The Shounen Club 1 February 2009 review

This is definitely an episode for B.I.Shadow fans to want to hunt down. Also expect some variations in video quality for a while as this is the time that getting someone to share the episodes got difficult until I believe sometime in the second half of the year.

In the introductions we finally get B.I.Shadow introduced by their group name. I fear though that this signals that Takahata Misaki will be leaving Johnny's soon, but until Matsumura Hokuto shows up it is not a nail in that coffin.

The guest for the episode is Hey! Say! JUMP and they get introduced at the end of the introductions. They stay on stage to introduce the theme of the episode Hiyaku (this has several meanings with a few being; leaping, becoming active, and emerging).

The medley is labeled a Jumping (or Junping going by the text on the screen) Medley which featured HSJ performing their singles with the younger Juniors. I do love that Morimoto Shintaro was in the medley, even though not in the same part of it as his older brother.

There is a letter exchange segment in this episode and it is between Kikuchi Fuma and Nakajima Kento. I believe Fuma mentions them being in the same auditions and of course that he sees Nakaken as his rival (in a friendly way of course).

BIS get to perform afterwards and they cover the KAT-TUN song GLORIA.What is nice about it is that Nakaken and Fuma get a good amount of solo lines so you get a good idea of their vocal levels. I have to say their voices have improved and changed a lot since this.

This ends up being a part of a medley and mostly Hip Hop Jump, Junior Boys, Sanada Yuma and Nozawa Yuki continue on with it. I am now waiting for Mis Snow Man to become an official group with the Junior Boys members being basically the rest of the group and performing so regularly with Sanada and Nozawa.

The first actual MC segment is with Butokan, who has all five members present for this episode. Outside of the usual Yara Tomoyuki doing a good deal of talking Hamanaka Bunichi and Senga Kento are prompted to speak a bit as well.

The song they perform is Yuki no Furu Hi, and again I find myself really drawn to Bunichi's singing. I hope he has a good chance as debuting in a Kansai Junior group, as a group can never have too many solid vocalists.

We get to the game portion of the episode and have Yara Tomoyuki as the guest judge for it. It was the usual act out a prompt game but each team only had three members each so the game went by rather quickly. Kawai Fumito continued to show that he had a greater impersonation range as he did one of Shounentai's Nishikori Kazukiyo.

There is then an MC segment with the members of Hey! Say! BEST who talk about how their unit image differs from Hey! Say! 7. Koyama Keiichiro congratulates Inoo Kei on entering university near the end of the segment.

HSB then do a medley of their unit songs and I find that I completely forgot about their song Switch. I believe this is the only HSB song that has not made it on a CD yet, though the performance is just with Arioka Daiki, Takaki Yuya and Inoo so that might be why it has not. But it would not be hard to get Yabu Kota and Yaotome Hikaru worked into it. As it starts with the letter 's' so it fits in with the rest of their unit songs.

The Junior ni Q segment starts off with a certain trio seemingly taken over for it. Not surprisingly the topic turns out to be about natto, or favorite toppings to put on natto.

After the three talk a bit Koyama and Nakamaru Yuichi come over to take their rightful places of hosts of the segment making the three leave. We then get the usual Junior ni Q segment. Jesse gets brought over to discuss his answer of scrambled eggs and ketchup.

Morita Myuto is called over as well as he has a few different items on his list of toppings.

It is not all younger Juniors as Yokoo Wataru gets to explain his choices, as he also has a few items listed as his answer.

A.B.C-Z are up next for a talk segment. Koyama starts it by congratulating Hashimoto Ryosuke for entering high school. I think it is really easy to forget how young Hasshi is when he is with Ebi, as the rest of the members are so much older than he is.

The group performs InaZuma Venus, which is one of the songs they get post-Hasshi. Of course this means it is not as acrobatic intensive as some of their other songs but the dance moves are still energetic and it is one of the songs from the group that enjoy.



The end theme is Yuuki 100% and this kicks off the recent love Johnny's has for this song. I remember there being a good deal of wank about this as not only was it a cover of a Hikaru Genji song but the one CD release Ya-Ya-Yah had was for this same song. The versions are a bit different as there has been some minor changes to the arrangement but Yax3 fans were still pretty sore, especially as it looked like Yamashita Shoon had left Shounen Club, much like how the remaining members of Four Tops did after NEWS debuted.

Putting that all aside though this was a fun performance to watch as the HSJ members looked to have quite a bit of fun, especially with some of them putting others' on their shoulders at one point. It is a good performance for HSJ fans to watch, and a pity the file for it was not in better quality.


So BIS keeps moving towards its member change up, which should be happening soon as we are quickly approaching Nakayama Yuma's first debut. That should be an interesting span of episodes to watch to see if it really was as confusing as I remembered it being.

There was a rumor around this time about HSJ releasing a single for Yuuki 100%, which I was against. Looking back on things now though I wish it would have happened. It would have given the group a CD release for 2009 and they probably could have gotten out an album before Hitomi no Screen. But there is no changing the past in the end.