13 July 2013

The Shounen Club 13 April 2008 review

This episodes gives us NHK cross promotion.

The episode opens up with a shared performances of Sekai ni Hitotsu dake no Hana for the Juniors that get the chance to be introduced. I did not bring it up with the last episode but we do have a few more of the Kansai Jrs on the show for this month than just Nakayama Yuma. There is of course Hamanaka Bunichi, as he is a member of Butokan, and a few other of the older Kanjuu that I am not very familiar with.

It is just Koyama Keiichiro and Nakamaru Yuichi introducing the theme for this episode. It is Magokoro (sincerity/devotion). And we get the usual Juniors doing the theme medley and it going the usual mix of various groupings of Juniors doing a song before they all join together to sing the final song of the medley.

This is followed by a letter exchange segment with Morimoto Shintaro and Yuma. It's rather cute, especially when Shintaro reads his own name instead of his older brother's in his letter, and his want for Yuma to be his real brother.

There is then another medley that has the two leading it. It brings in more of the Juniors than the theme medley and has an interesting mash up of Mack the Knife and Namida-kun Sayonara.

Yara Tomoyuki seems to be the guest of the episode as he gets his own MC segment this time around. He talks about working on Endless Shock, which is Domoto Koichi's annual muscial.

Instead of a solo for his performance he instead does a collaboration with A.B.C. and Kis-My-Ft2. I always find myself enjoying Yara's performances as the dancing always stand out. And he has a good sense of how to get the crowd going.

The game segment is next and Yara is there as the judge for it. It is the game that has the two teams acting out prompts. One thing that is rather noticeable with this is the fan reaction to the Kis-My-Ft2 members. There are a couple of times that it almost got hard to hear what was being said because of how loud the crowd was.

This was also a surprisingly good segment for fan service with Goseki Koichi showing off why he's thought of being good with female and nee-san roles. And he even gets a kiss from Yara for it.

Overall this was a really fun segment, and I liked that they ended it with having them try to do some of the choreography for Kamenashi Kazuya's solo song sixteen seconds. As it actually uses something tied to the show, the performance, than something a bit random.

Nakamaru is on his own for an MC segment so it gets turned into a talk segment with him speaking about the theme of the episode.

We had a solo Nakamaru MC apparently because Koyama gets a solo performance this episode. He performs Private Hearts, which was a B-side on NEWS' NEWS Nippon CD. Koyama gets to show off his dance skills a bit with this performance.

For the VTR segment of the episode we get something different as Yuma is visited on the set for the Battery drama series that started airing that month. To be noted this drama airs on NHK with SC airing on an affiliate channel, NHK BS2, which is probably a big part of why we are getting this segment for this drama and not any of the other dramas Juniors and guests are in.

Yuma is joined by Shintaro part way through the talk and we have Shintaro again praising Yuma. He does make it sound like he would rather have Yuma as his older brother than his actual brother.

There is then an MC with the members of Hey! Say! BEST that are there for the April episodes. They talk about Jikkon (putting one's heart and soul into) with how it relates to them as a unit.

Following this is a Yabu Kota solo, My Everything. It is a standard ballad so I think whether or not you will like it will depend on how much you like Yabu.

This season does have an ending song for the program as one is introduced, OH! MY DREAM. This is performed by the main older Juniors so there are plenty of fun little moments which matches with the fun sound of the song.


With this episode Yuma seems to have begun getting the push he will have for years to come. And Shintaro will also start getting his push as well though he does not go as far as Yuma, or at least not yet. But I expect to see much more of the two in the near future on the program.

And while Hey! Say! JUMP is present, or at least some of the group's members, there is a definite reduction of their screen time from last season. I am certain they will stop being regulars on the program soon, IIRC.

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