This Week in Anime

Whatever Happened to Welcome to the Ballroom?

Jacob

I just, I don't know what to make of this show anymore Nicholas.

Tatara is having such a fantastic time with all his new friends and rivals...

But seriously, I take no joy in beating up on Ballroom. The show needs friends; it would already be considered a bomb in Japan if they had committed to 12 episodes much less 25, yikes. There are several things I like about the show! I've never had a problem with the character designs, I like how their weird poses and expressions spice up every shot.

The show's face-game is on point, and I will hear nothing to the contrary.

But for the most part, boy does this show just not want to let me like it. Or let any of its characters like each other for that matter, and that's Ballroom's biggest problem in a sea of problems. Every interaction between friend or foe is just like....abject pointless cruelty. Sometimes it's supposed to be funny, sometimes it's supposed to be dramatic, but it's just everybody at each other's throats all the damn time.

That is actually the friendliest they've ever been with one another. This is right after they've (kinda) made up.

You can discuss the merits or detriments of the weird anatomy all day, or the strange pacing and surprisingly minimal animation during dance sequences (and failure to use actual ballroom dance music, another huge issue), but the constant animosity between the characters is, more than anything, what I think has been pushing people away from this show.

Yeah, poor Mako got shuffled out of the story pretty quickly after that, so there was little room for closure. The major reason I wanted to talk about Ballroom has been because of what came after, its main plotline and central relationship, the thing that fans of the source material claimed would instantly improve the show: the coupling of Tatara with his new partner, Chinatsu.

Somehow it made the show worse instead.

Chinatsu's entire motivation is to beat her former partner and rub it in her face, because female friends hate each other just like everyone else in Ballroom.

At child competition levels, there are more girls in ballroom dance than guys, so young women are often paired together. Chinatsu was always given the male part and therefore doesn't know how to follow so good, while her ex has flourished in her gender-matched role. So Chinatsu partners with Tatara because he's available (she's alienated most other guys), but they're an absolutely awful duo and they know it.

So here's where I'm thinking "Oh, people were excited for Chinatsu because she represents a shakeup in this show's odd gender politics. These two will have to learn to work together as equals." But it turns out to be the exact opposite scenario. Tatara needs to cowboy up, and Chinatsu needs to be tamed. She even wants to be tamed, as made evident by her overbearingly tsundere attitude toward her milquetoast new partner, where she literally says he isn't aggressive enough for her, and being considerate isn't her thing. Tatara needs to be more manly. Chinatsu needs to be more feminine. Those are the lessons they're going to learn. And honestly, the most bothersome part of this isn't that it's grossly sexist or anything (although it's certainly that as well). It's that it's such a boring conclusion. The show is romanticizing relationship dynamics that are decades out of date even in Japan. It's celebrating conformity to something that most people (thankfully) don't even expect from a partner anymore.

Well, I'm not sure that's entirely fair. There are differences in their dynamic from the norm, and some of them are good. (That's why the competition's judges call it "revolutionary" even if I think that's a big fat stretch.) After all the constant sniping, casual violence, and eventual acceptance that Tatara is never going to be a very strong leader or Chinatsu a very cooperative follower, they do reach a happy medium as "equals" in one of the show's nicest visual metaphors.

The problem is HOW they reach this position as equals, and what "equal" really means in Ballroom. It means "separate but equal", along arbitrary gender lines that don't match these two's obvious strengths as a (slightly) masculine girl and a (slightly) feminine guy. (Because apparently even those slightlies are too much for this story not to obsess over.) The short version is that the show is using ballroom dance as a metaphor for extremely old-ass canards about matrimony as a "can't live with it/can't live without it" hellish ride where women and men are never expected to communicate directly, which is what makes romance "exciting". (Any relationship expert will tell you this is bullshit for an ocean of reasons.) Every time Chinatsu and Tatara attempt trust-building exercises or express their honest feelings, the results are bad. Every time they split up to talk to members of their own sex about what to do, or just work things out by forcing their wills on one another on the dance floor, the results are good.

The show is comparing a relationship as a pair of athletes to prehistoric ideas of courtship and I'm over here like

Right, he's saying Chinatsu has a handicap because she's experienced the power of being the lead in a couple for so long, when in reality, this additional context and experience would be a strength not a weakness. That's the other biggest problem with this characterization. Ignoring how sexist it does or doesn't strike you, it's just plain not accurate to how ballroom dancing really works.

Yeah, that's all false. It's based on a gross oversimplification of dancesport judging that completely ignores the necessity of chemistry and communication for success, regardless of which partner is more skilled. I know this only because a host of real ballroom dancers on social media have angrily explained it at length. But that emphasis on practice and preparation and diversity in partner styles would contradict Ballroom's love affair with the idea of improvised power plays on the show floor, "taming" or "tricking" your partner into doing what you want in the moment, as an analogy for the highs of a heteronormative romance in its early stages. I get the desire to inject the show with drama, all sports anime need the tension of not having any idea how the game's gonna go until it's showtime, but there had to be a better way to do this than completely betraying the reality of how partner dynamics work in the sport your entire show is about.

How would this dynamic even work in competition? It wouldn't! There's no way to practice or get better at this kind of indescribable power struggle, because that's not how sports or performance arts work.

Oh yeah. Even talking about stuff I like about the show is a double-edged sword, because Kugimiya is supposed to be the baddie that Tatara is going to overcome at the end of this season and he's my favorite character. Kugimiya is the only one so far to get me to like really feel a thing. I actually like the guy!

I mean, I think not dancing would have been even worse for him. The reason I like Kugimiya is because even though he's a cold dead-eyed asshole, he was basically raised to be that way by his horrible tiger parents, and dance is the only thing that lets him confront that anxiety and fight it. I mean yeah, the guy needs therapy not more dance lessons, but it's better than nothing.

I guess there's still something inspiring about seeing him take on this thing that he's not naturally talented at, something that truly scares him, and saying "you won't get me today." He faces the darkness inside him for recreation, and it's made him stronger.

It's still extremely fucked up, but at least it's interesting, which is a nice contrast from the more boring hetero-tyranny of Ballroom's character dynamics.

Yeah for sure. I guess I'm looking for kernels of excitement in a predominantly dispiriting experience that I never expected to be so harsh. Dancesport is soul-crushing apparently!

Yeah. After all their training, trials, and tribulations, the uplifting message we're supposed to take away from their bond is that they'll never really understand each other, so they shouldn't even try.

All men and women (erm "dance partners") can really do is try to control each other in a language they think the other will understand, and that's where the excitement of romance (and dancing) comes from. That's what Sengoku leaves them with, and they believe him. (And their chode-ass absentee coach isn't even watching them dance, he just lies and says he's watching, god he's the worst--anyway.)

Then they blossom into a BEAUTIFUL BODY HORROR METAPHOR FOR HETERONORMATIVITY

Thank god I'm gay. Another reason Kugimiya is the best:

Hey, cheer up! When Tatara and Chinatsu win, we can take solace in the fact that they'll associate victory with playing horrible mindgames with each other instead of working honestly as a team, and when Kugimiya loses, he'll probably put himself right back in the hospital!

LOL

I guess that's Ballroom's version of the Sunken Place. I'm disappointed it ended up there, but I'm gonna be glad to get out.