The Shounen Club 10 April 2005 review

Onto the second episode of the new season that should help show what changes are here to stay and which are not.

This episode goes back to the usual opening introductions for groups. We get confirmation that J.J.Express is a five member group with their introduction.

This episode has Tanaka Koki as the producer with the theme of the episode being "style".

J.J.Express are asked about their style and we manage to see a smile for Arioka Daiki. Now this looks more like the Daiki I am familiar with and it is nice to see him not look so stiff on stage.

While the theme is supposed to be style the music all lends itself to the style that Koki is known for, hip hop, or as hip hop as Johnny's can get. Which means almost all songs in the opening medley have a rap to them, which lets Koki stay onstage for most of the medley. Thankfully a couple of other groups get to be a part of the medley but it is mainly Koki and KAT-TUN for it.

After the medley we have Kamenashi Kazuya and Akanishi Jin on stage talking about the theme to fill time before the next performance, which they introduce.

Ya-Ya-Yah perform the song Never Stop Music with JJE as back up singers for the chorus. It is a fun song that uses the younger Juniors energy well with the dance as there is a dance break in the middle of the song. It also is a nicely balanced song with all four members of Yax3 all getting turns to be center stage at one point or another.

It looks like Junior Hai~ School has carried over from the past season. I am kinda glad it did as these segments are usually enjoyable. This one had the contestants pick one of four answers to a scenario. Each answer would then correlate to a certain type of guy they where and then which type of girl they would be bested suited for. We also get Jin showing off his English skills here.

We get Taguchi Junnosuke's usual skit. If you like puns then it works but I guess for those who are not very familiar with Japanese it is a bit hard to follow.

We get a medley of sorts with Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. doing the first song of it. Rather sad they did not get to show off their acrobatics with this as that usually always makes their performances worth watching.

Kis-My-Ft. also get to sing a song in the medley and they even break out the roller skates for it. Though in the end the most stand out thing about it is that Kitayama Hiromitsu is a part of the group that did a jacket change in the middle of the song but could only get the jacket half on and has to complete the performance with it just hanging off the one arm.

Since NEWS has for whatever reason disappeared for this second episode we get a VTR  of them instead. They go over style points for each member, a couple of the more memorable are Kato Shigeaki with his very shiny silver shoes and Masuda Takahisa with a belt that has the name "Johnny" on it.

This episode gives us another Naka Naka Ii Jyan segment with Koki, Nakajima Yuto and Nakamaru Yuichi. It is Nakamaru's turn to feel left out as the other two have custom hoodies and all he gets is a T-shirt.

This leads in to Koki doing his solo song Real 7 that eventually leads into KAT-TUN taking the stage to sing a group song.

We get a KAT-TUN break with Jimmy Mackey talking to Yax3 about their style. It is pretty clear that most of them are still too young to really have much of one of their own but even so are around the age that they are at least noticing things like that.

Question? getting to perform their song, Holy Heaven and we learn that Ishigaki Daisuke has now been added to the group which now gives them a keyboardist.

Koki gets to talk about the theme and I guess this is going to be a thing that the episode producers will do. Koki ends up talking for a long time though and you get a sense he is more trying to fill time than say anything all that meaningful.

KAT-TUN then takes the stage for yet another song. Because I guess there were not enough KAT-TUN performances in this episode. Or maybe they were trying to fix the balance that the last episode had. And yes I am going to be bitter and ragey about this now because I have reached my limit when it comes to this again.

And of course KAT-TUN is the only group to sing the end theme, yet again. Honestly this would not be such an issue for me if there was another song in between the two last songs or if they at least had some of the other Juniors join KAT-TUN for the end song. But there is not and I fail to see the point of anyone tuning in for the final ten minutes or so of this show if they are not KAT-TUN fans. Sure they are trying to work in the other Junior groups by giving them a brief dance segment in the song but I fail to see why they just cannot have them sing the song with KAT-TUN instead. I mean even when the program was Four Tops focused other Junior groups got to sing the end song so I do not see any reason that needed to change.

I have never hated the group before but right now I am just sick of them.


I keep clinging to the hope that it will not be much longer until SC is more general Junior focused instead of it being so focused on KAT-TUN. And yet every episode like this just ends up disappointing me. Especially since the episode before had a nice balance in comparison.

Never Ending Music Power’s 5th Year Anniversary

As we come to the close of this year we also come to the fifth anniversary for this blog, Never Ending Music Power. And five years seems to be a good time to make an anniversary post to reflect upon how I made it this long.

I really did not have much of a plan for this blog when I first started it, other than moving all the posts I was making about Johnny’s from my Live Journal account to it and making Johnny’s my focus. Looking at my earlier entries it is easy to see there was not too much in the way of focus other than if it was related to Johnny's I wanted to write something about it.

When it came to thinking up a name I decided to try to tie in the two groups that I loved the most at the time NEWS and Hey! Say! JUMP. So from NEWS I took the first half of their concert tour title of 2007, Never Ending Wonderful Story, and for HSJ the last two words from the title of their debut, and at the time their only, single Ultra Music Power. And thus Never Ending Music Power was born.

I honestly did not expect to get many people to read the blog back then, let alone have anything like regular readers. I just wanted to blog about what I loved and was trying to learn more about. And even to this day it is still a good part of why I still blog. I also think it is one of the main reasons why I am able to keep this blog going while all my other attempts at writing other blogs have failed. Though I do have hope for my latest try, Jubilee Moon, as I am taking the same approach to it as I have NEMP and it is working out well for me so far compared to previous attempts.

Over time I have pretty much stopped using LJ for blogging and NEMP has become a part of my life in a way I would have never imagined. To have been doing it practically non-stop for five years is an achievement I would not have thought possible. I have a terrible habit of letting newer things distract me or get bored of a fandom after a time yet with Johnny’s this has not been too much of an issue. I guess the unpredictable nature of following real people helps with that.

Being discovered by International Wota and in turn discovering them has probably been the biggest turning point for the blog for a while. Connecting to the greater international J-idol community in that way made me really want to improve on what I was doing with NEMP. And it was searching for how to do that I decided on making my History of Johnny’s posts. That series is something I am a bit proud of, even though they are not perfect.

I was then beyond honored when I was asked to be a part of Idol Minded, the successor site to International Wota. I also feel like it is a natural progression for me in the world of blogging and a chance to hone my skills more as a writer. The staff there has been fantastic and I would like to thank them all for the support they give me. I am very grateful to Ray for being willing to look over my work there and listen to suggestions I have to make, even if they end up being big last minute projects.

I know there are a lot of others I want to thank that I have not named, but for everyone who has shown me any support with leaving comments and such I do appreciate it truly. While I feel I would still blog even if no one read it knowing that I do have people reading my blog surely helped with keeping me going for so long.

I hope in five years from now I will still be blogging here with NEMP. I am not sure what exactly that future will look like but I know I am with Johnny’s for the long haul. And I hope you all can come along with me.

Rain is keeping wet for birds

Going through the upcoming episodes of Shounen Club that I will be reviewing has let me find this gem of Engrish, Yabu Kota's old solo song, Angel Come To Me. It is a song that seems to have been partly written using Madlibs with the lyrics, which are all in English, because it is hard to explain how some of it came to be. I transcribed the lyrics from the May 8th, 2005 episode that debuted the song so you can see for yourself.


Angel Come To Me
Music and Words written by Stefan Aberg
Performed by Yabu Kota


I've got all my time to give if you will receive
I've got a lot of faith in love if you still don't leave
Don't you know we've got a good life to achieve
Angel Come To Me

Heaven sent down an angel to my heart
To bring a brand new start when the sky is still in gray
Heaven sent down an angel to my heart
I feel the bless of life since you came away

Because it's suddenly a person to be sitting in life
Softly turning green
Rain is keeping wet for birds because I dream of you
Angel Come To Me

Ever sit down an Angel to my sad and lonely heart
(Sky is changing to blue because of you)
Don't worry if someone turning it green it's been sitting with life
(Ever since you came this way)

Heaven sent down an angel to my heart
To bring a brand new start when the sky is still in gray

Heaven sent down an angel to my heart
I feel the bless of life since you came away



I remember this song also sticking out because someone had written a post explaining what the lyrics probably were meant to be and it made a lot of sense, but unfortunately I cannot seem to find it again or I would have linked it. Because there are definitely some phrases that could potentially be something else but had their pronunciation so mangled they sounded like something else. Especially since the writer of the lyrics is not known for questionable English.

It still is a song that I do not think I will ever grow tired of, if just because I will keep trying to figure out what the actual lyrics probably were. I do wish Yabu would sing it again and maybe it could one day be further immortalized by being put on a CD.

The Shounen Club 3 April 2005 review

A new Shounen Club season begins which of course means that we are going to see some changes to the program. Of course since these changes for SC tend to just be tweaks here and there it will probably take a few months to figure out if some are here to stay or not. On the other hand there are some that are certain to be around for a while as the debut of a certain segment this episode will show.

Instead of introducing groups at the start the show just launches into a song, TOKIO's Jibun no Tame ni, to kick things off. We get a mix of groups performing the song as well, which makes me happy to see.

One of the first known changes to the show that we are introduced to is the "producer" role that a Junior will have for each episode. Honestly I never quite got what this position really was, but I assume the Junior would at least be given some say about the theme and the songs sung. Kamenashi Kazuya is the producer for this episode and introduces his theme of "tokidoki" which can be translated to a racing heart beat.

NEWS gets introduced as the guests and they talk about things that make one's heart race. Yamashita Tomohisa brings up that he was accepted into university for him and they take the time to bring up that Tanaka Koki was also accepted into university. The latter kinda surprised me as I had not really heard about it before, but seeing as there has never been a graduation announcement for Koki I think it is safe to assume he never got a degree in the end.

After the opening talk the first medley starts and it is a Shingakki Tokidoki Meldey (Heart-racing New School Term Medley) which Ya-Ya-Yah actually has a strong presence in since they get to do the opening and ending songs.

In the middle of the medley we get a skit with Nakamaru Yuichi playing the role of a new student at a school trying to figure out what club to join. My favorite part is Kame and Taguchi Junnosuke being members of the Friend Club and showing off the appeal of their club by playing a friendly game of tag.

The best part of course is Nakamaru rejecting their offer to join because it gives him a bad feeling and Junno's reaction face to it.

After the medley Nakajima Yuto reads a letter he wrote about an experience that made his heart race, his audition to enter into Johnny's.

After he is done KAT-TUN perform Kizuna with Kame starting it off solo. Perhaps because I fell in love with the song as a solo having it sung by a group just seems weird to me. But in any case I still do think it is a lovely song.

This episode marks the return of Matsumoto Kouhei and he is placed back in J.J.Express making the group a five member group. He gets to do a MC segment with Yabu Kota as they call over Yamapi and Koyama Keiichiro to give them advice for starting at a new school.

We then get a Yax3 medley which starts off with a solo for Yabu called Mayonaka no Answer. I like the song and would love to see Yabu revive it for a concert performance at least. Also he gets an interesting mix of back dancers with members of Kis-My-Ft. and A.B.C. Jr. there.

His solo is followed by one for Yaotome Hikaru, titled Atarashii Yoake. It is another song I would not mind to hear again from him. He has back up singers for it, as well as a couple of back dancers of the smaller Juniors, which included Morimoto Ryutaro.

For the back up singers the two most notable are Hashimoto Ryosuke and Sanada Yuma. Another to note is Fukusawa Tatsuya, who will join Hashimoto in becoming a J.J.Express member later but after it breaks up become a member of the Junior group Snow Man.

After the solos we get an actual group performance from the group of their song Start. I really like this song and look forward to seeing it performed more for a while at least. Also we get a funny typo in the lyrics for this performance.

There is a new game segment for the season, this one being called Jr. no Mirakuri Daisakusen. The game being played for this episode under the segment is called Mr. X wa Dare da! The game has a small group of Juniors try to guess who Mr. X, who is normally a guest, is by giving out little hints by asking questions. The audience gets to find out before the players and even get to be asked questions about him to help the contestants make their guesses. And it is fun to have the video screen to show Mr. X react to what is being said.

Jimmy Mackey gets to show up and remind us that he still is around, or at for now. He gets to talk to NEWS about their heart racing experiences before they go to perform.

Cherish was one of the songs that won me over to NEWS when I was first learning about them. It was one of my favorite songs from the group back then and still remains a favorite for me. So it is a highlight for me to see the group perform it, and with all eight members. Sadly it will not be much longer before the group starts losing members again but there should still be their first album they will come back to promote on the program as an right member group, IIRC.

This episode gives us the debut of a segment that current SC watchers should be very familiar with, Junior ni Q. I am happy to know that I can now look forward to this segment from now on. The best part about it is that it usually highlights younger Juniors that may not have a chance to be seen much on stage and lets the viewers learn a bit more about the various Juniors.

Koki and Nakamaru are our first hosts of this segment. Koki seems to have an interesting way on greeting the Juniors called over to explain what they wrote on the board.

So it should have come to no surprise that one of the Juniors, Nikaido Takashi, had written that Koki made his heart beat fast because he thinks he is scary. Which is something Koki does not take well to but plays with all the same.

Jimmy Mackey shows up to give KAT-TUN a puzzle they need to solve before being let to go on stage. Overall the group does better with half of them making it on stage before Jimmy has to give them an obvious hint for them to get the answer.

With that done KAT-TUN begins to perform SHAKE, which is always a rather fun song to see performed. In the middle of it the older groups get introduced, which just seems like a strange spot to do it.

After the introduction the other Junior groups join in on the song and it becomes a more fun performance with them all involved. Especially the little ones because they are just full of cute.

Kame spends some time talking about the theme of the episode after the performance to lead in to the finale of the episode.

The new ending song is called Wonderful World and sadly it is KAT-TUN again the only ones that get to sing it. It is rather annoying as all the Juniors that sang the previous song still have mics in their hands as they back dance so they could have easily sung with KAT-TUN instead.


While it is not the extent of change I would have loved to have seen the changes made are still good overall and if I have learned anything from past seasons is that there is still always a chance for the show to change things up a bit more as it goes on. If anything the fact that the other Junior groups get a good amount of screen time compared to KAT-TUN is good and I hope that will be more the standard going on.

The addition of the producer position for the Juniors gives hope that this will lead to more balanced episodes for when the producer is not a member of KAT-TUN. I know it happens as I can recall an episode that Yamada Ryosuke produces, but I think that is in the next season of the show.

Kanjuu go Samurai

It was announced at the Kansai Junior Christmas Concert on December 25th that the Kanjuu will be starring in their own movie, titled Kansai Johnny’s Jr. no Kyoto Uzumasa Koshinkyoku!, that will be released in theaters in Japan on March 30th. The two main leads will be played by Kiriyama Akito and Shigeoka Daiki with Kanjuu, Nakama Junta, Hamanaka Bunichi, Fujii Ryusei, Kotaki Nozomu, and Mukai Koji also being in the cast.

The Kanjuu will do the theme song, NOT FINALE, for the movie and plan out the choreography for it.

JE News Daily article (English)


This announcement has me so happy. Things really feel like they are looking good for the Kanjuu. Sure they still do not get all the chances and breaks that their Tokyo counterparts do but you can hardly say getting their own movie is all that shabby. Especially when there is also a Tokyo concert coming up for them as well.

I hope that the theme song they will do will get released as a single. I think if the Tokyo Juniors can get all kinds of one off singles and temporary groups that get to release something the Kanjuu should be able to get the same chance. Not to mention if Johnny's wants to gauge the selling potential of the Kanjuu, or at least this group of them, it would be a great way to do so.

Like always I hope this is something that will lead to a debut of a Kanjuu group. Right now I just really want B.A.D. to debut in a group, especially Kiriyama as he has really begun to impress me recently with his interactions with the other Kanjuu. I have always though him to be talented with his singing, though in the past in need to knowing to dial it back a bit as he had the habit of overpowering everyone else.


EDIT: Speaking of that Tokyo concert, it has become concerts as there are now three concerts scheduled for the Kanjuu to do on January 1st, the first at noon followed by one at 3pm and the final at 6pm.

Merry Christmas!

I have been trying to figure out if I should do anything for Christmas tomorrow (being on the Pacific Coast of course means I get everything late) for the blog and figured simple is best. Because as much as I love idols I love my family more so I shall be spending most of my time tomorrow with them. But around New Year's you can expect quite a bit of activity seeing as that is the big holiday in Japan and not so much in the U.S.

So I have written this post in advance and scheduled it for Christmas day. I wish a very Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and I hope everyone else is enjoying their winter holidays!

Here are NMB48 girls to wish you a Merry Christmas as well.

The Shounen Club 6 March 2005 review

After watching these earlier seasons of Shounen Club I cannot help but feel rather spoiled with how many episodes of the program we got for the current season. Especially since the recap episode of the year is the Christmas Special episode that gives us three episodes in December compared to these earlier seasons where it would be one episode for the month of mainly playing video from previous episodes.

The hosts for the recap episode this time should come as no surprise. At least KAT-TUN seem rather energetic in their hosting duties so their talks are enjoyable to watch.

The video from previous episodes not so much if just for the fact that I just watched these episodes not too long ago. The only thing that makes some of it interesting is that for some of the footage they show one of the members of KAT-TUN  watching and reacting to it.

They did at least show a clip from one of the episodes I did not have a complete episode of. It is one of the skits they did with Yabu Kota. It is basically them fighting over a yellow helmet that can give a wish and in the end it goes to Yabu.

There is some new footage that comes from VTR segments that focus on the other regular groups of the program. Like NEWS, who are becoming regular guests on the show. Their segment is rather short with only two questions asked the group but only one answer given for each.

Then there is the equally segment with Kanjani8, who are missing Shibutani Subaru for reasons not explained. They get to do game where each member must come up with a part of a sentence that must begin with a "letter" from the name Shounen Club.

One of the highlights of the episode is KAT-TUN looking at mistakes they made during performances. Like Kamenashi Kazuya falling down during a performance of GOLD. And then we have this that features Akanishi Jin running off stage during a performance to run back out a second later. Jin explains that he noticed something with a button on his pants, I think it was unbuttoned, so he ran off stage but one of the staff back there shooed him back on stage.

The other Junior groups get their own short VTR segments to mainly just talk among themselves on camera. I was happy to see Kis-My-Ft. get one as they typically do not have a lot of screen time in the regular episodes. They get to end their segment by acting out their group name.

The episode ends with a wrap up talk with KAT-TUN and of course clips of them performing the end song for the season Shining Day! No.1!


And with this the new season begins with the next episode which I will put out on Wednesday like usual. I just hope that even though the upcoming single will be leading to KAT-TUN's debut in early 2006 they are not as involved with the program as they have been. I used to have no issue with the group even though they were not a favorite but after so many episodes that were mainly focused on them with not much of the other Juniors to be seen I am ready for a change in focus.