Taking to the stage in their white and pink futuristic outfits, Sexy Zone kicked off this episode of Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) by singing “We Gotta Go”, which is a nice high-energy song for the opening.
Okamoto Kauan-kun sighting in this one – apparently he’s taking over for Kishi Yuta-kun while Kishi is off handling other activities.
Interesting microphone handling from Kikuchi Fuma-kun late in the song:
There are changes in the works for Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) coming up in April, but rather than speculating about those, I’ll just wait and see how things shake out. For now, we’ve got the March episodes to enjoy, and plenty of interesting things going on including the début of Johnny’s West, A.B.C-Z’s first album, and continued promotion of Sexy Zone’s second album. Will they still manage to squeeze some juniors in? Let’s find out!
The show begins with Sexy Zone performing “Shout!!” from their new album in color-coded outfits that don’t match their image colors. Go figure.
A word to the songwriters: a piece this light and fluffy shouldn’t be called “Shout!!” As the Isley Brothers can tell you, “Shout” is a title reserved for much more upbeat and especially loud songs (and the Isley Brothers’ “Shout” is one of my absolute favorite songs). Doubly so if you put two exclamation marks at the end.
Other than the title, it’s a fine song, though I was surprised they did a full-length version of it, taking four minutes at the start of the show.
After the flurry of Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) episodes at the end of last year, the gap between the second January episode and this one seemed inordinately long. How might have things changed in the past few weeks? Well, I see a few changes right from the opening:
Sexy Zone started things off singing V6’s “Wa ni Natte Odorou”, and they did so wearing the costumes I had hoped never to see again (I swear, I think I said so just last month in response to a comment). But wait . . . if you pan down . . .
The pants are no longer too short! They’re wearing boots instead of showing those hideous white socks! I wouldn’t say I love the outfits now, but they certainly managed to get rid of the thing I hated most about them. So, improvement there.
And in that picture above, I also see another continuing change – Marius-kun is pretty much the tallest member of SZ, isn’t he? I mean, maybe he’s within an inch of Kento-kun and Fuma-kun, but he’ll have that covered by March, right?
Interesting staging here as the three younger SZ members were in front first, then Kento-Fuma along with the Fab Four (Jinguji, Iwahashi, Miyachika, Kishi) . . .
Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) is a music variety show usually hosted by Japanese idol group Hey! Say! Jump that showcases the song-and-dance skills of the Johnny’s Entertainment agency’s most recently debuted groups – A.B.C-Z and Sexy Zone – as well as the agency’s trainees (known as juniors). Generally, the first episode of each month has more from the younger juniors, while the second episode focuses on the older juniors. Aside from backdancing, only the most prominent younger juniors got much time last week. Will the older juniors be front-and-center this week, or will debuted groups and solo performances dominate the hour again?
The show starts promisingly, with Noon Boyz handling the intro . . .
. . . however, they quickly clear the stage for A.B.C-Z performing “Miyabi” in what must be something from a concert/butai, right? I mean, otherwise these costumes and staging were totally wasted:
This was way elaborate with the masks and everything. Of course, it was meant to tie into the song’s title, which translates to ‘elegant’ or ‘refined’. Nothing says elegant or refined like really huge fans (and I mean the kind that keep you cool during hot day – not the kind that were screaming throughout this performance).
With the new year comes new Shounen Club (ザ少年倶楽部) episodes! What sort of energy will the Johnny’s idol-hopefuls bring to 2014? Where will the young entertainers take their dedicated viewers?
Well, apparently “to Earth” as the title of the opening song – “Let’s Go to Earth” – says. Jesse-kun kicks off the show in . . . apparently that’s supposed to be English, but I think my estimation of Jesse’s English language abilities has just taken a fatal blow because I had a better chance of understanding what he was saying by trying to read the Japanese subtitles on the screen. So, until he proves otherwise, Jesse-kun can’t speak English (not that there’s a problem with that).
I still don’t like the song, but in strictly audio terms, it’s probably the best performance of it I’ve heard. The vocals were better blended and less forced.
The dance, though, still seems to be very generic and lacks the identifying features that make choreography distinctive.
J-Everything 