Ballroom e Youkoso

[MFauli]

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A professional dancer named Sengoku rescues Tatara, an introverted third-year middle school student who is being harassed by delinquents. Tatara ends up at Sengoku's dance studio where he meets Shizuku Hanaoka, a schoolmate he comes to secretly idolize. From this defining moment when Tatara enters the world of dance. Sengoku is a free-spirited, dynamic international dancer who recognizes Tatara's potential and begins to coach him. Through dance, Tatara meets another schoolmate, a dance prodigy named Kiyoharu. Through these new friendships, Tatara develops a passionate desire to improve as a dancer and be accepted by his peers and rivals, which nurtures his own native talent. And through interaction with Tatara, other dance members are encouraged to take steps to overcome their own challenges and issues

Episode 1 is out
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Imo the best new anime of this season, and clearly so.
I enjoyed this from beginning to end. It nicely combines aspects of the dancing-theme with slice of life and features a sympathetic, likable charme like Haikyuu had. The artstyle is fairly standard, but detailed where it needs to be.
Tatara, the main character (lol, I keep reading his name like Steins;Gate´s "Tuturu!"), is a jolly-good hero. In terms of dancing, he seems to be a nice mix of hard-worker and talented, which makes me like him even more. After all, a bit of talent is surely needed if you want to become a pro, but putting in a lot of work, too, helps to diminish any potential arrogance.

Super-looking forward to ep 2. The dancing teacher gives off a bit of Almight-vibes, lol.

Also, Shizuku is the hottest girl of the season. She´s mine. You guys pick someone else!

[KrayZ33]

Yeah, looks great.

Even though the "overnight" training was a bit over the top.
The artstyle is pretty, but they could've gone with necks that aren't 3 feet long in some of those shots.


I like it so far however, dancing is pretty badass, at least some of the dances I've seen are. And fucking difficult too.

[Ryllharu]

Yeah, I think I can agree this is the most promising show so far this season, out of left field.

They could have done a shitty job of it, but they gave it to the right staff, clearly. It looks like it came from the full staff of Death Parade. Immediately reminded me of the ice skating episode of that.

I like the art style. It's exaggerated, like xxxHolic, mixed with Baccano, which had the same character designer. It conveys movement really, really well. Awkward actions look way worse, and smooth or controlled motions look immediately deliberate, refined, and elegant. It's a neat affect with animation that you only notice in series like this or xxxHolic. I hope they keep it up.

Good mix of humor too.

And I still see a dog face and Rem sig...looks like Shizuku is still up for grabs to me...

[Buffalobiian]

HAHAHA those backbreaking shots look ridiculous.

But yeah, otherwise pretty good stuff. I could do with another sports anime again.

[Ryllharu]

HAHAHA those backbreaking shots look ridiculous.

Stranger than fiction!

[Buffalobiian]

Stranger than fiction!

Hah, not quite. Comparing both anime and real life footage, the angle of bend in the females are comparable (in standard poses), but what sets the anime apart is the (wrong) body proportion. Having a longer thorax makes those back bends much less human-looking.

Cool footage nonetheless.

[MasterOfMoogles]

I'm definitely ready for shounen sports style ballroom dancing.

[David75]

Chara design felt a little like haikyu. Probably because of Sengoku.

[KrayZ33]

Ep2 was way more goofy than it should've been imho.

[Munsu]

Just watched the first two episodes and was much better than I expected. Wouldn't go as far as call it best anime of the season and what not, but a very good watch so far. Looking forward to the rest.

[MFauli]

Curious: What *would* you call best of season so far?

@episode 2:

Enjoyed it greatly. God, I could watch this anime hours at a time. It´s just so enjoyable and interesting. We even got a decent fan-service scene with Shizuku, and I really liked the line "You have to steal her away from him", haha.

[Munsu]

Curious: What *would* you call best of season so far?

Princess Principal is the one I'm enjoying the most right now. Classroom of the Elite has potential for me as well.

[neflight86]

First episode especially, I'm getting heavy Hajime no Ippo vibes from this, and comparing to HNI is never a bad thing in my book.

[MFauli]

Btw one point of criticism I have to mention: The EYES of the characters often times make them look like complete psychos. Especially the hero, who always has his eyes wiiiiiiide open, as if in permanent shock. Kinda dumb.

[Buffalobiian]

Ironically, Shizuku's changing-booth scene is the least titillating when compared to everything else.

I'm entirely okay with the occasional goofiness. What has me guessing is how the dynamics will work out between the MC, Shizuku and genius guy. He's essentially "borrowing" Shizuku for competitions since she's already taken. A new partner would solve that issue in once sense, but needlessly risk a love rectangle which I won't be particularly fond of.

[MFauli]

I guess genius guy will eventually get a new partner. However, not because Tatara is stealing Shizuku away from him, but because the new partner is simply more skilled than Shizuku. That would put the, up to now, so elegant and masterful Shizuku in a directly competitive situation, where she´d naturally force Tatara to improve so she can show genius guy how skilled she really is.

That would also fit with the current love-situation, which I wouldn´t call a triangle yet. Tatara likes Shizuku. Shizuku like genius guy. The end.

[Ryllharu]

I think it is more of Hyoudou doesn't want to study abroad, Shizuku absolutely does, and Tatara is probably willing, as long as he trains up to meet her skill, and his father doesn't have to pay for it.

[Munsu]

I think it is more of Hyoudou doesn't want to study abroad, Shizuku absolutely does, and Tatara is probably willing, as long as he trains up to meet her skill, and his father doesn't have to pay for it.

Does she actually want to go to study abroad? The gist I got from the story was that she was going to study abroad for his sake. And certainly I agree that he doesn't want to go abroad.

So the question is then, if they're no longer partners if it eventually happens, would the interest of studying abroad remain? It could be I guess, but doesn't seem to be the current motivation.

[MFauli]

episode 3 is out
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fantastic episode. the pacing is perfect, lots of stuff happening and progressing without it feeling rushed. Was Hyodo really pushed down the stairs by the gorilla? It looks the case, but they made it a point not to show it. Hm.
Tatara dancing was nice, although I hope they score low. Come on, you shouldn´t score high when you start late and keep interrupting the flow. It´d be nice if they lost BUT got a score close to the other competitors, thus everyone being in awe of Tatara for managing such a feat without any experience and real training.

Also Shizuku-fanservice. <3 Although the teacher probably shouldn´t rip off the clothings of an underage girl, lol.

[Ryllharu]

I think it was more that Tatara didn't completely fuck up that surprised them. He was mimicking Hyoudou's choreography so that Shizuku naturally fell into pace, and matched the rhythm well enough to improvise in ways that were appropriate.

They should score low, totally agree there, and they will, especially because they fell at the end.