The Shounen Club 5 March 2006 review

For those who are following along regularly, no I did not skip a month or am missing any episodes. Instead we have two more "lost" episodes, as in episodes that were recorded but not aired. Or in this case not aired in full, as I shall go ahead and explain about.

So sometime in what had to have been early February the second underage drinking scandal hit NEWS. While in Kusano Hironori's case nothing was 100% proven, unlike with Uchi Hiroki's scandal, the fact that it was not even a year since that first scandal it was still seen a big thing. Especially since it was a member of one of the same groups Uchi was in. So Kusano was pulled out of NEWS (it is said he withdrew but I doubt he would have been allowed to stay even if he wanted to) the group was put on immediate suspension and it looks like we lost two episodes of Shounen Club as none aired that month.

On the flip side we get two March episodes, both recap episodes but it looks like they tried to salvage some things from those February episodes at least. From the footage it was yet another set of episodes hosted by NEWS, which is what made them unairable after the scandal. But since by then they were involving the Junior groups more anyway they had enough footage from the taping without Kusano in it to make this special episode.

This special is hosted by Yamashita Tomohisa and Yabu Kota. Probably the thing that stands out the most to me about them is that Yamapi's happy mood he had in the recent months is completely gone. Understandable with having lost another group members and his group being put on indefinite hiatus. This episode does have a theme, or what is likely what would have been the theme of at least one of the episodes that did not air, Ai (Love).

We have what looks like what was part of an opening medley as you can see at least two members of NEWS walk off stage with mic stands as J.J.Express launches into their performance of Love Me Baby. And you know it has to be new footage as Yamada Ryosuke is mixed in with the group, though still not listed as a member. If this had been aired before in another episode I know I would have remembered this.

The medley is not completely without NEWS members though as Koyama Keiichiro and Kato Shigeaki sing Yume Monotagari for a part of it, but you can tell there are some obvious cuts done between some of the songs to keep the screen Kusano free.

Between these clips we return to our host in front of a green screen, who both seem to lack much spirit in doing the job. Not that I feel like I can really blame them as Yamapi's future at this point would be rather up in the air and Yabu was probably just following his lead being the junior of the two.

We get a VTR segment with Tegoshi Yuya talking about the topic Yabu and Yamapi did, jounetsu no ai (passionate love). From what I have gotten from the episode it was most likely that one of the episodes was produced by Tegoshi which is why he gets this VTR segment that no one else does.

The reason I figure Tegoshi was an episode producer is simply because after the VTR he solos a medley of songs. It is interesting to see him getting this kind of push. It makes the creation of Tegomass as a unit seem like something rather natural than Johnny's just randomly deciding to create it.

I am going to skip the talk parts with Yabu and Yamapi unless there is something I am able to catch that I find interesting. Even though the two seem to eventually move into better moods for the most part they are pretty awkward for the most part.

Next clip is a performance from Ya-Ya-Yah, which is starting to look more and more like a duo of Yabu and Yaotome Hikaru with their back dancers Yamashita Shoon and Ayukawa Taiyo. That is once the other two finally show up around halfway through the song.

Next up is JJE covering the Tackey & Tsubasa song Venus. Well technically it is JJE plus Yamada. Looking at the full group I think I can understand why they decided to take Nakajima Yuto, Yamada and Morimoto Ryutaro out of the group to group them with other Juniors, as there is an obvious difference in looks, with those three looking younger than the rest of the group.

Then Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. perform a medley of songs, of course their acrobatics being the most standout part of it. Though it is really looking like Toshin is a bit of dead weight as he really does not do the acrobatics.

We get parts of one of the game segments. This one is edited so we do not see all of it and probably the only reason they showed it was because it was another game segment that had most of the Junior groups onstage so it would be easy to hide Kusano in plain sight that way. The game has Yabu hit a button to pair a random Junior with one that was picked to do some kind of challenge. Like Nishikido Ryo and Toshin had to hula hoop together with the same hula hoop.

Masuda Takahisa and Yamashita Shoon were the other pair shown in the footage and the had to confess things about each other that they liked.

Then we have Question? performing their song Kanjite Miro. They are still only four members this month so I think I can assume that they have indeed lost their second guitarist and it should only be a matter of time for Igo Akun to join the group.

Yamada hits another milestone for his career as a fan letter is read that brings him up to say that they like him. So even though he has not had much screen time he is already gathering fans.

After this we see that a Junior ni Q segment was saved as it was hosted by Shige and Massu. The highlight of it was Yuto who talked about his younger brother in a doting matter, finding him cute.

Kis-My-Ft2 are shown performing Sennen no Love Song again, and again they are missing Miyata Toshiya from the group.

We get an idea of what the theme most likely was for the other episode filmed with a Nippon (Japan) song medley. Since no members of NEWS are in it i can only assume that the producer for that episode was probably one of the Juniors. Though there was not enough from other performances to try to figure out who it could have been.

We get another Yax3 performance, this time all four are present for the whole song, Just wanna lovin' you.

There is a Yamapi solo that we get to see as well. This could have been cut and I think nothing worth seeing/listening to would have been lost. The song, LET ME, is bad and it looked like Yamapi decided to borrow parts from one of Akanishi Jin's costumes for the performance.

The special ends with Yabu and Yamapi just doing the wrap up talk at the end of the program.


While I am glad that they decided to air parts of the episodes post-scandal this format does not lend itself well to flowing nearly as well or being as entertaining. Also because the game segments had to be mostly cut I feel we missed out some of the more entertaining parts of the program.

On the bright side Shounen Club has been unaffected by scandals since this one with Kusano so no more unaired episodes because of them.

All that is left for this season is a recap episode for KAT-TUN to go with their debut now.

The Shounen Club 15 January 2006 review

This is the final new episode of the season, sorta, in a way. It gets a bit complicated after this and I will get into all that with the review for the next episode.

Forgot to mention it last episode by Miyata Toshiya is still M,I.A. from Kis-My-Ft2. I cannot help but wonder where he is. My only guess is that his parents wanted him to take a break from Johnny's to concentrate more on studying as it is the time of year that tests would be coming up.

Joey Tee gets his official introduction and says some things about himself in English, like he is from L.A. and came over to be on the program. Joey is a bit of a curiosity as he never really went anywhere but had decent time on the program. I guess if anything whatever management was trying to do with him let the Juniors of mixed heritage get some lasting time in the spotlight as we should be seeing some familiar faces showing up soon with him.

The producer for this episode is Tegoshi Yuya. He leads into his chosen theme by talking about how he is not a kid but also not an adult so he decided his theme will be Otona tte Nani?! (forgive me if my Japanese is off here but I believe it would translate to something like "What's an adult?!")

The theme medley is a Otona medley (Adult medley). Like the more recent medleys there is a good mix of Juniors with NEWS members performing in the medley.

I noticed that Question? looks to be down to a single guitarist. I wonder if it means they have lost their first guitarist and we will be seeing Igo Akun showing up in the near future.

For the first MC segment we get a few members of J.J.Express and Ya-Ya-Yah up to talk about what they think are signs of being an adult.

JJE then performs Yamadera no Oshousan, which is a Japanese folk song. We get the trio of Nakajima Yuto, Morimoto Ryutaro and Yamada Ryosuke leading the song at first. I kinds wonder why they did not just add Yamada to JJE at this time but I guess soon it will not matter too much when Yuto and Ryutaro get taken out from the group.

The belt-tie sewn on to the shirt of the outfits they are wearing comes loose from Yuto about halfway through the song. He does well to pay it no mind until the camera is off of him and he does not have to dance so he has the chance to retie it to finish off the song.

We then have a letter exchange between Kato Shigeaki and Ayukawa Taiyo. I actually understood a little of it, which was at the end of Shige's letter he scolds Taiyo about just calling him Shige when he is his senpai. Of course Taiyo has written his letter calling him Shige all through it.

This is followed up by Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. performing the song BEAT MIND and then Kis-My-Ft2 performing Sennen no Love Song.

The Kisumai performance of course stands out to me, not just because I am a fan, but also because IIRC this is the first time the group is performing this song. The song is a carryover from K.K.Kity, the previous group of Yokoo Wataru and Iida Kyohei and is really the first one that I feel makes the group feel like a group as all the members get a good amount of screen time and the younger ones are not stuck in the back of the older ones for a change. And it is no surprise it was one of the pre-debut songs to end up on a Kis-My-Zero bonus CD for the group.

Following this there is a VTR portion with an interview of Tackey & Tsubasa by Shige. He brings up that when Takizawa Hideaki did his VTR for the episode Shige produced he failed to do one of the prompts given him, say "I love you" to the camera. Tackey protests and refuses to do it but Shige and Imai Tsubasa do it so he needs up finally doing it as well with the results seen above.

There is the usual talk about the theme followed by a plug for whatever new release T&T had out at the time, which would be their single Venus.

When we return to the filming it is for a game segment and a new game, Shokura Mania. It is a simple but fun game as it is easy to play along with. But they bring a large group of Juniors on the stage and they are given a question related to Shounen Club to try to guess the right answer to. It is a multiple choice answer and they have to get in the circle of what they think to be the right answer. If they get it right they stay, if not they have to leave the stage.

As fan of the program I found it fun to play along with. And even got to learn a couple of things along the way. Like the original logo for the program was handwritten by Ohno Satoshi.

In the end they end up with three winners after four questions. Since Kitayama Hiromitsu is the only Junior he gets the medal that the winner is supposed to get.

NEWS then get to sing a song, Towairo no Koi, another song that eventually made it onto a CD. The song is nice enough but the outfits they have on are really ugly. I am not a big fan of plaid though if done right I do not mind it but this is definitely plaid done wrong. Of course knowing my luck these outfits will resurface to be Bakaleya6 outfits or some other current/future Junior group I like.

In the following MC segment Koyama Keiichiro has Tegoshi pick between him and Nishikido Ryo for who was the most adult-like to him. Much to Ryo's joy and Koyama's heartbreak Tegoshi picks Ryo, but Tegoshi does spend a good amount of time pointing out Koyama's good points to make up for it.

Yamashita Tomohisa performs a solo song LOVE XXXX. It sounds really dated and I am glad this was never brought back for anything. But then again the song credits has Domoto Tsuyoshi so I wonder if this was just a cover.

This is followed up with Tegoshi speaking about the theme before the start of the next performance, him and Masuda Takahisa singing Sunadokei. I had no idea that Sunadokei was something that was around before Tegomass was made into an official unit so this took me by surprise. It gives me a different perspective about the song and makes me wonder if Tegomass may have happened even if NEWS did not get suspended for a year.

Then this should be the final performance of Wonderful World, barring it being shown in recap episodes. I will go ahead and mention that Yamapi seems to have been in a really good spot in his life as he has been rather energetic and happy in the past couple of months. A happy Yamapi is much more fun to watch than any other mood I have seen him in.

This is going to be the last episode we get with NEWS as a 7 member unit and the last we will see of NEWS at all for a good while as well. As NEWS gets hit by the second underage drinking scandal in the following month.

So while I liked this episode I had that bad feeling hovering over me during the watch because I know what comes next and it is not something I want to happen. But there is no stopping it as it is in the past and I guess at least there will be a lot of distraction with KAT-TUN debuting and then the usual changes that come with a new season.

The next episode does not air until March and it is an interesting episode considering what it is as it is not exactly a clip show yet is a clip show.

The Shounen Club 18 December 2005 review

And we are finally at the final episode of 2005.

The episode begins differently than usual with each group singing a bit of a song then all of them singing together at the end. This of course is much more common for a start for the program later on, but for now I believe this is one of the first times they are doing it this way.

Because it is the episode airing closest to Christmas we have the holiday as the theme for the episode. All of NEWS is credited as being the producers for the episode, though I am sure that is more because the theme was mandated so it would not be fair to have someone have it be their episode to produce.

The Johnny's Christmas medley is the usual good mix of Juniors and NEWS, even though for the Juniors it does favor Ya-Ya-Yah mainly. I think it is safe to say that Yax3 were being promoted to be the Junior group to take over from KAT-TUN when they make their debut.

It always makes me pause a bit when I notice that a certain grouping is of Juniors that will debut like this. Of course looking at things J.J.Express is probably the group that had the best percentage of its member debut without having the group itself debut. Even though eventually the group is going to go through some roster changes that will probably change that.

The first MC has Yamashita Tomohisa reading a fan letter from a Inoo Kei and Ayukawa Taiyo fan who asks them about Christmas presents. It ends with a bit of an awkward hug between the two.

There is then a random Tegoshi Yuya solo. Like the other new songs for NEWS around this time it is a new song that of course never made it onto a CD. This song is titled YOU - world is yours- and I would have much rather have had it be on the bonus disc of the NEWS best album instead of his solo version of Ai Nante. Also it is nice to hear Tegoshi sing a slow tempo song without deciding that he needs to power vocal through it all and get all shouty.

We get the return of the Mister X wa Dare da!! but there are only NEWS members as the contestants for this one.

Again they go with showing the audience at NHK Hall who the person is without letting the audience watching the show see. While I do not personally care for this way of doing it I do have to commend them for at least being a bit creative about it. It also makes some sense to why they chose this way because the guest did need to change to get out of the Santa outfit.

I guess it was no surprise that Yamapi was the one to get it right, I honestly would have been disappointed if he got it wrong as his friendship with Ikuta Toma is rather well known. I was surprised to see Toma back on the program but I guess it shows that even though he did not debut he still maintained a good amount of popularity.

Toma then is a part of the follow up MC segment were Koyama Keiichiro reads a fan letter that requests for Toma to be a guest on the program.

Toma then gets to perform on the show by kicking off and being a big part of the second Christmas medley on the show for this episode.

For Junior ni Q we have Kato Shigeaki and Tegoshi Yuya hosting the segment. For Juniors featured that are still in the agency we have a couple. I was surprised to see Morita Myuto as I did not realize that he has been with the agency for so long. He makes Tegoshi really happy by saying that he is the senpai he looks up to.

We also get Nakajima Yuto, who is still all kinds of cute at this stage, especially of his "attack" on Shige and Tegoshi after something Shige says about Yuto being the choice of a Christmas present for one of his group mates.

NEWS gets an MC segment where they are each handed a phrase that they need to say to the camera. Of course you can expect them to be pretty embarrassing to the guys, which gives us some fun reactions. Not to mention Kusano Hironori messing up and saying the action he is supposed to do with the phrase.

I do not think anything beats Masuda Takahisa's reaction to having saying his by just walking off onto the stage.

We then get the one song from the recent group of new NEWS songs to make it onto a CD, Rainbow. I rather love how this performance has the guys waving their rainbow flags here. But joking aside coming to be a NEWS fan in 2007 I do not think I really got why it was so exciting for Rainbow to have been one of the B-sides to their single weeeek. After watching these SC episodes I feel I get it now because if it was up to me all the songs they have been singing on the program would have been on a CD already.

The next MC segment is focused on Question? as a fan from the U.S. (L.A.) wrote in and the guys are asked to talk about how they feel about having fans in a place like America and also about having their own lives (concerts).

Next performance is Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. doing a Christmas medley of Shounentai songs. I did not realize that Shounentai had Christmas songs, let along enough to make a medley of. I wish the song libraries of the older groups were raided more as in these times that they are there are always at least a couple of gems that come from them.

The next MC segment has a postcard that gives a tongue twister using Yamapi's name that Yabu Kota and he have to try.

We then get a cover of the J-Friends' song CAN YOU FEEL THIS CHRISTMAS? by NEWS. For me you cannot go wrong with J-Friends so I have no complaints.

The final song is Silent Night, the Japanese version which is titled Kiyoshiko no Yoru, with NEWS and the Juniors, including Toma.


I will confess as much as I am enjoying seeing more NEWS I feel like I am ready for KAT-TUN to come back. If just because it would be a focus on another group. I think with this era of episodes it just shows that this format for hosting just does not work well in the long run unless you plan on switching out the hosting group on a regular basis.

Having Toma comeback though was great. He was always a lot of fun on the show and I was sad to see him slowly get removed from the program.