Gamushara 2014.09.14 Review

Ah, this Gamushara (ガムシャラ) already looks like it’s going to be fun:

Having a kouhaku-style red team versus white team battle is a favorite scheme, and they’re promising a genuine test of physical aptitude, but are the two teams really balanced?

The “power types” are quickly identified – Morohoshi-kun on the red team and Shintaro-kun on the white team, but what about the rest of the members?

Well, Morohoshi-kun had Matsumura Hokuto, Kyomoto Taiga, Takahashi Kaito, and Matsuda Genta with him. That seems on the face of it like a much more athletic team than Shintaro-kun’s cohort – Iwahashi Genki, Tanaka Juri, Hayashi Ren, and Takahashi Fuu. The red team is also older overall. Of course, Shintaro-kun himself is probably the strongest person present, but who’s the fastest or the most agile? I’m not sure.

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 2014.09.07 Review

For the past two months on Gamushara (ガムシャラ), four teams of juniors prepared special performances for the summer festival, trying to win audience approval. Now, the victorious team and the losing team each get their dues, and both in the same locations shoot with Yasui Kentaro-kun hosing. It’s pretty easy to tell the difference between the winning team (Tanaka Juri, Morohoshi Shoki, Morimoto Shintaro, Kyomoto Taiga, Matsumura Hokuto) . . .

. . . and the losing team (Iwahashi Genki, Takahashi Kaito, Takahashi Fuu, Hayashi Ren, Matsuda Genta).

But if the losing team manages to clear some challenges, they’ll be able to partake in the same meal as the winning team at the end. What are these new tests, though?

They’re headed off to a private beach, but while the winning team gets a nice, large motorboat to accommodate them as well as the staff, the losing team has to settle for two dinky little rowboats. Very traditional stuff, so far.

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.