly random spotlight. Tegoshi starts it off by having two short duets with Massu (perhaps this can also be seen as the birth of Tegomass as well?) even though this is the first time he has been on the program.

And I have to say for a fourteen year old he has a rather mature sounding voice, even though he looks like he could be younger than his age.

After the Tegomass duets are done we get the full group back to sing more of Peace no Sign/NEWS Nippon. Which gives us 5/9ths of the original NEWS line-up having already learned at least part of the song before their debut.

Akiyama talks to Yamashita Tomohisa and we learn that the guitar Yamapi has with him here was a gift from Nagase Tomoya.

Yamapi then gets to perform his song, Love Song, solo and this time playing the guitar.

Toma has his scoop segment this episode and it is with TOKIO this time. The group of course give him a bit of a hard time about what is news worthy about them. They suggest that Joshima Shigeru's clothes are scoop worthy, and I have to confess I am curious about them myself as it looks like a fashion disaster there.

We finally get some actually news topics for the group when Matsuoka Masahiro brings up that he directed their latest PV for the song, Ambitious Japan. So we get to see some footage from that PV.

We get a rock medley, which seems to be a favorite medley theme of the program. I do wish whoever thinks Jimmy Mackey sounds good singing rock songs get their ears checked. Thankfully though he gets joined by various other Juniors throughout the medley.

Kazama introduces a new segment to the show, one that current SC watchers should be familiar with, where two Juniors get to exchange letters to each other. Most of the time they are a mixture of funny and touching and are generally great at learning more about the relationships between the Juniors, that is if you can understand what they are saying.

Nakamaru Yuichi and Tanaka Koki get to be the first pair to do the segment. And they put forth a good example of what to expect from this segment.

I know I usually do not bother with bringing up the Juniors that do not stay too long on the program but since he has been getting some massive pushing and is becoming hard to avoid I will bring up Matsumoto Kouhei. He will probably be best remembered as one of the original J.J. Express members but he has been getting pushed in these episodes mainly with Inoo. But he seems to be getting a stronger push than Inoo as he gets to sing with Yax3 here and overall is just seen more.

And with K.K.Kity showing up for the medley they bring with them another song that will eventually become a NEWS song. This time the title is the same, STAND UP, but the lyrics a bit different as they are all in English. But again there is no doubt that this is the B-side to NEWS' single Kibou ~Yell~.

After that we get Sennen no Love Song that I bring up as the roller skate boys have been changed this episode. They only have two members of ity this month and are only using two Junior Boys for skating. And that gives us Iida Kyohei, Yokoo Wataru, Kitayama and Fujigaya, or what will be the stable member line-up of Kis-My-Ft and the ones that will go on to be a part of Kis-My-Ft2's original line-up.

We get a return of the Detective Tomas segment with the return of Ikuta Toma. This time it is Four Tops up for being questioned by the audience. Toma finds a father who asked Yamapi a question on behalf of his daughter and generally impressed the guys for supporting his daughter.

We get a KAT-TUN medley with some questionable outfits. I know this is supposed to look sexy but all I can think is that their pants look like they were made of the same material as rain slickers, which destroys any sex appeal any of them have to me.

Yamapi gets his Pchan no hitorigoto segment that leads directly to Yabu getting a short solo. That leads to the cuteness that is the screen shot above. As well as the end of the program.

Sadly we do not get Tegoshi and Massu in the end theme but the little Juniors highlighted in the episode do get to join in. So yay for little Inoo.


It is interesting to see all the set up being done for NEWS' debut without anyone really expecting for the debut or which Juniors would get to debut. It is easy to see after the fact what is being done but I can understand why it would take fans by surprise. Especially Four Tops fans, as there does seem to be a bit of a focus back on them as a group this episode.

Also there are some things that can be seen with the episode that showed up with the pre-debut episodes of other FIVB groups. Like the random new Junior spotlight of Tegoshi has been repeated with Hey! Say! JUMP's Okamoto Keito. And the song(s) of the debuted group being first performed by a mix of Juniors that will be in the group and those who will not was repeated with Sexy Zone and With You.

It is definitely an episode worth seeing, as well as the next one, to try to spot similarities between them and the episodes right before the other FIVB groups are debuted. Which will probably be useful in 2015 when the next group will be due.