Fresh Junior Concert 15 December Set List

Well in the end there was nothing announced at this concert after all. I guess I have just gotten to used to concerts being used as a way to get media attention that I cannot help but see each one as potentially having a nugget of news with it.

That aside the concerts sounded like fun and really could have been Bakaleya6 & noon boyz featuring Johnny's Junior by looking at the concert reports popping up about them.

I used two concert reports, here and here, to find information about the set list of the concerts, both are for the second concert of the day.

Set List for the Fresh Johnny's Junior in Yokohama Arena 2012:

Can do! Can go!
Daite Senorita (noon boyz)
With you
FIRE BEAT (B6)
Midnight Shuffle

Bakaleya VTR
Shake It Up (Bakaleya6)

[VS. corner ](B6 split into two groups, Orange with Tanaka Juri, Morimoto Shintaro and Jesse then Yellow with Kyomoto Taiga, Matsumura Hokuto and Kochi Yugo)
Flower (Orange group)
Sekai ni Hitotsu dake no Hana (Yellow group)
Yume Monotagari (Orange group)
HONEY BEAT (Yellow group)

[Bakaleya Corner]
Ambitious Japan
Harukana Yakusoku
SIX SENSES

At the end of the corner there is an onstage change done with four of the members of B6 with the four present members of Sexy Boyz with Juri switching with Kuramoto Kaoru, Hokuto switching with Nakamura Reia, Yugo switching with Haniuda Amu and Shintaro switching with Jinguji Yuta.

[Sexy Boyz Corner]
Theme of coming century
Don't Stop Sexy Boyz

[noon boyz Corner]
Lost my way
Over Drive (Nozawa Yuki solo)
one in a million (Sanada Yuma solo)

Rockin' Party
Strategie (Jesse solo with Hokuto dancing)
SHAKE (Yugo and Juri)

[Single Medley]
Ultra Music Power
Magic Power
Za ABC ~5stars~
Sexy Zone
Lady Diamond
Zutto LOVE
Hitomi no Screen
Dreams come true

[MC]

Bakaleya SUMMARY Corner
School Kakumei (Yugo with noon boyz and Sexy Boyz)
Back to back (Shintaro solo)
Shinku no Hana (Jesse solo)
Namida, Hitohira (Taiga and Jesse)
MOLA (Taiga solo)
I don't miss U (Juri solo)
Think u xxx (Hokuto solo)

[Christmas Corner]
Santa ga Machi ni Yattekita
Hiiragikazarou
WHITE X'mas (Taiga solo with Shintaro dancing)
Cinderella Christmas (B6)
Snow Express (noon boyz)
Bokura no Machi de (Masuda Ryo, Takada Sho group)
Another Christmas


Ai no Beat (Hagiya Keigo, Yasui Kentaro, Okamoto Kauan*)
FALL DOWN (B6)
Hair (B6)
Moment (noon boyz)
Dancing Star (noon boyz)
Rocks
JAM
KEEP ON RUNNIN'
Thank You
Let's go to Earth

[Encore]
Daybreaker
Fever to Future

[Double Encore]
Yuuki 100%


* In the reports the name is simple listed as カウアン but googling for that name with Johnny's only brings up one name, Okamoto Kauan, who is a 16 year old who was a model for the Sophia Model International company, you can see his profile here. There is also mention that he is a Nagoya Junior, which I am coming to think is just a place that Johnny's sometimes does auditions for and Kauan and Hirano both came from them. I can only hope that Kauan starts being shown on Shounen Club so it can be 100% confirmed Okamoto Kauan is him. Of course it should not be too hard to do so as I found videos of him on youtube (that are dated as rather recent, you can just search for his name to find them) of him singing and dancing so being able to match his face should not be that hard.

Piece Ep. 5 first impressions

Well the usual source for the episode had issues this week so it took a couple of days more to get this to watch and review. On the bright side the subs have just about caught up with the episodes with only this recent episode not subbed now. Which is nice as I now know what I was missing from those episodes and this episode is pretty dialog heavy so it will be nice to know that it should not be long for me to know what was exactly said.

The episode starts off with the phone call to Yanai Takashi that Suga Mizuho made at the end of last episode. We do not get to see much of the phone call continue as we get pulled into flashbacks from three years ago again, but this time it is Yanai as the focus of them. Things starting off with the breaking of a flower vase that Yanai and Haruka end up cleaning up together.

Later/the next day Yanai is walking to school with his friend, Koike, played by Yasui Kentaro. There is a girl from another school waiting to talk to Yanai, I assume she is his girlfriend, and they end up talking in a nearby playground. The girl is clearly upset with him and if they are a couple she breaks up with him telling him that he has a deceptive appearance, if I'm reading that phrase on the screen right.

Yanai is surprised and unsettled by this and seems to be largely distracted by thoughts about whether or not it is true. That is until he is doing committee work with Haruka and he notices a new flower and vase on the table. Haruka ends up telling him that the flower is a Casablanca Lily and Yanai is impressed with her knowledge of flowers. Yanai's crush on her seems to really start here as she smiles and he notices that she looks more lively when talking about the flower. His narration of the event though mentions about his pride getting in the way of expressing his feelings for her.

This thought about his pride comes up again when he is talking to Koike later about love. Koike is pining over Madoka and Yanai says that he understands his friend. Yet when Koike asks if that means that there is someone that Yanai likes Yanai is quick to deny it.

Eventually he decides to go ahead and ask Haruka out and finds an event about flowers to ask her to. When he goes to do so though he accidentally overhears Haruka talking to someone on the phone excitedly. He pretends not to have overheard when he enters the room but does ask if she was talking to her boyfriend. While I do not think she outright said yes she did seem to give a pretty positive answer which of course crushes Yanai's hope for being able to ask her out.

We then get to jump forward to the funeral and can see that Yanai never really got over his feelings for Haruka. And when we get back to the present with him speaking on the phone with Mizuho he is in tears.

Mizuho ends up meeting with him with Narumi in a cafe. She asks him about Haruka and her boyfriend and Yanai seems to answer honestly. When Yanai asks about why Mizuho wants to know about who Haruka was dating Narumi causes a distraction as he notices that Mizuho does not seem to want to tell him the truth. Narumi loudly asks the waitress about cakes before leaving to check them out. Yanai ends up following him.

When confronted by Yanai about how he knew that Yanai liked Haruka, Narumi tells him that he spotted them together and could tell by the way Yanai looked at her that he liked her.

As the trio walk after they are done at the cafe, Narumi ends up having to leave to catch a bus leaving the other two alone. They talk and honestly it was hard for me to follow but I believe it was about being in love. Yanai at the end though tells Mizuho that he wants to know who was Haruka's boyfriend as well so Mizuho picks up another helping hand in her search.

Yanai is able to give Mizuho the next link to try to figure out the mystery by bringing up that there was a connection between Haruka and Setouchi Madoka. The next and final scene shows that this is true with Madoka looking at a box of notes, the top one having Haruka's name on it.


I am personally quite glad we are finally getting to the part of the story that lets the viewer see the other pieces of the puzzle. Haruka becomes much more of a person than we have seen her before now that we have gotten the chance to see her around someone who actually regularly interacted with her. There also seems to be some little things that are hinting at things, but until I have a clearer idea of what was said I will not speculate too much about them.

Also glad that there are signs that Hokuto is starting to get roles that are a little more diverse. I hope he continues to be kept busy with drama roles so he can continue to expand on that and continue to become more versatile as an actor as he proves with every role he gets that he has talent in this field.

For fans of Yasui I think this and the next episode will be the best for seeing him. He definitely does not have a big role in this. It also seems tied to Yanai and Madoka with no signs that we will get to see Koike without one of them. And I know that Suzuki Airi has been done with filming for a while now so I do not suspect to see much of Madoka once the episode is done.

It is a pity the ratings have not been great for this series, but I am hearing from unconfirmed sources that the program has been delayed for the past couple of episodes until more around 2AM instead of the midnight airing it is supposed to have. So I hope that is the main reason for that as I am enjoying this drama much more than the previous one for this time slot, which I honestly still have yet to finish.

Piece Ep. 3 first impressions

Figured I should at least try to keep this on schedule. And thankfully there are subs out for at least the first episode which has helped fill in blanks I had for that episode and helped expand my understanding of what is probably going on.

We start off again in the present day with Mizuho talking with Haruka's mother. Mizuho tells her that they were not really friends and that it was probably just something Haruka believed on her own. Haruka's mother then leaves her and shortly after Narumi comes up to speak with Mizuho. They talk about Haruka considering Mizuho and she recalls the scene from last episode where she gave her a handkerchief and believes that might have been why.

We then go back to the second year of high school, with Narumi and Mizuho laying in his bed. After a cell phone begins to go off Mizuho leaves the room to search for a bathroom. She finds a locked door during her search. She ends up talking with Nanao and learns that the locked door is to Narumi's mother's room. Mizuho then begins asking her about Narumi. Nanao points out that Mizuho probably likes Narumi which seems to unsettle Mizuho.

Yasui Kentaro finally gets to show up in the drama for a short scene that is also Matsumura Hokuto and Suzuki Airi's only appearance for this episode. Kinda annoying that they were featured in the preview for this episode to only have such a small amount of screen time. Oh well, Yasui and Airi are pretty cute in their roles here and Hokuto does get to speak at least.

Mizuho ends up calling off meeting with Narumi for a while. During this time she ends up having a talk with her friend that has a boyfriend. Her friend tells her what being in love feels like then points out that Mizuho seems like there is someone that she likes.

Afterwards Mizuho finally decides to stop doing what she believes is expected of her and just do something because she simply wants to. She goes to Narumi's house and when no one answers let herself in as the door was unlocked and waits for Narumi in his room.

She hears someone moving in the house and goes looking for them, believing it to be either Narumi or Nanao. She ends up finding the door for Narumi's mother's room unlocked. Curiosity gets the best of her and she goes in. She finds a room that looks like an office with a desk and lots of shelves with books and videotapes. She accidentally discovers that the binders are logs all about Narumi. She then sees the videos are the same and watching one learns that his mother seems to have made him into research material.

Mizuho is caught watching the tape by Narumi and we end the episode there. And though it does look nice and dramatic there is also something that just comes off as odd to have Narumi just sitting there when he does catch her. I mean did he sit down and watch her for a bit before speaking or something? I hope this might be a bit more apparent with the next episode.

From the preview I may have to spend some time ranting against a certain trope in shoujo manga that I despise. I am disappointed with this as the series was doing so good so far. But we shall see how that scene actually plays out as there is still a chance that if handled well it will avoid my complete hatred.

Setting the preview aside this is not a bad episode. It does not seem as strong as the first two but I think it is because it is doing more foundation laying in this episode than story telling. That and as much as I have liked Mizuho and Narumi together I would like to see more of the supporting cast, especially the ones that have been highlighted in the opening theme as I would assume that would mean that they have a large role to play in the story eventually.

At least is looks like we have a reason behind why Narumi is a bit twisted as a person, as I doubt anyone raised like that would come out without being affected. And it helps clear who Nanao is as she is seen taking care of Narumi in the video and being concerned about his well being from being treated the way his mother is treating him for her research.

Hopefully there is a bit more movement with the mystery solving part of this series as the present day scenes seem to indicate that they are finally move towards something. Also it does not look like Mizuho and Narumi's relationship will be lasting much longer to judge by the previews.

Sprout First Impressions

Decided to take a look at Sprout and while it is not knocking me off my feet I will probably watch it when I can when I have time to kill.

To say the least I am not really impressed with this series. Mostly because I feel I have seen this all before and done better. This is about as standard and generic as shoujo (girls') romances get and it does not seem to really add anything unique to it.

Not to mention the main character Ikenouchi Miku, played by Morikawa Aoi, is not the kind of character I feel any desire to support. She is very much a typical teenager, thinking that the world revolves around her and her problems, and seems to spend a large amount of time daydreaming about her "destined one", who is really some stranger that helped her out once.

Honestly I would love to see a series play with this trope to have the "destined" person be someone that the main character not only does not end up with, but would not want to in the first place. But unfortunately that will not be this series.

Even though I do tend to worry about Chinen Yuri's acting skills he is not so bad so far. Of course this is not a challenging role by any means but he does not come off as wooden as I have seen him so I am willing to think he may have actually improved. There is not much to say about his character, Narahashi Souhei. He is your typical nice guy (though thankfully not a Nice Guy) and that is just about it.

While I loved Lewis Jesse in Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou I cannot get myself to care for his character in Sprout. Of course a good portion of this is because he is stuck as the "cool" guy with playing Katagiri Hayato. This means he has to pretend to be emotionless for the most part and is the trope I really hate in shoujo romance stories, the asshole that the heroine will somehow have feelings for. Thankfully it is pretty transparent that even if (though I am almost certain this will happen) Miku ends up in a love triangle with Souhei and Hayato she will end up with the nice guy over the jerk which is actually the reverse of what usually happens in these stories.

I kinda feel sorry for Souhei to be paired up with Miku as he does seem like a genuinely nice guy. And I fear for whatever reason the story will think up for why he will be eventually breaking up with Miyuki to be with Miku instead. Because really this series is that transparent. And Miku is pretty self-absorbed, which makes sense since she is a teenager but it rarely makes for an endearing character.

Probably the real reason I will keep watching this drama is for Hashimoto Ryosuke's character, Takigawa Naoharu. The character is pretty much Miyata Toshiya but with a pretty face. He has the highlight of this episode and makes watching another one worth it as long as he shows up.

Other than that there is also the eye candy that is Fujii Shuuka. Tanaka Juri and Yasui Kentaro may have small parts but they are not bad. In fact I would take a drama about Miku's friends over Miku already as they seem to actually have interesting personalities.

This is very basic shoujo fare and I do not expect to be surprised by anything that happens in the drama. It looks like even for the genre it plays it safe with being as generic as possible for the most part. In fact I would say that Hasshi's character is the only thing that is stand out about it.

But as generic as it is it is not what I would consider bad. Boring if you know the tropes well and most likely forgettable, but not bad.