Power to the people
Shonen Club Cuts 2011/10/07 (and a bit of Johnnys Jr. Land).
All videos are 1024 x 576 resolution, all avi, all on Mediafire (!!). Finally MF is working again for me. Credit for FS to shokura@lj
Opening
Opening song is "Ultra Music Power" performed by everyone who was there. To be more precise: Nakajima Kento, Matsumura Hokuto, Morimoto Shintaro, Hip Hop Jump, JaPAnese Hi! , TOY and lots of "unsorted" Juniors. Kouchi Yugo was absent, because he broke his collarbone a few days before the recording (best wishes, again!), Kikuchi Fuma,A.B.C-Z, Mis Snow Man, Question? and everyones my favourite backdancers Watanabe Haruki and Morita Myuto were all busy with other performing duties (Shonentachi). After "UMP" there was a short interlude in wich two fresh Juniors were introduced, a shadow boxing one and a Michael Jackson impersonator( Both were featured before in "SUMMARY" as far as I know). This part seemed a bit out of place, but I have to admit the Shadow boxer was really adorable. After that this weeks special guests Hey! Say! JUMP are entering the stage with a short version of "Magic Power". Very nice starter!
Download : MF
Intro Talk
Intro Talk with Hey!Say!JUMP and announcement of this episodes theme, wich is "Power".
Download : MF
With You
"With You" performed by Nakajima Kento and JaPAnese Hi! (main performers are the now ex-members Sato Shori and Matsushima Sou, Kuramoto Kaoru, Jinguji Yuta, Takahashi Fu and Kishi Yuta. Marius Yo is also in the frontline but without attracting any attention. Because of Fumas absence Kento took his part too and accomplished this task without any difficulties. But I would have preffered to give Fumas part for this performance to Hokuto nevertheless. Anyway, a strong performance and the song itself is still great of course. But something happens everytime they doing it. Last time Kento wrecked parts of the stage, this time Kishi Yuta threw away his microphone. Twice! The first time he manged to pick it up and to put it back on, but the second time he lost it (due to his very expressive way of dancing) it flew out of his range (You can see it at the end of the perfomance lying at Sous feet). The most remarkable thing about that is his reaction to this: In the ongoing performance Kishi pretends to still have a microphone by holding his hand at his face as if covering the mic. This strategy kinda failed, but I have to praise his efforts. And it was just funny as hell.
Download : MF
Power to the Juniors
Talk part with Arioka Daiki and Yaotome Hikaru with Matsushima Sou, Sato Shori and Kuramoto Kaoru about what gives them power. Shori is already in full-pro modus it seems, because he says he gains power from fan-letters. Kaoru is much more pragmatic and uses fried meat as his powersource, while Sou diligently collects more and more points on my "Favourite Johnny Card" (in fact this card is already full..) by taking the chance to speak about his dog Muku again. Storys about boys and their dogs always rings a bell in me and so I really like it that Sou is speaking about his dog at any given opportunity.
Download: MF
Beat Line
The definite highlight of this episode is HSJs performance of "Beat Line". I've read many comments of people about how they would have preffered this over "Magic Power" to be an A-side. I'm totally with them! This is so much better than "Magic Power" (and so much more in the vein of "Arigato" and "Over"). But well, there is already everything said about that, I think. So don`t think about it anymore and just enjoy this song. And its performance. To descibe it with a term I don't really like, because it is overused by certain people : It's flawless!
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Anata ni Otegami Kakimasho
Yabu Kota and Yaotome Hikaru reading their letters to each other. Isn't it nice to know that even in Johnnys where people suddenley disappear on an almost daily basis, there are certain things you can rely on? It is.
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Hitomi no Screen
Solo version of "Hitomi no Screen" by Yamada Ryosuke. I may not be the biggest fan of Yamada in the whole wide world, but this performance was absolutley stunning. I would even say it was the best rendition of this song I have heard up to date. Great! Altough the "I love you" part sounds even more out of place in this than in the original version.
Download : MF
Hey! Say! 7 wo abake
The long awaited HS7 wo abake with Yabu, Hikaru and Daiki as MCs. Quite funny, but in moments like this I miss Ryutaro even more than I do already...Well, I don't want to bum you out, so enough of that.
PS: Chinen got his old voice back!
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TOY-Medley
In fact, this was more of a Kyomoto Taiga Solo-Medley than a TOY-Medley. I guess because of that many people will like it even more. The medley consists of "Monster" "Ai Nante" and "Perfect". The first two songs are by Taiga, Yasui Kentaro and Casey Anderson only before the rest turns in. I really like Taiga and his voice but I absolutley don't get why (with only Taiga,Yasui and Anderson on stage) Yasui don't get to sing a single line during "Ai Nante"! This song is like it's written for his voice! (Proof: in this episode). Besides that I've got nothing to complain here.
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Jr. ni Q
Presented by Nakajima Yuto and Yaotome Hikaru. On the board: Yasui Kentaro, Nakamura Reia, Nakajima Kento, Hashimoto Ryo and Tanaka Juri. No comments about the content, because I would be on thin ice with it and it would be most possibly as accurate as the reciting of Ke$has "Tik Tok" lyrics by Nakajima Kento...
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Power to the Juniors (Part 2)
Part two of the "Power Talk". This time with Daiki and Yabu with Kyomoto Taiga, Morimoto Shintaro and Tanaka Juri. Theres something very wrong with this picture, isn't it? Yes, Shintaro wears the outfit of Hip Hop Jump! I was speculating about Shintaro going closer to HHJ in a post two months ago, but I expected it in the way like let's say Nakayama Yuma / 7 West. In my own little weird fanworld Shintaro was like the crownprince of Johnnys and Juri was his general. And now they are sitting there like ordinary soldiers (to stay in the picture). Shintaro may no longer be the cute little prince he was, but I really want him to be back in the spotlight, at least a little bit more than nowadays. The answer he gave in this talk about what gives him power was: The applause from the audience. That was a kind of sad moment, at least to me.
Just for the record: Juri takes power from extensive baths (2 hours??) and Taiga from eating a special meat made by his mother on evenings before concerts.
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Magic Power
Okay, first of all: This performance was much,much better than the one last month. "Magic Power" will never become my favourite HSJ song, but in this context (with Yuto on drums, Keito on guitar, Inoo on keyboard and Hikaru on bass) it works quite well. I know there were more performances of this song with the band, but I didn't bothered to watch any of these, because I was just too disappointed of the song.
As said, I prefer "Beat Line" a lot. There is nothing wrong with going back to the seventies once in a while, I just wished they would have gotten in the direction of (for example) Kiss instead of turning into the Japanese version of Showaddywaddy.
Download : MF
End Talk
Talk part before the endstage with HSJ ( minus Inoo and Yuto who stayed at their instruments for the upcoming performance)
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Ending
Ending song is "Midnight train" by the great Otokogumi, who produced some of the finest JE songs ever. Performed by HSJ with everyone else who was in the episode (First in the back than joining in). A great ending of a great show!
Download : MF
Addition: For the other Junior-Shows: I really liked what they did to YAN YAN JUMP with its re-launch, but I'm pretty sure you have all seen that. I also strongly recommend you to watch "Johnnys Junior Land", if you haven't already. (The show that features all of Sexy Zone + Kuramoto Kaoru, Jinguji Yuta, Takahashi Fu, Wakiyama Rei and Takahashi Saneyasu). The Show is like a dream come true for Junior fans like me. 50 minutes full of..well just them. No noisy comedians who reduce them to just laughbags and stooges (something that drove me away from "School Kakumei" in the end), just them. There were so many great scenes in this, like a very laid-back Kaoru (almost too laid-back, because at one point he was a second away from dozing off during Saneyasus "shadow-typing"), a sometimes too cheeky Marius (it's hard to believe he's just eleven seeing the way he acts before a camera in an enviroment that's still very new to him)..and so on. To me it is of course also just absoluteley great that it is has my two favourite Juniors in it: Jinguji Yuta and Matsushima Sou, who is the greatest win to me in this show because of his naturalness (something on wich Kento and Fuma could improve in my own humble opinion).
This is just a short clip of one of my favourite moments. Yuta is about to show some karate moves as the moderator suggestes Marius (who was not for the first time a bit insolent) as sparring partner and it seemed Yuta was looking forward to that (watch his "Oh yeah? You`re coming at me sideways kid?" attitude ), but fortunately for Marius, Sou came to the rescue.
Download: MF
And the biggest laugh for me was at the very end, and it was Sou, again. The way he gave his goodbye to the watchers was just priceless. I love that boy.^^
Download (veeery short clip) : MF