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EP. REVIEW: Dance Dance Danseur


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Danny Fain



Joined: 25 Apr 2022
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 1:33 pm Reply with quote
Loved reading your thoughts, couldn't agree more!
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fausti



Joined: 14 Feb 2008
Posts: 37
PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 2:49 pm Reply with quote
It’s definitely in my list of top shows this season. And the 3rd episode was hard to watch as the bullying got worse.
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scowler



Joined: 30 May 2009
Posts: 92
PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 3:14 pm Reply with quote
It seems Crunchyroll is dubbing in Spanish and Portuguese but not English. I guess the show is a hard sell indeed.

Agree with the review, the OP is terrific in particular.
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Animechic420



Joined: 25 Sep 2012
Posts: 1724
Location: A Cave Filled With Riches
PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 3:59 pm Reply with quote
scowler wrote:
It seems Crunchyroll is dubbing in Spanish and Portuguese but not English. I guess the show is a hard sell indeed.

Agree with the review, the OP is terrific in particular.

Hopefully they’ll dub it in English later?


Last edited by Animechic420 on Mon Apr 25, 2022 7:33 pm; edited 1 time in total
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thadec



Joined: 02 Apr 2022
Posts: 45
PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:49 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Sticking it through this series with Jumpei is difficult because we're used to stories where characters do the right thing, if not right away, then nearly immediately.


In shonen maybe. In seinen not so much. Another thing: "He's being dishonest with himself, flippant with Miyako Godai when he isn't disregarding her support as romantic interest, and is otherwise an all-around little ... Jumpei is a very typical middle school boy."

Neuroscience tells us that female adolescent brains develop faster than males. (Yes, I do mean "on average" so no rejoinders please.) There is a particular difference in brain areas related to the development of verbal and social skills. It could even be extrapolated as to why "most" boys would gravitate to martial arts and soccer rather than dance, and why they resort to fighting and bullying to settle conflicts instead of dialogue. And with females, it could also explain why female bullying is more likely to rely on verbal abuse - as well as social tactics like exclusion - than simple violence.

In other words, since we know - and have for quite some time as these neuroscience studies were done ages ago - why adolescents are the way that they are, why don't we choose to act like it instead of resorting to gendered bashing? After all, I can't imagine this reviewer referring to Usagi from Sailor Moon as "vain, superficial, irrational and irresponsible ... so basically a typical middle school girl." You know, the description that Jack Nicholson's character gave of women in "As Good As It Gets" ... except without the "Melvin is a misanthropic misogynistic racist homophone so his bigoted views are false" angle. The reviewer's "typical middle school boy" description is the same except the reviewer was actually serious.

https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/1380-are-there-any-differences-in-the-development-of-boys-and-girls-brains
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NobaraBG



Joined: 05 Jan 2022
Posts: 15
PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 8:29 pm Reply with quote
I think that's why I do like the show so far...because Jumpei acts very realistically, likeable or not. He's not too perfect. I'm interested in his journey.

Plus the dancing animation is really well-done so far.
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AdamW
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Joined: 05 Jan 2018
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2022 12:15 pm Reply with quote
Really enjoying this show, but I do think Lynzee's being a little harsh on Jumpei. Particularly, I think you have to acknowledge the extent to which he's been dumped on by the adults around him. The weight of his father's and uncle's expectations is obviously super heavy to the character and the show, but on top of that, you have his new dance teacher telling him he can be a great dancer - if he throws everything else away! Wow, that's pretty toxic advice to be giving a middle school kid struggling to figure out who he is and what he's doing. You can be great at this thing you've loved forever but only if you throw away your family and friends? That doesn't exactly make anything easier on the kid, does it?

Additionally, I think the show's very realistic about Jumpei's social group and Luou's bullying - way more so than most fiction, from whatever company. Jumpei is sort of the group's leader, but he isn't really. Even in episode 1, if you're paying attention, the sense is there of him being kind of eternally on trial with them. He has to play off his 540 as a jeet kune do move; there's no trust there. He's constantly performing a role for them, and he's only in the position he's in as long as he keeps performing it. This is made much clearer when he does finally "confess" that he's into ballet: his "friends" don't accept it like it's no big deal the way they would in a more cliched show, they verbally kick him a few times then remove him from their Line chat. It's very clear they are not friends any more. Given this is the position Jumpei is in, what exactly was he supposed to about them bullying Luou? What would have happened if he had "stepped in"? This isn't the kind of show where his "friends" would have seen the error of their ways. They would've kicked Jumpei out and carried right on with the bullying (as would likely happen in real life). Jumpei knows this - he's not an idiot, he understands exactly the life he's built around himself - and that's what he is struggling with, it's not a simple question of "courage" or "cowardice".

To me it's going way too far to call Jumpei a coward. He's just a normal kid, in fact I'd say he's pretty brave for making his decision as relatively early as he does, given the huge stakes for him. Rejecting the work he's done for literally years to build a position where he's somewhat accepted and essentially start over, with people he barely knows, is hardly a small decision. He would have to be some kind of unrealistic hero character from a much less realistic show to have done anything else, and in this show's world (and probably the real world) neither he nor Luou would likely have been rewarded for it.
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thedarkemissary



Joined: 07 Apr 2010
Posts: 88
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2022 8:49 pm Reply with quote
"worst bullying situations I've seen in an anime in a long time"

You didn't see Platinum End or World's End Harem? Hell, half the isekai of the last decade.
Even Jujitsu Kaisen. The bullying there was depicted must worse. Or because it wasn't realistic enough to even consider evaluating? Or because the victim ends up an antisocial loser bent on revenge instead of whatever Luou is? How is this the "worst?"
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2022 1:03 pm Reply with quote
I find it really sad that this show is not getting weekly reviews - despite being on the list of weekly reviews, apparently? I thought it didn't make it, but turns out it did, so I don't quite understand why it's being ignored like this. It's already not a very mainstream show, and at this rate it's going to be completely ignored even though so far it's a fairly good adaptation of a really good manga, and it deserves a ton more attention than it's getting.

Anyway, while there's a lot to like about this anime, I'd just like to enthuse a bit about how absolutely amazing Yamashita Daiki is as Junpei. He's doing such a great job conveying the character, his various moods, his feelings, without hamming it up. His performance enhances the show so much, he's just a joy to listen to.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
Posts: 2930
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2022 1:23 pm Reply with quote
The review is up right now. There wasn't one last week because I was on vacation.
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KitKat1721



Joined: 03 Feb 2015
Posts: 952
PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2022 5:33 pm Reply with quote
This show impressed me from the get-go even with it's pretty run of the mill, standard jumping off point that's present in a lot of these sports/hobby series - a gorgeous production and exploring expectations when it comes to masculinity really sold it. But by five episodes in, it's got to be my favorite of the season (maybe next to Spy x Family). I hope it gains more of an audience as it goes on, especially those who previously wrote it off after laughing at how long the characters' necks are.
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BGMaxie



Joined: 28 Nov 2009
Posts: 63
PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2022 8:32 pm Reply with quote
Kill. Him. Now!!

That phrase along with the expressions that came with it, was the cherry on the cake.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Sun May 15, 2022 3:20 pm Reply with quote
No comment other than omg they managed to get the actual music from The Piano! A huuuge thumbs-up to whoever insisted on having it, and then whoever arranged it. I know it's relatively famous as far as soundtracks go, but it's such a beautiful piece of music (on a really beautiful soundtrack by one of my favorite modern composers, for a really beautiful movie). Small things like this add so much to this show, makes it clear that the people behind it are in fact invested in the material and in creating a good adaptation, instead of either just slapping color on images and pushing them on screen, or screaming "listen to MY song" and ignoring the source.
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Ruddor



Joined: 20 Apr 2016
Posts: 50
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 6:45 pm Reply with quote
Just want to point out that the manga author is actually a woman and George Asakura is merely a pen name. She's also created quite a few shoujo series.
Just in case anyone is curious.
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Regalli



Joined: 26 Apr 2022
Posts: 105
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 8:53 pm Reply with quote
I’d really like to see some elaboration on that line Miyako had a few episodes back about how her mom’s ‘nearly given up on’ her as a student. Is that about the intense competition among female ballerinas compared to male ones who might want to go pro, because there are so many female hopefuls? About her technical skills, in a way that might explain why Chizuru paired her with Jumpei for the festival rather than the much-more-technically-proficient Luou? Might we actually touch on the ways ballet affects your body’s development with a hint of criticism, or how the narrow ideal body types for classical ballet (and I mean narrow - consider LUOU says in this episode he doesn’t have the right body for it and had to overcome that through brutal abusive training while performing 180 degree splits) and pressure to keep weight down means eating disorders are endemic among serious dancers? There are plenty of ways they could go somewhere interesting with her, and I just hope the series chooses to give her the same depth as the boys, if only later on in the manga than this will adapt.
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