Ladies and gentleman, this episode of Dance Dance Danseur might just be my episode of the season. There’s so much love here and we have so little time to talk about it, so lets just jump right into it!
Obviously the first thing we need to talk about is that beautiful performance. Danseur really came out swinging this week with this rendition of Swan Lake. Not in terms of animation sadly, we haven’t gotten much 2D ballet work since Luou’s gym performance in episode 3. Instead MAPPA used CGI for all of those scenes this week, and it was painfully obvious. They stuck out like a sore thumb anytime Danseur switched to a wide shot with multiple characters and complex movement. It’s a shame, definitely the low point of the episode. But even with those, what stuck in my head after watching wasn’t the CGI models. Instead it was all of the beautifully lit and detailed still frames. The expressions on Jumpei, Miyako and Luou’s faces throughout, and prior to, the performance. Or the incredibly framed full-body posing with extreme lighting and camera angles. These were all fantastic.
Moving on to the actual narrative stuff, I was surprised! I wasn’t expecting to get to the Swan Lake performance this quickly. Kinda thought that the performance would be the capstone, the finale for the season. That we would spend the entire cour building up to it in a classic Shounen style “Jumpei takes MVP from Luou” story. Instead we get it now, in episode 5, not even halfway through the show. And I couldn’t be happier! This gives Danseur a lot more freedom than I was expecting it to have. Allowing Jumpei and Luou’s dynamic to continue at this brisk pace that I honestly didn’t think it could keep up. Just goes to show that, despite last weeks conversation in the comments, my expectations still swung to far towards Shounen and not enough towards Seinen or Shoujo.
As for the performance itself, and the narrative surrounding that, it was stellar. I loved watching Jumpei fall in love with being on stage, with ballet, all over again. That desire, that passion, of wanting to dance more and more. I love passionate characters like that. And the cool thing about it is that we see that passion come through in his ballet, even while his technical skills fail. He doesn’t have all the basics drilled into his muscle memory, he isn’t a technical phenom. But what he does have is the physical ability to just barely keep up and the passion to fully immerse himself in his character. To find the bits that resonate with himself and bring that to the forefront of his performance, as we see with his desire for Miyako/Odette and his challenge to Luou/Rothbart.
Compare that to the aforementioned Luou. Someone who seems to have all the technical skill in the world but none of the passion. Yes, in the two performances we have seen from him thus far it was there. Both his gym routine and his performance as Rothbart were filled with passion, either screaming out who he was or fighting back against Jumpei. But judging by both Miyako and Godai’s reactions, those two events were very out of character for him. Combine that with his problematic past and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he isn’t normally this expressive, that he has lacked a passion for ballet until now. Only gaining one after Jumpei’s entry into his life. Simply put, it seems like both leads have something the other lacks. Either the technical skill to reach greater heights or the love and passion to required to become great.
Danseur didn’t stop at just showing us how a performance can affect those on stage however. It also gave us another look beyond it. This isn’t the first time that’s happened, we saw it with both Luou and Jumpei as well. But now we get to see it through Hyou, someone who has historically been… well, the very image of toxic masculinity that Jumpei has been trying to escape from. And I love it! I’m so glad that Hyou is a continued presence in Danseur. Myself, and others, were afraid that he would disappear after the bullying stuff and it would no longer be relevant. So to seem him return, to see his once good friend throw himself into his passion with abandon, and be moved by it? That’s touching. I can only hope we see him pursue his own passion of drumming that was mentioned before as Danseur continues.
Next we have Miyako. Miyako didn’t get to do much this episode sadly, as it mostly revolved around Jumpei and Luou. But the first half of the episode did succeed in selling me on her romance with Jumpei. Or at least the possibility of a romance, assuming they get that far and it’s not just a childlike infatuation. The way Danseur is slowly building it up through these small moments together, such as guiding her down the hallway so her makeup doesn’t smudge or Jumpei being the first guy to look at her that way, feels really natural. This isn’t some spontaneous thing, it’s occurring gradually and allows them to become close friends just as much as it may lovers. On top of that she, quite simply, looked beautiful this week. The lighting, makeup and detailed faces in the first half made her look gorgeous.
My only disappointment with the episode, and it’s a small one, is that Jumpei got off scot-free with basically hijacking the performance. Sure, its a sort of trope that characters get away with these things. And yes Godai got what she wanted out of both of them, Luou opening up and Jumpei falling even deeper in love with Ballet. On top of that she even got what I would deem was a successful performance. But, and this is the “its anime not real life” bit, in reality this would simply not be ok. I’m hoping for a little bit of recognition of that next week when we see the aftermath of this ballet. Maybe Godai punishes him in some way, or uses this as an excuse to force him into stricter training. I dunno! I just want some kind of consequences for effectively stealing the show.
Finally I want to talk about what is to come. At the end of the episode we get this ominous pan to one of the judges. We don’t know who she is, or anything about her really. But from her one line we can tell she’s clearly not a fan of our leads. Which one though is up in the air. Does she see the latent potential in Jumpei, the way he throws himself body and soul into ballet? Or does she consider him nothing more than a low-brow monkey who doesn’t deserve to dance while the real prize is Luou? I’m not sure. Either of those could be interesting threads to follow if done well, and I trust Danseur to do that at this point. Personally though I would hope its the former, as I’m a bit tired of the latter’s trope at this point.
Anyways when all is said and done I would call this episode of Danseur a rousing success. I absolutely loved the performance, despite the poor CGI, and I’m really looking forward to what is to come. Danseur continues to be my Anime of the Season and it’s episodes like this that I will point to when writing my final review of how great this show can be. Now to just hope MAPPA doesn’t destroy it and Danseur doesn’t go into some kind of unexplainable tailspin.
I definitely think that it was the sharp direction that lifted up the ballet sequence later on in this episode.
I also like how this series gradually carefully takes its time with its story aswell.