Welcome everyone to week 3 of Dance Dance Danseur! This one is simultaneously the most interesting, and concerning, episode yet. Why? Well lets jump in and find out!
Now normally I start these posts talking about the production, but you know what Danseur looks like. It looks good! So instead lets skip straight into what happened this week: Bullying. Conceptually I rather like it. This episode went all in on Jumpei struggling with being “cool”, being “masculine”, and that’s exactly what I wanted from Danseur. Not just some glossed over “I dance, everyone is cool with it”, but an actual full on look as to why Jumpei feels this way. Why he’s concerned and insecure about it and why there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. And I got that! By the end, Jumpei has started down that road. He has begun to figure out that being a “man” isn’t about being a fighter or whatever. It’s about being true to yourself and your beliefs. The only concerning thing about it is how Danseur got there.
To say it clearly, I’m torn on the portrayal of bullying in Danseur this week. At times it felt rushed, hamfisted, and a tad overdone. It was very “in your face” and Jumpei’s friends didn’t really have much subtly to them. They just came off as bad people. Yet at the same time I think it was a great example of the bystander effect. Jumpei himself was never an active participant in the bullying. He didn’t approve of it, but he never moved in to stop it either. And in some ways, such as telling Hyou he didn’t like Luou, he tacitly approved of it. And when you consider that indecisiveness is a core part of his character, established with the Soccer/Jeet Kun do/Ballet conflict, and it makes perfect sense. You are not supposed to be on Jumpei’s side, you are meant to be disappointed in him.
Looking at it in this way, I can understand some of the more extreme reactions I’ve seen about it. This was a sequence designed to make the viewer uncomfortable. Just like it made Jumpei uncomfortable. And for some, they may find Jumpei’s lack of action, his tacit acceptance, unacceptable. I know when I first finished the episode I was rather annoyed at the whole thing and it was only through conversation with some friends that I came around on it. I think what’s going to make or break this sequence as Danseur goes on though is how the consequences of it reverberate throughout the season. If this entire thread just gets dropped like a cold turkey, never to be mentioned again? Well then it was unnecessarily blunt. But if Hyou continues to interact with Jumpei? If this challenge regarding social status and his peers continues on? It could be great.
Moving on, we learn a decent bit about Luou in the process of all of this to. Not as much as I would like, as the bullying was presented more for Jumpei’s sake than Luou’s, but enough to educate us. For instance we learn he can’t, or perhaps refuses, to read Kanji and interact or do math in class. Meanwhile his English is even better than the teachers. All this telling us he grew up mostly overseas. We also see more of the effects this abusive upbringing, his father apparently being someone other than his mother’s husband, had on him as he flinches at any violence and is seemingly to scared to fight back. Learning this begs the question though: Why did Luou return to school and put up with all the bullying? Is this part of the mothers deal? Or is it more for Jumpei?
Oh and silly me, I almost forgot to mention the dance! This was definitely the animation highlight for the episode. And look, I get it, the dance was beautiful. Really well animated, the movements were smooth, I love what Danseur is doing here. I’m all for some cheesy sentimentalism. Luou was expressing himself on stage, showing the school who he really is, his only way of fighting back against the bullying. But it was also just so… cheesy. Why would Luou just start dancing after being forced on stage, humiliated in front of the school? I understand why Danseur wanted him to do it. It was the inspiration, the show of strength and passion, that Jumpei needed to get moving. And once you get over the little awkward hump of “why” it works fine. I just… I’m a bit obsessed with that hump is all.
Finally, though I have mentioned him throughout the post, its time to really talk about Jumpei. I’ve already said it but ill do it again, I liked what Danseur did this week. It didn’t just gloss over Jumpei’s issue regarding masculinity and “being cool”. It really dived in to why he thinks this way, how his relationships and his respect for his deceased father influence him, both positively and negatively. He isn’t some white knight, he didn’t immediately know the right thing to do, even after his revelation he’s still kind of a dick has his hangups. And most of all? I like that, despite his dislike of him, Luou became a source of inspiration for Jumpei. Here is someone that, for all of his issues, is honest with himself and what he loves. Something Jumpei hasn’t been able to be. I thought that was well done.
All in all, a good episode of Dance Dance Danseur. I think it’s treading a dangerous line with its portrayal of bullying and abuse, kind of like how 2.43 Volley Bu did a while ago. And I don’t blame anyone for disliking or being concerned with how Danseur handled, or will moving forward. But assuming it doesn’t just go away, that this continues to be a reoccurring thing that Jumpei has to work through, I think it will wind up in a much better place than Volley Bu did. What’s important is that a show shows respect to the subject matter, that it doesn’t just ignore it or blow over it like it doesn’t matter. And I think Danseur did that with how clearly it wanted us to be disappointed in Jumpei’s actions, even if it did it in a cheesy way. So yeah, good week.
I feel that the bullies/his friends and their actions are a good indication of the kind of masculinity he should divorce himself from being around. Hope that makes sense.
It totally does to me. It just took me some long conversations with friends to really sort it out, because its such a touchy subject.
“Why would Luou just start dancing after being forced on stage, humiliated in front of the school?” – Because this is the only way he can say “f*ck you”. Like Miyako said, Luou has only ballet, and this is true in more ways than one. He’s socially awkward, he can’t fight back when he’s being bullied, he can’t stand up for himself. He can’t even read kanji (he actually can’t, as pointed out in the episode he can’t even write his own name properly so he defaults to hiragana) which makes him even more of an outsider. The only thing he can do is ballet, but that’s something he knows he can do better than anyone, something that’s more important to him than anything the bullies can do. So when they put him in a girl’s uniform and push him to the stage to mock him for his mother, he basically says “actually? I’m doing my own thing and don’t give a flying squirrel about what you think about me.”
Without any spoilers, Luou is kind of an eccentric for very good reasons that will be revealed later on.
I hope so!
I tried to make it clear that I did like the episode, it just took a lot of discussion and reflection on it to really reach that point, regarding its handling of bullying and some of the more… in your face moments. They are things that, imo, require explanation, justification or simply more content later on in the story where as stuff like why the rest of the class went along with it (Bystander Effect) really don’t.
So yeah long story short for the whole post: Good ep, walking a tight rope regarding how touchy of a subject this is.