Dance Dance Danseur

This is my #2 anime of the season for Spring 2022, it's unlikely another anime will come along that will grab my heart, blow softly on it to nurture hope and budding feelings, then toss it around with angst and drama until emotions overflow into tears. Story and Character 10/10 Initially I thought it would be one of those generic sports anime but this time with ballet. And then, episode 1 employed several hooks that grabbed my attention and never quite let go. The story and characters are gripping, with both coming of age and adult/mature themes:- * A young boy "hides" his passion for fear of beingjudged by his classmates / society as "sissy" or "gay". In reality Ballet (for men) is a sports form requiring grace, flexibility, speed, strength and endurance, and is technically harder than martial arts, soccer, football and 95% of sports out there. The training is so rigorous, classically trained ballet dancers can pick up other styles of dance and tend to do well in dance competitions. For example Alex Wong who should have won So You Think You Can Dance after that "Outta Your Mind" hip-hop performance with Twitch if only he hadn't gotten injured. * Murao is unashamedly a teen who just wants a girlfriend. Most teenagers can relate to this part. For some reason this was really important when I was a teen, but when a person "finds themself" they also usually are not as hung up on "getting a partner." Life changes and goes on, but when you're a teenager this is the be all end all. Relatable. * At some stage a person has to grow up, decide what it is they want to do and choose whether to give up their passion to fit in, or do what makes them happy. The best career is when Talent, Passion and Skill intersect, very few people actually manage this. Skill can be taught and learned. Talent is inborn. Passion cannot be faked. I reflected and realized I don't know if I even made the right choice in this respect, as culturally, we are raised to do well in school then get a job that utilizes skill for $$ and forget the other 2. Does this mean when we work were "dead inside" and unfulfilled? Should we have made a different choice? What would a person have to give up to make the right choice for themselves? * This anime has one of the best love triangles I've seen, not contrived but something that happened naturally with the second male lead and girl being compelling characters in their own right. This might also the most controversial part of the story in how it plays out. Delicious drama! Art and Sound 10/10 Mappa did a great job animating this series. So yes, I hated the eyes with that pupil thing but I was told this is the style in the manga, so I guess I have to forgive it and I eventually got used to it. And the eyes are even a plot device! There's one character that spends most of the anime with her eyes closed, so the audience is waiting to see if and when they will open their eyes. The animation is done most likely using motion capture but with 2D drawing. The dance scenes are an animation achievement, similar to Yuri on Ice, with everything from head to toe accurately portrayed. This in combination with the piano or orchestral Ballet Music make the dance scenes phenomenal. Words cannot express how moved I was ... at the ballet performances. I have seen Swan Lake live, but it was never as dramatic as the ones performed in this anime. Not just once, but there are several jaw dropping dance sequences that I ended up IRL clapping to. Wow. The last episode moved me to tears, TWICE. Enjoyment and Overall 10/10 #1 hidden gem and second best anime of the season. The youth. The angst. The overwhelming Passion. An anime this good which makes one reflect on their life choices that is also exhilarating and moving shouldn't be a hidden gem, it should be watched and enjoyed by many more people.

This ballet series produced by MAPPA is odd but great. But it's difficult to recommend this to anyone. This series is not for everyone. But there are definitely people who should watch it. Are you one of them, or are you not? Simply - whether you will enjoy this series comes down to whether you "appreciate art". Classical art? Maybe? It definitely helps but it’s not a requirement. Ballet? Heck, I don't know anything about ballet yet I still loved this show. So maybe the short and simple explanation seems vague and a bit lacking. But let's say you additionally appreciate the art of expression. In this show yousee characters coming out of their "shells": when someone struggles to show a new side of themselves in front of a public. It's that type of moment when people fall into two categories: do you appreciate that or do you see it as a weird thing and laugh at it? Therefore, you probably need to be a person who accepts "oddities" and differences in people. Even if the show is about ballet, it's mainly about boys dancing ballet. And boys dancing ballet in the middle of a city park lake. And boys talking about ballet. Which is in general terms out of the ordinary. The characters are aware of it. And it’s one of the struggles that main characters have to face as well. But! There is nothing wrong about doing things you like to do. This is the main message of this series. Getting it across to other people is a challenge but it can pay off towards your own happiness. This series also manages to wrap a love story within 11 episodes that interconnects with the general theme of one of the ballet’s most known compositions „Swan Lake”. Pretty clever and pretty adorable. And beautiful on top of that. Those were the main reasons why Dance Dance Danseur was a show that surprised me. It became one of the series that I started looking forward to every week when it aired. So in numerical terms STORY - 7 ART - 10 SOUND - 9 CHARACTER - 8 ENJOYMENT - 10 OVERALL – 9 Perhaps you noticed that I rated story one of the lowest aspects of this series. Which is fairly subjective. It might be that without MAPPA directing this it may have been a good quirky coming up age story. The animation and directing definitely gives it extra points. Perhaps any other animation studio would have failed to deliver it as well as they did. Many scenes are amazingly drawn. Tender moments and amazing fight scenes. Yup, it even had that. The animation gives it the art and dynamic that manga lacks. Overall everything just plays so well together. I really enjoyed it! I seriously hope there will be a continuation. It might be that many people don't appreciate this series, but I really hope many do find this amusing. Odd but great. if you are that type of person to appreciate it :)

"You can't fake passion" **Very minor spoilers** Dance Dance Danseur is a ballet anime that absolutely exudes passion. From the voice acting, to the animation, to the choreography, It is an embodiment of passion. While DDD is an anime about ballet and that can seem off-putting to some people, I don't think it matters even in the slightest. If you have played a sport you are passionate about, you will absolutely recognize the moments that our main protagonist, Junpei lives through. There are these moments where Junpei is doing a dance and stars and fireworks start shooting out of his eyes and the background. Thesemoments are when Junpei is feeling his most passionate and you can absolutely feel it. It's bone chilling for someone who has felt the exact same way about him and it's one of the most cool experiences I've had watching an anime. Unfortunately, this anime does have its fair share of problems. The romance moments are very questionable and almost feel sort of forced. A lot of the side characters are inconsistent and Luou, our other main protagonist, is honestly unbearable a lot of the time. We'll get to that in a bit though. Story: 7 The story is very simple and if you're expecting anything complex I wouldn't suggest this to you at all. The story is straightforward and is always moving forward. Rarely does it ever come to a stop and have an episode dedicated to being a slice of life or anything like that. Whether its training, performances or character relationships the show will always be moving forward in those aspects. Characters: 7 This is probably the most questionable part of DDD. I personally liked Junpei as a protagonist because of how much I could relate to him when it came to his conflicts. However I could definitely see how Junpei could come off as annoying and a bit too hyped up. The main problem with this show in my opinion is Luou. Luou was insufferable. Luou is a quiet kid that keeps to himself a lot except when he talks to Junpei. He rarely ever speaks for long periods of time, not even internally but Luou easily becomes aggressive towards Junpei and launches insults at him. Besides that, Luou is an incredible ballet dancer. He dances full of power and energy but he himself has none of that. Luou has these incredible dance performances which I really enjoyed watching but outside of his performances, I really disliked him as a character because of how quiet and snappy he came off. I don't even think he's necessarily a bad character, because he gets his backstory for why he's a great dancer and a quiet kid. It's just for up until the point where we get his backstory, I found him to be a huge turnoff to this show. Miyako as a side character is fine, she seems to be very fond of Luou for what seems to be no reason but it is explained throughout the story. I actually found the side characters from the Oikawa school to be much more interesting than Luou and Miyako. Natsuki and Misaki both seemed very interesting to me, Natsuki even being featured in my favorite moment in the entire show along with Junpei. To sum up, the characters all have explanations for why they do things, so stick with them until the end even if they seem annoying as some did to me. Art: 10 DDD has outstanding visuals. It has consistent fluid animation that seems to always be in motion. It's actually crazy how smooth the dances are in this show and it stays like that for all 11 episodes. The art style can be off-putting but I don't think it hindered the show at all. In fact, I think it helped the characters express themselves more. The long necks and arms seriously enable the characters to stretch and move in ways that really express themselves. I know next to nothing about ballet so I can't speak for how accurate the choreography is in all this, but for someone who knows nothing about it the dances all seemed super smooth and very nice as a viewer. Sound: 10 Between the voice acting, music and sound effects, DDD seriously does it all. Junpei's voice acting brought his character to life. In the times Luou actually gets significant time to speak, Luou's voice actor also kills it. Props to Daiki Yamashita and Kouki Uchiyama as they did a fantastic job. Between the piano that plays for the performances and the music for the moments outside of that, DDD has a great OST and the sound director also nailed exactly when to use them. The most impressive part about the sound in DDD, is the sound effects. Each time a dancer does a jump and land you hear the landing and it's crisp. Earlier I talked about a moment where stars and fireworks start lighting up in Junpei's eyes and the background. The sound effects in these moments are seriously amazing. The crackling, and fireworks shooting off, encapsulate exactly what it feels like to experience that passion Junpei is feeling. Enjoyment: 9 Outside some of the characters I found to be hard to deal with, this was one of the best experiences I've had watching anime. The pure amount of passion that went into this can be seen. I would seriously recommend this to anyone who has been super passionate about something because I consider this more of a passion anime than a sports anime. As someone who was also very passionate about a sport just like Junpei, I found this anime to be super relatable and it was awesome to watch. Lastly, I know I've said this a couple of times now but the moments where Junpei has this sparkle in his eyes, it spreads across the screen from just his eyes and it slowly turns from stars to fireworks shooting everywhere. Every time that happened, I got goosebumps down to my bones because of how much I could relate that happening to me when I played sports. DDD seriously encapsulates passion and just runs with it all the way and I enjoyed it a ton. Overall: 8 DDD was a unique experience for myself and I believe for other people who have had passion for the things they love to do it would be a fantastic watch for you as well. If you can suffer through a bit of annoying characters, I think this is a super unique experience that contains some of the best animation and sound direction I've seen in the medium. This was my first review and if you have any criticisms I encourage you to leave a comment on my page. I plan on writing more and I'd love to know how to make reviews better.

"Swan Lake is the most difficult thing to portray for a female ballet dancer; it really requires such specific qualities of articulation, agility, strength, and the arm work is something that takes a lot of training." — Benjamin Millepied And this. thus, says the same for such a high-regarded mangaka like George Asakura, whom has penned many of her works (mainly Shoujo manga) that has acclaimed awards for her unique, edgy style and storytelling by crossing over between the everyday and the fantastic, the hilarious and bittersweet. Of her currently serializing works, Dance Dance Danseur is the one that we'll be looking at, courtesy of MAPPAand in-house director Munehisa Sakai, famous for Zombieland Saga. Surprisingly enough, ballet has popped up in AniManga so much, but in anime form, there only exists to be one and the definite until today: Princess Tutu, which dates all the way back in 2002. That's 2 freaking decades apart from this and Dance Dance Danseur (when you count the anime adaptation), while maintaining the central core theme which is ballet and fairy tales, the case use in Danseur being Swan Lake, and others like the topic of masculinity. The reason for that, you'd have to read on. Dance Dance Danseur's story starts with Junpei Murao, a 14-year-old boy who took a liking to ballet from a young age, but familial circumstances forced him to take up the only supporting cornerstone of the family: Jeet Kune Do, an electic martial art that's heavily influenced and adapted by the personal philosophy and experiences of well-famed martial artist Bruce Lee, as the only male in the family and advised by his uncle to be the moral support in order to be "masculine". In truth, Jeet Kune Do was just a way for Junpei to exercise his love for ballet more, while not showing the similarities that it would be judged as such. It's only when he encounters the same-aged Miyako Godai which demonstrated her ballet skills to challenge his perception, is when his fixation for ballet increased to rediscover himself, and adding onto that with Luou Mori as a near-perfect dancer to define his meaning of what it means to be a man, performing in a mostly feminine and exquisite form of art. It's the Freudian belief that masculinity is society-confirmed, otherwise it can turn toxic quick. Junpei at first glance, can come off as the typical boy whom has no façade to bear all of his emotions and feelings towards people in his life, and partly because his VA Daiki Yamashita (HeroAca's Izuku Midoriya) gave his character so much life that he comes alive just at the effervescence of things and situations where he can just be himself to be whom he wants to be. His only negative point is that although he can dance well enough, he wasn't trained in the art of ballet as he lacked fundamental basics, not to mention that he will gloss over proper technique to prioritize expunging his emotions. Through the trials and tribulations, Junpei learns characteristically of how a ballet dancer should act, while growing to be more mature as a person and dancer. That's supported when Miyako Godai comes into the picture as Chizuru Godai's daughter, part of the myriad of dancers whom used to be under the Ayako Oikawa brand of professional ballet that has an international influence from Japan to even Russia, that Chizuru couldn't see eye to eye with Ayako to branch off on her own self. Chizuru has a keen eye on ballet skills the same that Ayako once taught her, now used in her own teaching classes at the Godai Ballet Studio, teaching kids ballet the way that she knows how. Miyako is lovable, has a kind and polite nature, and that's to say it's on top of her own ballet skills that due to her personality, isn't suitable for large roles. Instead, what Miyako does is to help Junpei find his footing and help lean on his strengths while fixing his weaknesses with her much stricter mother. But there's one more person, and he is Luou Mori. Both Miyako and Luou are same-aged cousins, but while Miyako's life is one that's of a typical bred child, Luou's however is a much darker and sinister story. George Asakura likes her stories to be weaved with the bittersweet mix, and Luou's story of mental trauma and physical abuse is just that, that's more than enough for a perfectly sane person to choke with spiteful comments about his abusers, mainly his ballet-obssessed grandmother. For a start, Luou isn't your average typical kid: he's the illegitimate son of a mother whom was embroiled in a high-profile scandal, whom afterwards ran away and never to be seen again, leaving his grandmother to take care of him. And his growing up days were a barrage of constant nightmares and tortures of the ballet-obssessed grandmother forcing him to be like his abandoned mother: a behaviour that's not of conformity to society. And ultimately it's through the torture that he has become the skilled dancer that he is today, though he still suffers from social segregation and reclusion when people know and begin to make fun of his history. It's legal to marry cousins in Japan, and this is the same for both Luou and Miyako, whom the former has always seen the latter as his sole light, a source of encouragement to step out to the outside world and breaking out of his reclused shell, other than just plainly falling in love with her, the same way that Miyako does for Junpei, creating a love triangle that does not actually inch into it, but more of a necessity for each other to break out of their own shells. Truth be told (and going back to the top), while Princess Tutu is shapen to be from the POV of kids (since this nostalgic memorabilia and the manga's age feels that way), George Asakura's version is characterfully driven in a raw, powerful, imaginative and shell-shocking way, all combined into one package that sells ballet in both its good and bad light, with the influence and affluence that comes to signify that this isn't your average child-like ballet fanatic, thrust into an adult world. Not to mention that there's symbolisms in Swan Lake from the characters to the emotions, everything has a purpose and reason of the act, and I think that Junpei, Miyako and Luou perfectly fit that mold in matching Swan Lake with the much-resembled "Romeo and Juliet" style of a tragic expressivo play. MAPPA has always been known for high-quality action, and sometimes taking a radical direction while not losing its ooze, and just like "Yuri!!! On Ice" 5+ years before, Munehisa Sakai and his staff team have done it again in Dance Dance Danseur. There're many core staff in Danseur's production, and they're nothing to scoff at: series composer Yoshimi Narita (helming 3 shows this season: this one, HoneyWorks Heroine and Shikimori), chief animation director and character designer Hitomi Hasegawa (Shingeki no Kyojin), to name a few. And for a ballet show, how can you not have ballet directors to ensure that this show imitates ballet the same as in real life, and the supervision goes to Sayako Abe for doing a great job on this to envision sparkles like Junpei's POV during his ballet dancing stint. It's been a long while since YUKI has performed an Anisong, given that her last stint was with 3-gatsu no Lion a.k.a March Comes in Like a Lion all the way back in 2017, and her OP once again marks a triumphant return to form, that with the stylized OP of Junpei's POV dancing around in school and within the lead of Miyako, is easily one of the most impressive and creatively made OPs of the season. The same can be said for Hitorie's ED, which to go for a theme about crafts, notes, paper cut outs, and biblically accurate ballerinas, it's a near-perfect representation of the life of a ballerina or a Danseur in a traditional "feminine" art of ballet. Great songs across the board, plus their impressive visuals, it's style, but also with form and function. All in all, this does not give me the sense that MAPPA, other than being underpaid and overworked for newer and hyped shows like Jigokuraku: Hell's Paradise or the much acclaimed Chainsaw Man coming soon, couldn't manage other seasonal shows under their belt, but damn, did Dance Dance Danseur proved me otherwise. It's definitely a "sport" category that isn't a sport, but a tapestry of the combination themes of tragedy and ambition on display. It's a visual treat and a sense of humanity to find yourself, and you need not conform to society if what you see and believe is very real, that no one else sees the way like you do.

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