The Shounen Club 09 & 16 March 2003 review

Sorry for the delay. I ended up working yesterday even though it was supposed to be a day off and had work again today. But I guess this will be my last week doing a Wednesday review, unless there is a clip show.

Finally reached the last two episodes of the third season of Shounen Club, which are also the final episodes before the show moved over to NHK Hall for taping.

Being a clip show we have the only new footage coming from the usual group of hosts sitting at the studio and reading mail while watching VTR footage. I think these episodes work a bit better than the earlier ones like it as we get a greater focus on all three years of the program which includes a lot of changes to look at.

Like the hosts in the studio segments. It is amazing at how much the three, Yamashita Tomohisa, Hasegawa Jun and Jimmy Mackey have grown over the past three years. As not only can you really see it with this clip but hear it as well as their voices still had not finished changing back then.

We get to see some of the intro clips where the topics of the show are brought up, highlighting the more memorable ones. And it is easy to see that episodes that Arashi guested are missing from my collection. 

During the first song medley, which is for Yamapi performances, I noticed a familiar outfit. I want to say this was still in use when I got into Johnny's back in 2007, so I wanted to cap it to check whenever I get to those episodes.

We then get to see some early Kazama Shunsuke, and Yoko seemed to enjoy picking on him.

There is a Domo-kun sighting with Tackey showing up with one strapped to his back during a performance.

Subaru totally has teh J-rocker vibe going strong here.

Going through a list of various guests I feel a bit cheated not having the episodes that had Shibutani Subaru and V. West in them.

Though I do wonder a bit about V. West as they are supposed to be the Kansai Junior version of FiVe but FiVe does not have a member that is just a vocalist like V.West does and aren't they missing some members?

We get to see Yoko shine a bit with a gag he did with Hasejun and Murakami Shingo. But to me anything with the future Kanjani8 members are great.

We get a VTR medley of KAT-TUN performances. It is nice to see some of the songs that will eventually make it onto a CD (thus I am actually familiar with them) be performed.

We then get a VTR focus on Junior Fight. Akanishi Jin is the winner of the first Junior Fight and gets to pick another Junior to join him on his trip that he has won. He ends up picking Kamenashi Kazuya, and I can see this being a starting point for Akame.

Looking back it is amusing to see Jin already seemingly showing his love for the U.S. with the T-shirt he picked to go on vacation in.

It is not long before the boys discover that the trip comes with a few hitches and what looked like a prize began to resemble a practical joke. Following Tackey's instructions they have to wear shirts given to them with writing on them, try to find people who know who Imai Tsubasa is and eat and drink things that from their reactions taste terrible.

The two are stuck having to camp the night out on the beach in a tent together. Both looking rather miserable by now but I think it proves to be wary of any gift Tackey offers.

And we come to the final VTR segment that is for the end songs of the program over the years. And I see that I managed to miss out on what looked like a fun episode going by the guests listed.

Yamapi gets his final end segment with this episode. If you are looking for something profound from him you will have to keep looking elsewhere as he just rambles on like usual not really linking things together all that well.

Then on to the next episode.

We start off this episode looking at the Junior competition segments, from Junior Fight II (as the first was covered in the last episode) to Club no Ousama. And it gives us some more costuming gems such as whatever is being worn here.

We get to see them compete in really quick segments then have VTR of the winners "enjoying" their wins for he Junior Fight competitions. With the second Junior Fight going to the duo of Nakamaru Yuichi and Ueda Tatsuya.

They end up winning being the focus on an episode produced by Imai Tsubasa. Which does not seem as great as it sounds as Tsubasa seemed rather strict in the rehearsal footage we saw. But the two did get to perform in all the performances from the look of it.

While he was on the winning team, Kamenashi Kazuya gets banished to the little kid pool at the onsen they went to.

Nice to know Toma is so limber.

Thankfully we get to see some of the wins of Club no Ousama that were not highlighted before. But as there was no real winner it got the least amount of time and focus. That and the last clip show spent a good amount of time with it.

Then there is a Ikuta Toma segment of his performances. It is a bit start to see him singing and dancing so much as I am so used to him just being an actor now.

We then get a look back at highlights from the Junior question/message board. Not much that I care for as they focus on the hosts talking and not the answers/messages themselves. But it does give us more of Yokoyama Yu so I am happy about that.

The next set of VTR is of Toma with his show segment. It is actually rather interesting as he got to do things like interview debuted Johnny's and even gives us some behind the scenes footage for one of the Junior concerts of the time.

We get to see a bit of other Juniors that are not in the host group or KAT-TUN here as well with Koyama Keiichiro being highlighted by doing a love confession. I think if there is any major criticism I have of these two episodes is that there is a large focus on the Juniors I mentioned with little given to others. But I think it is also just an all around issue with these episodes in general as well.

He even got to do an interview thing with TOKIO's Masuoka Masahiro. I really wish I had this episode as anything with TOKIO or one of its members is usually pretty fun.

Yes, that orange stuff is fur.

Following that we get a medley of Junior performances that give us some costuming gems such as this,

and this. This is the outfit I wanted to highlight from the first episode of the show but really could not because of the poor quality of the video.

While most of the VTR I have seen before with past episodes that have shown VTR of Tackey filming various things for the program there are some things that are new to me. Like the VTR for the shooting of the current and final opening. But as they try to fit it all in a few minutes there is only a short segment with that footage.

We then get clips of the various song introductions Jimmy Mackey has done, as it was one of his main things on the program.

Being the final song intro, Jimmy gets the others to help him in spelling "medley" out in Japanese with Hasejun trying his best to do the hyphen.

We get another end song montage. And I will give a gratuitous Taguchi Junnosuke screen cap just because I can.

And for proof that this is the final episode you just have to look at the final minute or so where the hosts go over the fact that the show is moving to a new filming location, has a new run time and so on. And it is on this the episode ends.


So with this we come to the end of Shounen Club's first three years and the time at their old studio. With the switch to NHK Hall we get a new but more familiar format for those who know the program from more recent episodes.

While there are things to enjoy about these episodes I think I prefer the later format. If just because the focus on the Juniors gets a bit more spread out as really at the end of this third season the only groups that really were getting a decent amount of screen time were Four Tops, KAT-TUN and Ya-Ya-Yah with everyone else seemingly stuck as only being a part of the introductions at the start. So I look forward to the longer episodes where other Juniors will hopefully get more screen time with more time having to be filled with each episode.

Johnny's Dome Theater ~SUMMARY~ Junior shows!

It has been announced that there have been four extra shows of the Johnny's Dome Theater ~SUMMARY~ concerts at Tokyo Dome City Hall but they will not feature either Sexy Zone or A.B.C-Z. Instead they will feature two groups of Juniors, one group for the afternoon shows and the other for the evening shows.

The group for the evening shows will the Uchi Hiroki w/Question? while the afternoon shows will feature the Bakaleya6, Morimoto Shintaro, Matsumura Hokuto, Kyomoto Taiga, Lewis Jesse, Tanaka Juri and Kouchi Yuugo. Of course the concerts will have other Juniors but these are the ones actually listed by name.

Kyomoto Taiga LJ comm entry. (English)


I am so excited about this news. Well not so much about Uchi though I am happy for Question? but as they have done solo concerts already I cannot help but think this is just another extension of that. But the Bakaleya6 already headlining concerts, even if it is just a couple, seems like such a major thing.

I have been thinking that these SUMMARY concerts would be where we would finally get a group name for them, as I do not see them being broken up anytime soon as their movie has yet to come out. That first SUMMARY after Hey! Say! JUMP debuted gave us A.B.C-Z so I think it would make sense that this one could give us the official announcement for this group. But I know a lot of this is my fangirl self wishing for this to be reality. But this announcement has given me renewed hope.

I mean it would look awkward to have all those names listed as headliners so it would be nice to have them under a group name. Also concerts are where groups can get a good amount of press coverage so having the Bakaleya6 highlighted as a new group would not only draw a good amount of attention but would be great publicity for these newly announced concerts.

If the group not only got a name but also their own group song I would be on cloud nine for probably the rest of the year. As I have stated many times the Bakaleya6 are like a Junior dream group for me. Sure there are some Juniors I wish could also be a part but I can find myself being content with the six that make the group be the only members as well. And the Bakaleya6 show a lot of promise for being future top idols if Johnny's keeps playing their cards right with them. Making them an official group together would be one such move IMHO.

In the end it will have to be a wait and see kind of thing. SUMMARY will not begin until next month and then it will be almost a month after that these concerts will take place. I will definitely be keeping my eyes and ears out for any information about it though and wish that I could be there.

Eras of the Juniors (from the Golden Age on)

As I have been watching Shounen Club I have been trying to figure out how to categorize the Juniors in a way that would make it easy to talk about a certain period of time in a quick way. With the Golden Age of Juniors (the time Tackey & Tsubasa and Arashi were Juniors) it makes sense for me to try to do this with eras based on when members of debuted groups were Juniors. Of course there is some overlapping with certain members or groups but I think for the most part it works. As I am most knowledgeable about the Juniors from Shounen Club I will use the status of the Juniors from when that show began and then onward.

Of course then it would begin with the Golden Age of Juniors, which as stated before is the time period when the members of Arashi and Tackey & Tsubasa were Juniors. It can be considered officially over when T&T debuted in 2002 though it was already on the decline as a new era was starting up that would focus on mostly the young Juniors (Four Tops & KAT-TUN for example) of that time.

That era would be what I would term the You&J era, basing the name off the combined fan club of the groups that were the stars of the era, NEWS, Kanjani8 and KAT-TUN. While the official start would be at T&T’s debut it could be argued to have begun more around the time that Shounen Club began to air seeing as the main Juniors of that program belong to this era. In either case the end of the era would be about time of KAT-TUN’s debut in 2005.

Then it moves on to the Hey! Say! era, which is the rise of the Juniors that will eventually debut as Hey! Say! JUMP as well as the rise of groups like Kis-My-Ft2 and A.B.C. (later A.B.C-Z) who were carry overs from the You&J era. I would honestly put the end of this era around the time Kisumai debuted, even though there was some continuation of it with A.B.C-Z’s debut and that would be the final segment of the era.

Overlapping the end of the Hey! Say! era would be the current era of Juniors that probably began more around the creation of JaPAnese Hi! Though the official start is probably easier to peg as the debut of Sexy Zone. I would not name this era yet until the next begins as no one knows what groups are going to debut and have an impact, plus it is more about the rise of groups/Juniors so there is still so much that can happen. So until it ends it is simply the current era of Juniors.

Of course as you can see these eras do not start and stop as one era ends and another begins. There is a good deal of overlap but I think if you sort by when groups rise to prominence it makes sense to do it this way. Like with Kisumai, they were a group created during the end of the You&J era but really did not rise until the Hey! Say! era which lead to their debut. And then with A.B.C-Z you have another group with roots in You&J but they did not become A.B.C-Z until after HSJ debuted and I would not place them in the current era of Juniors as their rise began with Kisumai’s after HSJ’s debut even though their debut was after SZ’s.

This is not to set anything in stone but rather to at least give myself some framework of the Juniors over the years as unlike the debuted groups there are shifts and changes on a pretty constant rate with members coming in and other leaving. So having something to use to focus on a certain segment of Juniors is helpful in trying to learn more about them or trying to notice trends.

I will be making further posts to clarify the eras and what was notable about them in the future.

Shounentachi in Tokyo

The Tokyo run of the Shounentachi musical this year has been confirmed. The title of the musical this year is Shounentachi ~ Jail in the Sky. It will run at the Nissay Theater from September 4th to September 26th.

The cast will feature A.B.C-Z with Kansai Juniors, Kiriyama Akito, Nakama Junta, Hamada Takahiro, Shigeoka Daiki and Kamiyama Tomohiro, performing in the musical in Tokyo as well. For the Tokyo Juniors the groups Hey! Guys (which looks to be a group with the remaining members of They Budou), Travis Japan (which according to the cast list for this comprise of Morita Myuto, Kawashima Noeru, Nakada Hiroki, Shimekake Ryuya, Nakamura Kaito, Miyachika Kaito, Yoshizawa Shizuya, Kajiyama Asahi and Abe Aran), MAD and non-grouped Juniors, Yasui Kentaro, Hagiya Keigo, Morohoshi Shoki, Kadoi Kento, Masuda Ryo, Takada Sho, Anderson Casey, Yamakura Sharufu, Matsumoto Akio, Watanabe Hiroki, and Teranishi Takuto.


It looks like A.B.C-Z will be having another busy year in terms of performances with their final SUMMARY concert being on September 2nd and then this starting up a couple of days later.

Also it is nice to see that they are bringing Kansai Juniors over for this musical this year like before. Not many get a lot of chances to do things in Tokyo or get the kind of exposure Tokyo Juniors do so it is nice to see a few of them get something special.

The Shounen Club 02 March 2003 review

Final month of the 2002-2003 season of Shounen Club. This coming up Wednesday will have the final two episodes, as they are both just clip shows, and then onto the new season over at NHK Hall.

KAT-TUN get to do the opening song this episode. It is the usual HEARTBREAK CLUB performance from them.

I really wonder what the filming schedule is for this program back then. As Ikuta Toma and Kazama Shunsuke are in the introductions but are nowhere to be seen otherwise.

Thankfully we are saved from the three remaining hosts just talking to themselves by VTR and an actual guest this week.

The first VTR segment focuses on KAT-TUN as they have recently released their first concert DVD, Okyakusama wa Kamisama - Concert 55man nin Ai no request ni kotaete!!. This is of their first solo concert at Tokyo International Forum, which was also the venue Sexy Zone held their first concerts as a group. Looking at the footage it really helps give you an idea of how big the venue is, which is not very big.

We are then introduced to this week's guests, Tackey & Tsubasa, who are mainly there to promote their new single Sotsugyo ~Sayonara wa Ashita no Tame ni~. Takizawa Hideaki seemed oddly subdued for this segment and the focus was mainly on Imai Tsubasa.

The duo then perform the song as the first full performance of the show. I do have to wonder who came up with set and choreography for it as it had some odd looking moments like this one in it.

When we go back to the studio Tackey is there alone and is back to being his more cheerful and jokester self with the guys.

We then get a long VTR segment with Tackey and Jimmy Mackey that Tackey decided to make model for a photo shoot he wanted to do. Of course not everything works out as he had planned.

T&T get to sing a second song, so this is not the episode to watch for Junior performances. The second song is called Ikiteru Akashi and featured a small horde of bare chested young Juniors, as we are still very much in the time period of Johnny's that being bare chested was pretty common.

We then get to see photos that Tackey took as he explains them. Most of it is like a slideshow, it even has music that goes with it, so unless you really like looking at Jimmy or the most die-hard of Tackey fans this probably will not be very interesting to you.

Like the last episode I reviewed, the three hosts get to perform the end song together.

Yamashita Tomohisa gets stuck with Tackey for his segment as the latter tries to do an impromptu shoot with him. It is one of the more interesting segments of this, if just to see Tackey be his usual goofy self at the expense of Yamapi.


Honestly I was expecting more of Tackey than we got this episode. He is usually a fun guest and while at times he was just that he just did not seem to be as energetic as he normally is.

I did like seeing the VTR of KAT-TUN's concert DVD. The Junior concerts I went to in 2009 were at the same venue so it was interesting to see how differently it was set up as well as being a bit nostalgic. I am really interested on how it will look in SZ's upcoming DVD/BD release, more like the Junior concerts I saw or like KAT-TUN had it.

Of course this was also a big moment in KAT-TUN's history as this concert had about 550,000 requests for tickets to it but the venue only held seats for 20,000. So by now it is clear that KAT-TUN is well on their rise in popularity to have accomplished such a feat.

It is a bit sad that this is the last complete episode of the season, as the next two are nothing but clip shows. But I am still looking forward to the start of the new season and getting longer episodes and more focus on Juniors that are not the Four Tops.

NYC - Haina! PV review

I meant to do a review of this PV much closer to the release date of the single but kept pushing it back in favor of other things. Since things seem to have slowed down a bit I figured I should go ahead and do the review now.

Haina! continues the trend of NYC's songs all sounding a bit retro. But I think in this case it works out well as it is the kind of song I can picture myself wanting to listen to during the summer as I laze around. And more importantly it is a much better song than Wonderful Cupid.

There are basically two main locations for the PV, in front of a temple and at a Japanese summer festival. When the boys are in front of the temple they each have a happi coat in the color that has been designated to them since they became a trio.

The summer festival location shots are mainly slice of life shots, where it is the boys just doing the typical things one does at a summer festival.

Eventually the boys are joined at the temple by a crowd of youngsters, seeming to age from little kids to teens. They just stay in the back ground and do parts of the dance.

We also gets some shots of the trio just sitting around and singing. Not the most exciting thing in the world but the boys try to be interesting by doing hand movements.

Of course being a song about summer it has to have all the traditional Japanese summer associations. So there is eating of shaved ice, and even the shaved ice is color coded for the boys.

I have a bit of a love-hate deal going on with the close ups in this video. For the most part the boys look fine but for some they are a bit off. Though when the boys do something more than look at the camera and sing they are pretty fun.

Of course what is a NYC song without silly dance moves. But at least these seem much easier to remember than their usual fare.

This will never stop looking cute to me. And I like how they use it in the choreography.

Yuma ends up mostly blocked by the others for the end pose, but thankfully being taller than the other two he can still be seen.


It took me a while to warm up to the song but I do enjoy it. I do have to be in the mood for something a bit mellow though. But like I said before this is a much better song than Wonderful Cupid and I am glad they released this.

I would like to point out that I think slower songs like this fit Nakayama Yuma's voice well. He sounded good throughout the song and his solo lines were a highlight of the song for me. I do hope he gets another solo song to release as I love Glass no Maho.

So not a bad song from NYC. Though I am more excited about the fact that the B-sides of the single have a more mature sound to them than their past songs. And with We Can Be Heroes sounding less than kiddy fare I think it is clear that Johnny's is finally ready to let the boys start singing something a bit more reflective of their ages.