If everyone is always questioning themselves, then why do they feel bad for doing it? Crippling anxiety is totally relatable for pretty much everyone I know. Which is why it is both so common as a manga plot driver and weird that it's a real thing that we feel bad about in life.

In Wandance Volume 1, we met Kabo, whose stuttering takes a lot of the energy he needs to just *be*. We all know how hard high school is, and we're instantly sympathetic. Kabo seems like a nice kid, but it's just too hard for him to keep up with conversation, so he watches other people being social, while folding in on himself, like a flattened origami. In Volumes 2 and 3, having joined the school dance club because Wanda has, Kabo is going to find himself, and find that when he opens up, he's a goddamn beautiful thing.

Wanda is a mystery in that she is not mysterious at all. She says what she wants to say, does what she wants to do, and does not apparently care much if she is liked or not. Kabo finds it hard to trust, but over and over again, Wanda is there for him and committed to dancing with him. Which makes him want to excel for both their sakes.

The school dance club faces its first competition, and both Wanda and Kabo have been chosen to perform. We know how this story goes from scores of manga. Kabo and Wanda will endure humiliation, and the team will lose, but then they will go on to regain their power, right? No, not here. Kabo and Wanda will help their school dominate the competition, and they…win.

With newfound confidence and a few personal failures to give them some room for growth, the team is headed into a whole new world of dance battles. Less choreography, more improv, and the traditional tougher opponents. But getting better is merely a side quest. This manga is about feeling the music and enjoying the movement.

There is a lot of time for both character development, including time spent with other members of the club. Kabo finally meets the other guy in the club and is handily defeated in an impromptu dance battle. One of the other dancers asks why she wasn't chosen and is told the truth, which frees her to set her ego aside.

These kids seem nice, and you want them to do well. But even more importantly, you want to see them do well. The art in this series is dynamic, emphasizing a blur of bodies in motion. The impression is almost surreal a times, as we're seeing fast motion in blurred speed, but captured in a single frame. There's something almost Dali-esque about the panels of dance. I genuinely loved how Coffee allowed the dance to fill multiple panels across pages, as if we were actually watching the dance. It is a testament to the overwhelming energy of these panels that I could not sit still while reading. I literally had to be in motion while reading this manga. Coffee also provides the soundtrack to each dance for folks who want to try and move to the same beat to which Kabo, Wanda, On-chan, and the other characters are dancing.

I also want to spend a few sentences calling out the t-shirts. I'm not mocking these when I say that I have no idea if the typography on the t-shirts is original to the art (except in one magnificent case, in which a character wears a shirt that shows and labels a “cut line” where one might cut a bag open with a scissor), but the typography is not always sensible. The combination of random English and odd font and spacing choices made every shirt a delight to the senses. If you enjoy walking through Japanese clothing stores for the random use of non-Japanese languages on clothing, as I very much do, you will marvel at some of these looks. I think I want that “cut line” shirt, for real.

Because we are following Kabo as he learns the techniques of dance, and the differences between waacking, breakdancing, house, and other styles, this manga is firmly in the world of “explainer” manga, which is always fun. I'm no dancer, so this whole world is as new to me as it is to Kabo. This manga is also a rather standard bildungsroman, as by Volume 3, Kabo has left the self he was at the beginning far enough behind that even he can see that his body, his mind, and even his speech have all changed. Interestingly, in Volume 2's author noted, Coffee mentions that they have a stutter, and this manga is the only good thing that came from it. Clearly, this manga is their way of working through it.

Along with Kabo's evolution, I hope the story will take some time and give us a more in-depth look at Wanda. Right now, she's mostly Kabo's muse, and I'd very much like to see her fleshed out into a more three-dimensional character.

Overall, Wandance is a high-energy competitive activity manga utilizing the world of dance in an effective and mesmerizing way. I'm looking forward to reading more.