Gamushara J’s Party 2014.09.13 Review

I somehow managed to get “Paraiso” stuck in my head from the previous episode of Gamushara J’s Party!! (ガムシャラ J’s Party!!), so will the second part of the summer festival provide me with a new accidental soundtrack?

At the very beginning of this episode, they have the announcement of which team won the competition (the double dutch team). They then proceed with a Sexy Zone medley to start the latter half of the concert. The two members of SZ – Marius Yo-kun and Matsushima Sou-kun perform a straightforward singles medley (literally going through each of their singles in order) with assorted juniors.

When I say assorted, I mean it – I don’t know the names of most of the kids in red.

As for the performance, it was really nothing new, though I guess it’s nice to see that Marius-kun and Sou-kun can handle all the songs with a little bit of help from their junior friends.

Gamushara J’s Party 2014.09.06 Review

Okay, so this month’s episodes of Gamushara J’s Party!! (ガムシャラ J’s Party!!) are that thing they’ve been building up to all summer in Gamushara – the Summer Festival. It’s going to be a very different pair of J’s Party episodes than we’ve been getting the past few months because there will be at least twenty juniors involved rather than the usual ten – the sort of breadth that I’ve been pushing for. At first glance, this should be exactly what I’ve wanted to see on this show.

It all begins with an extended look at how everything started in February and some of the challenge highlights along the way . . .

. . . and then a clip of the Natsu Matsuri announcement . . .

. . . and finally an explanation of the four teams and their challenges. Altogether, that intro VTR took almost four minutes – not the best possible start to a show (it’s always better to get directly into the action and save the exposition for a little further in).

We finally got to the main event with Marius Yo-kun of Sexy Zone doing a squeaky introduction in English and Japanese. He and fellow SZ member Matsushima Sou-kun were the only two debuted Johnny’s members present.

Other than the twenty juniors participating in the challenges, there were also a lot of chibi juniors present dressed in white costumes. The opening song was a theme written specifically for the show – “Gamusharara” – and it was performed by the two SZ members, Iwahashi Genki, Jinguji Yuta, Matsumura Kaito, and Matsuda Genta. They weren’t the only ones singing, though – the white-clad juniors were also miked up, so no chance to assess vocals on this one.

Gamushara 2014.08.24 Review

After spending about two months having four teams battle it out by taking on different challenges, Gamushara (ガムシャラ) decided to take the time for a debriefing episode led by Yasui Kentaro-kun.

Actually, it’s more of a deleted scenes episode, as we get to see some stuff that they didn’t include while telling us the story of the challenges the first time around. Probably most of this stuff should have just been included in the first place, but at least we get to see it now.

First, the team leaders each offered some thoughts.

But I don’t think they got thirty seconds before the annoying announcer took over to narrate the video clips we missed.

The breakdance team was covered first and we got more focus on the windmill move which they seemed so unprepared for.

Shounen Club 2014.09.10 Review

Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) is a music variety show hosted by Kawai Fumito of A.B.C-Z and Kiriyama Akito of Johnny’s West that showcases the song-and-dance skills of the Johnny’s Entertainment agency’s most recently debuted groups – A.B.C-Z, Sexy Zone, and Johnny’s West – as well as the agency’s trainees (known as juniors).

The second episode for September begins with A.B.C-Z introducing the theme of the show – 15th anniversary year again, even though I still have no idea how they figure that – and then performing “Legend Story”. Hashimoto-kun’s opening wasn’t quite as striking as before – more muted this time.

Maybe it’s because it’s at the start of the show, but it seemed lacking in energy and not as sharp as the previous time I saw this performed.

 

So, I’d call that an iffy opening. The song itself could probably work if it was done with some over-the-top exuberance, but they were restrained on it this time.

Moving along, Kawai-kun and Kiriyama-kun introduced the first performers – Hirano Sho, Nagase Ren, and Takahashi Kaito. This is a bit unusual since we’ve normally had one of the other debuted groups out to do the talk at this point even when a junior group was preparing to perform.

Shounen Club 2014.09.03 Review

I have a growing list of Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) pet-peeves, and at the top of that list is the way all the elder juniors – the reasonably popular juniors who are above eighteen years of age – are often lumped together into one big mega-group for performances even though this doesn’t do justice to their talents. And at the start of the first Shounen Club of September, here’s the same sort of thing:

It’s not quite all of them singing “Anniversary” by KinKi Kids, but it’s enough that it’s a jumble – especially since they’re all wearing white. Aside from Jesse, Nozawa Yuki, Sanada Yuma, Masuda Ryo, and Hanzawa Akatsuki, I did notice that we got a sudden influx of SnowMen. The members of that group don’t get much SC attention – not in a featured role like this – so that was a positive.

Pretty soon, A.B.C-Z, Johnny’s West, Nakajima Kento, Kikuchi Fuma, and Sato Shori took the stage, and things got really cluttered, but I like the whole-cast opening in general.