SMAP and Mentoring

They more I see of SMAP with either Yamashita Tomohisa or Kis-My-Ft2 the more I realize that the interactions between senpai-kohai for them is a true mentor-mentoree one. SMAP has in the past been more removed from other groups so you did not get much in the way of interaction between them and other groups. But with this recent shift with them working with Yamapi and Kisumai this has been changing, or at least with these Johnny's.

I feel that the interactions with SMAP for Yamapi and Kisumai will benefit them more than just simply trying to ride on their coattails. SMAP are tried and true veteran idols and the first to make that successful switch from just being idols to all around entertainers. Yamapi and Kisumai are getting the chances to work side by side with them, giving them valuable opportunities to learn from the pros as it were.

And I do think SMAP gets something out of this relationship as well. At this point of their careers they have hit so many highs it is probably hard to figure out what the next goal is, and by having younger talent to mentor it can give them that new goal, to nurture the ones that are coming up after them. And they seem to love interacting with the other Johnny's, even though they have not gotten many chances because of how busy they are.

I can understand why some fans may feel begrudged to Yamapi and Kisumai for getting these chances when really no other Johnny's act has gotten to. But timing is everything and they just got to be the lucky ones that where placed under Iijima Michi's management when it seems things are getting serious about finding the next president of Johnny's & Associates.

So in the end I see this as a clear win-win situation, with the younger ones getting to learn from those that can be considered masters of their trade, and with SMAP gaining a new way to find job satisfaction by helping their kohai rise in the entertainment world.

Kayou Kyoku X'Mas Live SP 2012 review

This is the final music program special before the ones for the New Year and it aired on Christmas day.

Kayou Kyoku X'Mas Live SP is a four hour special for the weekly Kayou Kyoku program that airs on TBS. It is basically a special version of the usual program that runs much longer and with a Christmas theme but as the show is usually fun to watch you know there are going to be fun moments mixed in with the usual performances.

You know that this is going to be a fun program to watch as it opens not with the usual list of acts that will be appearing but the host of the weekly version of the program, Nakai Masahiro. He sets up the story that they begin with.

The acting portion of it is done by popular child actors Ashida Mana and Suzuki Fuku as well as the other regular host of the program Esumi Makiko. They ask their "mama" about Santa Claus coming and she gives the typical answer about being good children so he will come. They pray for him to show up and we get the opening act for the special.

Of course this is probably not the Santa Claus the kids had in mind. I mean they did not even bring presents with them. But at least AKB48 with SKE48 and NMB48 start the holiday themed show off right with a Christmas song, the Japanese version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

My highlight is the fact that NMB48 have their own section that gets some screen time during the song. And how cannot I help but smile to see the girls so happy?

After the song is done Ashida Mana joins AKB48 to sing a X'Mas version of Heavy Rotation. Mana looks so happy performing that even though I am getting tired of hearing the song I cannot help but love the performance anyway.

We get some opening talk as the MCs introduce the program and talk about some of the things that will be coming up in it.

During the program we get a satellite feed to new mother Higashio Riko (a Japanese pro golfer and wife of Japanese actor Ishida Junichi) and her father, Higashio Osamu (an ex-baseball player). I am not familiar with them, had to look them up, but I guess they are people that the average Japanese TV viewer would recognize. The baby does not seem to be so happy about making his TV debut.

When we start the performances it is with Sexy Zone, most likely because with the length of the program they need to make sure the younger artists go first as they will not be able to stay for all of it. They perform a medley of their singles, and I cannot help but notice that it looks like Yo Marius's sleeves look to be coming up short on him. He is going to be a giant compared to the others if he does not slow down with his growth spurt.

We keep on with Johnny's performances as SZ is followed up by Hey! Say! JUMP performing Super Delicate like usual. I have found it interesting how conservative Yamada Ryosuke and Nakajima Yuto are in the fanservice part of the song on these songs, especially compared to how much they play it up on Shounen Club and concerts.

During the show there are special corners that are done. The first of these is lead by the comedian Chris Matsumura and is is Johnny'scise (Johnny's x exercise). We see some VTR to see that Katori Shingo and Yamashita Tomohisa have already done this with Chris.

He invites them to join him to do it on the show as well as all of Sexy Zone. So with them and the little Juniors that were back dancing for SZ they do the Johnny'scise. SZ look to have a blast and Yamapi is a trooper. Shingo makes this segment with going between a beaming face to looking like he has no idea why he is doing this.

Nakai afterwards go on stage to talk to them all. Near the end he goes up to one of the little Juniors to say something and gets him to say "Merry Christmas", though you could tell the Junior was just all kinds of awkwardly nervous at being put on the spot.

Then after some other acts we what is my personal highlight of the program, a Johnny's Hit Medley. We get to see some of the original footage from the older Johnny's groups whose songs will be covered. I love seeing these as I find it interesting to see what idol style was like in decades past.

And here are a bunch of screen caps from the performance because I love it so. And to note the three oldest members of SZ are the only ones in the medley as it was too late for the younger two to work according to Japanese law.

We get a bit of a Ikemen Desu Ne reunion plus Yamapi.

And that is S-My-2 not being stuck in the very back of the formation and getting seen singing with the KiFt.

Miyata Toshiya gets used as an anchor again, this time by Kitayama Hiromitsu to steady himself when they move to a different part of the stage.

The Otokogumi song cover gave Okamoto Keito some time to shine as he got to get a good deal of focus of course because the group was the one his father was in.

The stand out performance of the medley was of course the cover of the song NAI NAI 16. It was hilarious as the guys really played up the awkwardness of it with Nakai not holding back with his singing at all.

Arioka Daiki had to be one of the worst when it came to keeping a straight face during this performance. I swear it looked like he was cracking up all the way through it.

At the end all the Johnny's groups sing together and we get some fun group mixing.

After the medley is done SMAP leads an MC break with everyone. They do most of the talking as it is mainly about how "perfect" Nakai's singing was and I really wish I knew what exactly Inagaki Goro said to them when he was sounding annoyed.

Another break and it is another Johnny's related special segment that interests me next. This time it is a drama based one for the drama series Ataru that Nakai Masahiro starred in and Tamamori Yuta had a supporting role in. Nakai comes out in character and sings a song.

After the song he goes over to where the guests/MCs are sitting and remains in character so he pretends that he has no idea who Nakai is and walks off stage in search for curry soup.

Next up are AKB48's sister groups, SKE48 and NMB48, who have been sent outside the studio building they are filming at. They have an over sized thermostat just to let you know how cold it is outside (6C or about 43F for those curious).

NMB48 perform Kitagawa Kenji and are a wonderful splash of color where they perform. I love this song, it is just a lot of fun and easy to want to sing along to.

Next performance that I was interested in was of course SMAP's. They perform Lion Heart, which I am quite happy to hear as it is a favorite SMAP song of mine and it is nice that they are pulling out a good variety of songs to perform on these year end programs.

I am quite glad that World Order is on this program. I am really impressed with how creative their dance routines are. Screen caps do not justice to it and I would highly recommend searching youtube for them to check them out.

Later we get Kis-My-Ft2 and The Monsters (the temporary unit of Yamapi and Shingo) getting to spend some time talking in the guest section. The main topic is the relations of Yamapi to members of Kisumai, which is mainly Kitayama and Fujigaya Taisuke.

In this Nakai wonders about why only the front three of Kisumai are in white and the back four are not. This is notable more because this will not be the only program he brings this up in.

Kisumai is up first to perform. They do Ai no Beat -Dance ver.- which has grown on me over repeated performances. I still have my usual misgivings with the whole split thing but there is only so many times I can go over it without feeling like a broken record.

They are followed by The Monsters doing the remix version of the title track of their single, MONSTERS. Do not think that I care much for this remix and the performance does not come off as solid as their other ones.

AKB48 perform their usual mix of songs as a 2012 single medley. Real highlight for me is to see Akimoto Sayaka performing with the group. Honestly though I think she is one of the girls that should be seriously thinking of graduating from the group as I do not see her going much further with her career with them as she keeps further and further back in the group for newer girls.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu performs next and does a medley with her two songs Tsukematsukeru and Fashion Monster. She has the choreography down for these songs well enough but I would love to see a bit more emotion from her.

As we move towards the end of the program we get more of the senior acts, including one of the few Johnny's that is the senpai to SMAP, Kondo Masahiko.

For the talk segment with him they have brought all the Johnny's, minus SZ as it was probably deemed too late to keep them around, out into the guest area.

Nakai ends up asking who he knows of the younger Johnny's and Matchy answers with Tanaka. Yabu Kota goes ahead and says he is Tanaka as it is easy to tell that Matchy just through the name out because it is a common last name and there was a chance that it could have been a last name. Unfortunately the one group with a Tanaka was not on the show.

Matchy performs one of his older songs, Sneaker Blues. He still has an old fashioned style to the way he performs with some very overly dramatic moves. Though they do seem a bit toned down when he performs his new song Let's Go!

SMAP then gets to perform again, this time singing one of their new songs, Moment. It sounded like Nakai forgot how to get himself to sound somewhat in tune for this performance. Either that or just decided not to try too hard as he had already proven his extreme lack of singing ability already in the program.

During the song the members of SMAP bring over the Olympians that were in the audience up on the stage and then over to the guest section.

Things then wrap up with final words from various people on the stage. And that brings this music program to an end.


I would probably only recommend this special to fans of Johnny's and/or AKS groups as they are the main artists of this special. While there are some other artists that perform the selection is not as great as other year end music programs and this one seems to have a lighter tone to it as well.

Music Station Super Live 2012 review

This SP will be the longest at around four hours so far but will be still not the longest of the programs for the end of year/ new year music programs.

Music Station Super Live is the annual special for TV Asahi's regular weekly music program Music Station and it aired on December 21st, 2012. The artists for this special are typically the usual artists that get invited on the show on a regular basis so you get a good taste of who the currently popular artists in Japan are.

The MSSL is MCed by the usual hosts of Music Station, Tamori and Takauchi Yoshie. In fact MSSL is very much an amped up version of the usual show so if you know how the program typically runs there are not a lot of surprises, just everything being done on a much larger scale as they are not as confined as they are in the studio.

Case in point they have all 36 acts that are in the program take the stage at the start, with each being individually introduced, as the show usually starts out with. It is pretty impressive to see all the artists gather on the stage, especially since you have the big groups like EXILE and AKB48 all up on there.

Of course since they cannot do the usual quick talk with all the acts there they just do so with some of the more senior ones, like B'z, who normally do not appear on music programs much anymore so there presence there is rather noteworthy.

When they get on to the performances they do the usual talk with the artist, but either before or after their performance to keep things rolling along. What is nice for the artists that get to talk before their performance is that they will have onscreen the song(s) they will be performing. Like with Kis-My-Ft2 here they will be doing a medley of their songs Ai no Beat and SHE! HER! HER!.

As a change of pace Kisumai perform the rock version of Ai no Beat, which is nice, though I think I can understand why they usually go for the dance version. The rock version makes the song sound a bit choppy at the start.

Of course part of the fun of watching Kisumai perform on roller skates is to see if any of them will have any close calls to falling. There is no disappointment on that front as at the end Fujigaya Taisuke has to grab a hold on Miyata Toshiya to make sure he can stop himself at the end as it looks like he took the last ramps a bit too enthusiastically. But they play it off well so it looks like it could just be a part of the performance.

Next act I want to highlight is Hey! Say! JUMP. During their talk segment they get a bit more information about them put on the screen. If I am reading it right then it says that the average age of the group is 21. Hard to believe it is that high already as they debuted with the average being 15, but they did loose their youngest member and in 2013 the youngest still in the group all turn 20.

They do a medley of Beat Line and Super Delicate. It is a bit surprising to see Beat Line being performed as it is a B-side, but it is a strong B-side that would have fit very well with their more recent singles so it works.

I would have liked to have seen a break in performing Super Delicate on one of these programs, but as it ended up being their only single of 2012 I know that is not going to happen. It is not like I do not like the song but it is not exactly a favorite of mine from the group.

There is not a long wait until another Johnny's act is up. This time it is Kanjani8 and they are dressed in their Eito Ranger outfits, so it is an easy guess that they will be performing ER. Highlight of the MC before is when the group is heading towards the stage is Maruyama Ryuhei tripping over his own feet.

I rather love that K8 have been doing a variety of songs for these programs that they are on. Of course it probably helps that since this is an anniversary year they can get away with using their older songs. But even so they did release enough in 2012 that just from those singles they could have quite a choice of what to perform.

ER is one of my favorite tracks from them and I am just really happy that they decided to perform it for at least one of the shows, especially since the way it was tied into their movie they kinda have to do the whole Eito Ranger thing for it. If not it just would seem off, IMHO.

While I would not say I am a fan of Nishino Kanna I do like a couple of her songs and Always is one of them. She also is one of those artists that may not have a large presence on the physical sales charts but is one of the lead artists in sales in the digital market. I really wish there was a combined physical and digital chart so artists like her could get more recognition by international fans, as they mainly just look to the physical charts (Oricon).

Next set of acts are Superfly and KAT-TUN. Because I am easily amused I had to smile at the fact that Shiho looked like she could be a part of KAT-TUN as their outfits blend in surprisingly well together.

In KAT-TUN's talk Taguchi Junnosuke is able to get his self introduction in that uses puns of course. His bad puns pretty much take over the talk from there on.

Superfly (which is the name of the group, the vocalist Shiho though it the only one that acts as the face of the band) perform their song FORCE, which was the theme song for the popular drama Doctor X.

I love the song and the album it came from as it just has so much energy and it a good solid rock strong. And Shiho just knows how to pull off the rocker vibe so well.

KAT-TUN then go into Fumetsu no Scrum, but I wish they had one of their more rock sounding songs to perform instead so it could have been a good follow up. I honestly have not been interested in a song KAT-TUN has done since Change Ur World and nothing has come to change that.

After teasing about their appearance for the past few commercial breaks Mr. Children are finally up. Of course the big news for them is that 2012 was their 20 year anniversary, which is probably a big part of why they have been so busy this year and are appearing on all these music programs.

The perform Joutoku and it sounds good for the most part. There is still the issue of Sakurai Kazutoshi's voice sounding strained with the big notes, but he seems much better at handling them this time around so his voice does not sound like it is just failing him.

Perfume get to take the stage and talk about their world tour that they did in 2012 before going off the prepare to perform.

Of course Perfume is performing once again Spring of Life. Even though I have heard and seen this performed quite a few times already I still myself enjoying it. I think it helps that the girls are just completely on point with their dancing and look like they are really enjoying performing.

I am glad to see that Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is changing things up though with a medley with her song Tsukematsukeru. Fashion Monster gets through in as well but at least it is a bit of a change of pace.

Kyary is good if you need a dose of cute with some weird to the side. I like that she does not stretch the extremes with it either so it is something she can keep up for a while instead of quickly running out of ideas after a while like other artists that go for over the top like her.

About midway through the program it is SMAP's turn. Like most of the artists that have been performing recently they get their talk portion to themselves. Inagaki Goro gets to promote their DVD release of their tour and Nakai Masahiro tries to cover up the promotion by calling him a big SMAP fan.

The group performs Triangle and gift as a medley. Triangle is a single from 2005 so it comes as a surprise for them to perform. It is a nice ballad though, even with Nakai singing, and it seems that this "medley" is more like the two songs SMAP get to sing because they are SMAP.

gift is the main song the group has been singing on these programs being the main song off their album that they released in 2012. The song plays to the group's strengths more than Triangle being a more upbeat song.

Since it has been five years since B'z was on MSSL they give them a VTR introduction with footage from past performances. We get to see that Inaba Koshi has some nice legs that he did not mind showing off in the past.

For B'z 2012 is their 25 year anniversary. It is interesting to see how low key they are during the talk part compared to how fired up they are when they perform.

B'z perform Ichibu to Zenbu and Ai no Bakudan, both big hits for the band with Ichibu to Zenbu being more recent as it was the theme song for the drama Buzzer Beat. Ai no Bakudan is just classic B'z and is the perfect song to get pumped up with.

Fukuyama Masaharu is normally not an artist I am interested in, but one of his songs is an old time favorite of mine, Niji. I fell in love with it back when I was first getting into Japanese dramas and watched Water Boys as it was highly recommended. I still listen to it regularly and I am so glad I have the single as I love just about all the remixes of it. So I was beyond happy that he performed the song here in his song medley for the program.

Maeda Atsuko is brought out with AKB48 as Aki-P seems to be suffering from separation anxiety of some kind and will not let the girl go off and do her own thing without the shadow of AKB48 still firmly attached to her. At least Acchan seems much happier with it though. I really do think what made her decide to quit was a dislike of the constant competition within the group and I do not blame her.

Not a Acchan fan so just going to skip over her performance to AKB48's. Watching all these performances I think I am beginning to understand why people would compare Watanabe Mayu to a robot, there is something that seems nonhuman about her smile. I hope she will be a kind robotic despot for the sake of AKB48 fans.

Again I am mainly looking for my NMB48 girls and thankfully they are not hard to spot thankfully. Yamamoto Sayaka looking great like always.

And there is an endearing quality to Watanabe Miyuki's way of making you think she is the star whenever the camera is focused on her.

I'm not sure how I missed this in my original watch as it comes off as very noticeable now but one of the girls during Eien Pressure took a fall. It looked like she tripped over the back of another girl's foot as she was rushing to get into place. I applaud her for getting back up and continuing on with the performance as that had to have been majorly embarrassing.

Oh hey it's EXILE and they are slated to perform Rising Sun. The fact that it will be in a medley gives me some hope but since all the acts now are getting pretty long time allotments I will not get my hopes up that I will be able to get out of hearing the full song yet again.

And it looks like they are doing a medley like SMAP, where it is really just two songs that they are performing. Thankfully one of the songs is Lovers Again which is not only one of the group's bigger hits but also a favorite song of mine from the group. Since it is a ballad song the dancers look really awkward being there.

Rising Sun is what it has been on all the other programs. At least with the dancers they feel like they have more purpose for being there when compared to their inclusion with Lovers Again. At least until the other legion of dancers get brought out. I think EXILE is just a group I will never completely understand.

As we enter the final hour of the program it goes back to having two acts share a talk segment. TOKIO is up though and they are usually good for their talks, though I still need to work on my Japanese to be able to follow them better.

TOKIO perform KIBOU, which seems to be their song of choice for the season. I just noticed that Nagase Tomoya has a mascot character plushie where his tie should be. Joshima Shigeru has one on his guitar too so I am guessing it probably is the mascot character for TV Asahi or Music Station. That is the thing with these older Johnny's groups is that they love to slip things like this in and you can easily miss them if you are not paying enough attention.

Ayaka seems to garner enough attention to get a talk segment of her own. I still cannot get over her hairstyle reminding me so much of Utada Hikaru. I blame Hikki withdrawal.

Ayaka sings a song off her latest album Hajimari no Toki. I loved the album personally and think it was easily her strongest yet. Going independent seems like it was a good choice for her and thankfully her fans were willing to follow her.

Kinki Kids are the next Johnny's to perform. This year they get to celebrate their 15th anniversary year.

They perform Kawatta Katachi no Ishi, which has the lyrics written by the mastermind behind AKB48, Akimoto Yasushi. The duo of course sound great and can probably sing these kinds of ballads in their sleep if they had to.

Next up there is L'Arc~en~Ciel, one of my favorite J-rock bands and the first one I got into. Tetsuya seems to be showing his age at least and I have long passed the point of trying to figure out Hyde. Especially when it comes to his hair. They get to talk about their world tour earlier in the year, including performing in the Madison Square Gardens in New York.

They perform a medley that includes the English version of XXX and their hit song Ready Steady Go. I will give Hyde credit that he does seem to have a good enough handle of the English language to be able to make English versions of songs without much awkward English, or at least he knows to make sure to get someone to look at the lyrics that knows the language.

Ready Steady Go is a a fun song like always and a good song to get the crowd going. Hyde was sounding a bit harsh at times during it. But that is what years of smoking is bound to do to ones vocals.

When I saw the sleeve of the outfit on the screen I knew it had to be a Johnny's act up next and I was right. We have Arashi and Sakurai Sho got to talk about the Olympics as they talked about traveling to places in the past year.

Arashi get a three song medley that kicks off with Akashi. Honestly Arashi is another group that I just have found myself not caring much for their music. I do enjoy some of their songs but most of the more recent stuff, like post 2009 does absolutely nothing for me. The stage with wings thing here is at least kinda cool.

Thankfully they have one of the older songs that I do like performed in this medley, Love So Sweet. Not my favorite but still fun to listen to after all these years.

The medley ends with Wild at Heart though so my interest quickly goes back into waning again. It sounds like a song I should like if I like their earlier stuff but there just seems to be something missing about it to actually catch my attention.

They are the last act I want to highlight though as there are only two acts after them and one is a nostalgia act that I have no nostalgia for and the other is a singer I just never got into.

But the show ends with the main acts on stage and getting asked their final thoughts about performing on the show.

With that it is the end of the program and the final Music Station show of the year. The program is already back in 2013 after the New Year's holidays.

As mentioned earlier MSSL is basically your usual episode of Music Station but set for a bigger stage. Of course there are some other differences but if you enjoy watching MSte than you will most likely enjoy watching this special for it.

It also helps gives some artists that are not going to be seen in other seasonal music programs one to be in, which is nice as you do not always have to see the same faces. Of course there is still some overlap with the more popular ones but that is just something that cannot be avoided.