Dancing wasn’t bad enough by itself, so they made it so you can lose at dancing.
As my regular readers know, I can’t stand sports anime. And this was no exception. I was hopeful at the start since it’s a highly non-typical sport, and it began with more of a character focus. But nope. It quickly turned to training arcs and endless, endless dancing competitions.
I was quickly bored out of my mind. I ended up specifically reserving this anime to “watch” while I folded my laundry.
Let me just add that the dancing parts especially sucked. They’re dancing and talking about how important it is to dance in time with the music. And then they play some crappy generic non-dancing anime music? Like, come on…
I’d heard that this was adapted due to the success of Yuri on Ice. But clearly the people behind this learned absolutely nothing from Yuri on Ice. In Yuri on Ice, all the characters had so much passion! It told more about its side characters in a ten second shot than Welcome to the Ballroom told about its main character in 24 episodes. And the dancing scenes! Yuri on Ice had so much dynamism and fluidity, all in time with music that was actually interesting! While Welcome to the Ballroom all the dances consisted of still shots of people looking tired with a musical accompaniment of soulless drivel. Ugh. And I’d heard that the Welcome to the Ballroom manga was good too. But what a terrible anime.
- Storytelling – D – Why does anyone care about this dumb sport…
- Voice – C – I guess the faces are different at least.
- Characters – D – Main character was awful.
- Attention Grab – F – Bored out of my mind.
- Production – C – Looks ok, terrible music, especially given the opportunity.
- Overall – D-
Recommendations – Yuri on Ice
I hated this show through its first half, but I really liked Chinatsu, the hero’s partner in the second half. She wasn’t enough to make the show great, but she at least validated my decision to watch it. The gender politics of their relationship – and the roles of men and women in competitive dance – made the pretty horrendous dance animation bearable.
Yeah, I had lost most of my interest by then so it was too late, but definitely she was one of the show’s highlights.
Out of all of the anime that came out this season. Summer was the best in the bunch.
Ugh, they really did botch the dancing scenes beyond what I could have imagined. I was so hopeful that we’d have a worthy example of just how wonderful ballroom dancing can be, not a story that probably convinced most of its viewers that they should stay away from the art. After KWoo and I finished the last episode, I showed him a scene from Yuri on Ice and he was stunned at the choreography. THIS IS WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED IN BALLROOM.
I was convinced to stay away from the art 🙁 Ok although to be honest I was already convinced before watching the anime