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.

Shounen Club 2014.08.06 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 main fascination with the show, at least for me, is to try to figure out which of the juniors will emerge as the next generation of stars. This episode opens with some prime candidates handling the intro, as Jinguji Yuta, Iwahashi Genki, Abe Aran, and Kishi Yuta led a cadre of other juniors in SMAP’s “Bang! Bang! Vacance”.

They made way for the elder juniors, who continued the song. While the four listed above seem to be in a stable grouping (except that they’re missing Miyachika Kaito), the elder juniors have no such luck, and every time I turn around, they’re in a totally different arrangement.

For the final phase of the song, Sato Shori, Nakajima Kento, and Kikuchi Fuma of Sexy Zone as well as the entirety of Johnny’s WEST and A.B.C-Z (except Totsuka Shota) joined the rest on a very crowded stage. Fair enough, though, since I typically like this type of all-in one-song opening for Shounen Club. It feels right to have the whole cast out front to kick things off.

Shounen Club 2014.07.09 Review

The previous Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) ended with Sexy Zone, and this episode begins with them singing “4 Seasons”. On the bright side, the song is new to Shounen Club, so the freshness factor is there.

But why aren’t Marius Yo-kun and Matsushima Sou-kun performing with the elder three?

The choreography was trivial, this is a fairly simple song to sing, and it’s not a particularly upbeat opening song – it would have done better in the middle of the show rather than the start.

The reason they didn’t save it for later was apparently because the song’s title is the episode’s theme. It’s certainly not the most upbeat Johnny’s song to mention the four seasons, though. Hosts Kiriyama Akito-kun and Kawai Fumito-kun talked to the three SZ members about it . . .

Shounen Club 2014.06.11 Review

The second Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) of June started with a lot of guitarists on stage – the SC band plus a few. Usually when they decide to have the instrumentalists on Shounen Club, we see a lot of them, and I hope that will be the case here.

The three elder members of Sexy Zone – Nakajima Kento, Kikuchi Fuma, and Sato Shori – greeted the audience and then started singing “Thank You” with a whole host of juniors also singing.

Tough to name all of them. Let’s see . . . there was Yasui Kentaro, Ishigaki Daisuke, Goto Hiromi, Ogawa Yuu, Jinguji Yuta, Kobayashi Mizuki, Sanada Yuma, Jesse, and Hagiya Keigo. Oh, and also two other non-juniors – Johnny’s WEST’s Hamada Takahiro-kun and Kamiyama Tomohiro-kun showing that they really could be part of a SHARK-like group. The screencaps came out pretty fuzzy, so I suggest just watching this opening – it’s going to be one of the highlights. Oh, and grab a good quality version of it – too many people on stage for anything less.

Except for the band, the juniors cleared the stage as hosts Kawai Fumito-kun and Kiriyama Akito-kun joined the other debuted members present to introduce the theme of the show – Rock. Well, assuming we’re talking about the form of music rather than stones (of the non-rolling variety), I think my hope that we’ll see more of the band will be fulfilled.