Hello, and welcome to another week of Dance Dance Danseur! This is an odd episode if I’m being honest. There are scenes I really like, but also ones I find really concerning. Which is which? Lets jump in and find out!
So if I’m being honest, visually, this episode looked pretty rough. There were a few good shots with Natsuki practicing alone, and her jump/dance with Jumpei in the second half was fine. But by and large the episode relied on static models and flashy post-processing backgrounds rather than smooth or intricate character animation. There simply wasn’t much impressive going on! And beyond that? I think the episode was kind of a mess. Characters had rough, imprecise linework all over the place. It felt like we were zoomed in on wide-shot low-detail versions of the designs. I’m all for rough, thick linework. But that’s not Danseur, that isn’t a stylistic choice. It’s just evidence of MAPPA Melt starting to set in.
Moving on to the actual story, lets jump straight to the big one: Jumpei and romance. This is… odd. I really like him and Miyako getting together! It’s really nice that they actually confessed instead of doing this “will they, won’t they” dance that is the entire Romance genre of anime. I wasn’t expecting it and I think it opens up a lot of cute, and challenging, arcs. My only concern about it is Misaki and the whole thing about “Girls like her just need a push”. It comes off as a little… well, forceful, if I’m being honest. Now I’m willing to chalk this up to a translation issue, because Jumpei backed off when Miyako was denying it and I know that someone has to make a first move. That’s just relationships. They make a cute couple. I just understand anyone who didn’t like it.
Where it gets really weird though is when you introduce Natsuki. Let’s not dance around it, she’s a 6th grader being portrayed as a romantic partner for our lead. Now yes, Jumpei is only 14, so that puts the age difference at like… 2, maybe 3 years at most. So it isn’t weird for the characters. But I do think it weird in how it is presented to the viewers, who are most certainly not 14. The whole “nipples” gag before her scene, the blushing, the late night phone checks. Is this an actual romantic competitor? Or is it more of a “Respect her for her skills” kind of infatuation? I don’t know, and I find it hard to properly explain why it feels weird to me, but it does. Maybe it’s because the characters are drawn more like highschoolers in their physique? I don’t know. What are your thoughts about it?
Speaking of nipples, lets talk about that joke. This was part of what fed into the weird tone of the episode for me. I appreciate Danseur’s restraint to not actually draw the nipples, I do! From what I have been told the same can’t be said for the manga. Apparently that made a lot of references to Miyako being flat, fully drawn nipples and even a dick outline I think. That makes the scene a lot more tasteful and more poking fun at Jumpei’s own inexperience in the ballet world than titillating for the viewer. I just kind of wish we could have found another way to do it that doesn’t involve jokes about prepubescent nipples, you know? Whatever the case, the fact that the episode opened on this before leading in to a romance with a 6th grader definitely set the tone for the episode.
Finally, lets talk about Luou! I don’t know if its just because it wasn’t as deftly handled, or if it’s just gotten to be too much, but his backstory with his grandmother is starting to get laid on thick. I know it’s important, I really do! And bringing it up here matters. Danseur is slowly isolating Luou, what with Jumpei taking Miyako from him, at least as he sees it, and not fitting in at highschool. I think that’s going to be important for the finale where I wager we will meet her. It feels to me however that Danseur hasn’t been able to handle this as deftly as it has Jumpei and his toxic masculinity. I understand, trauma is hard to write. And I imagine there are some adaptation issues condensing the whole arc to 11 episodes. But that doesn’t change that cracks are starting to show.
So yeah, all in all I think this was a decent episode of Danseur brought low by some questionable production and adaptation woes. It feels like some threads are more important than others, like Miyako and Jumpei, or Natsuki, while others are getting relegated less time than they need to truly thrive, like Luou. Maybe another episode would fix this, I can’t know until we see the conclusion of the arc. Whatever the case, after the visual and narrative highs of last week I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. Hopefully this is just a blip on Danseur’s road to an incredible finale. Only time will tell.
Re: nipples/etc., have you seen the scene in the manga? Because it’s not titillating whatsoever! All it shows is a random torso with prominent nipples. Like, this is it, this is all: https://i.imgur.com/ce2DzPH.png
(Also, I don’t remember dick outlines at all, but that might be just my memory.) It’s fully played for a joke, poking fun at Junpei’s inexperience with the less glamorous aspects of ballet, and his troubles dealing with the situation of being a hormonal teenager in very close physical contact with the girl he fancies, who is also wearing a rather revealing outfit. I mean, that IS a thing that I like about this story, that it’s not sugarcoating many things that normally get sugarcoated or handwaved away in similar works.
As for the “need a little push” thing, that’s not how I necessarily would’ve put it but it IS unsavory, and it’s NOT supposed to be something the viewer should be nodding along to. I mean – I think just because a character says something doesn’t mean that the creator themselves endorse that? The character saying this is supposed to be something of a playboy, someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of respect for girls. He was called out on it in just the previous episode.
And re: Luou, this is one of the things why I say that the manga gets a lot better once it gets all this out of its system at the end of the first arc. The story is fairly realistic most of the time, and then there’s Luou who sometimes feels like he wandered in from another genre entirely, and this inevitably generates situations that are a bit (or a lot) too extra. Fortunately this stops after the first arc, unfortunately the anime will likely never get around adapting the rest…
Regardless, I’m going to assume Danseur had good intentions here and she did reciprocate, and they are a cute couple. So… Yeah.
I did get that Misaki was a playboy, he has a nickname and everything. I just didn’t think it very important when talking about Jumpei and Miyako is all. Esp since he is clearly pushing them together to screw with Luou, his biggest competition.