Two episodes into it and gladly, Dance Dance Danseur continues a strong run. The attendance to the Snow Lake recital is pretty much what you’d expect – Miyako’s eyes glued onto it and although Jumpei falls asleep for most of the time, it is when what I’m assuming it’s the main act takes stage that even he can’t take his eyes off – so much so that he’s not even willing to walk Miyako home, as he rushes to practice what he just saw. And of course, Miyako is following him and next we have a sweet scene with the two of them fooling around, à la ballet mode.
In the following day, Chizuru gifts Jumpei a practice suit – that he puts all the way wrong – and as we get to see them at school and learn a bit more about their dynamics – he being the popular guy and she leaning more towards what they’d describe as an “outcast” of sorts. Nonetheless, we’re back to ballet classes and the big problem right now is Jumpei not being able to hold his embarrassment towards Miyako, thus making it extremely difficult to touch her – what he needs to do, since he’ll be performing a duo with her.
With all the excitement about ballet (and Miyako, of course), Jumpei can’t help but want to take part in this experience and rushes to the studio in the middle of the night, spotting Luou-kun practicing and in the end having himself confused to be a stalker by the police. Thank God Chizuru was awake to help him out of it.
At the practice, Jumpei still struggles to make physical contact with Miyako and upon seeing Luou performing it so well with Miyako, gets jealous because a)it’s Miyako he’s touching and b)because it’s ballet. But what’s even harder on him is learning that what partially motivated Miyako to invite him is so Luou could have a friend. Ouchy. And speaking of him, I should mention that he’s a transfer student not attending school and a bit of an antisocial person and has had a “pretty strict” ballet teacher in the past. And he’s also Miyako’s cousin.
As a result of all of this, Jumpei falls to his patterns and skips ballet lessons for three days, once more hiding behind sports and everything he engaged into once discarding ballet back when he was a kid. Miyako, of course, confronts him about this but never gets a proper answer – hot take here is he’s given up on it on the excuse that she has already a “proper prince.” On his way home (this is my favourite scene in the episode – it’s really good) as Jumpei thinks about how so much wants him, his body can’t deny but do ballet. Explaining takes the fun out of it, but if you saw it you saw it – it’s this damn good.
The final scene is what’s gonna ignite next episode’s conflict using one of the core themes in the story – Luou finally goes back to school (I suspect it is part of the deal he made with Chizuru) and Jumpei is not so much happy about it, I guess – stuff he keeps running away from keeps coming straight at him.
I’m enjoying this show. A lot of it. The positives of this week reside in how the dynamic between Jumpei and Miyako’s being built. Friendship type bonds are one of the core aspects of sports anime and as far as those go, I do really appreciate how these two go together. Part of what makes this work is the fact that both are interesting characters on their own – I talked plenty about Jumpei already but Miyako really doesn’t fall short. At this point of the story we don’t know much about what her motivations are, what makes her mad and stuff like that but the personality she showcases in the first two episodes is a win. I tend to be afraid that female leads will fall onto the overly perfected, cutesy or the frontal apatic tsundere type, but Miyako is none of that. Just a girl with her stuff going on who also likes ballet the most. These two spark some genuinely interesting stuff to the story. And as for Jumpei’s perception of what her feelings towards him could be… Well, I don’t completely blame him – it’s not farfetched to think that a boy his age couldn’t have a similar impression – but for us it’s clear that’s not the case and for the time being I don’t think the story needs a romance to succeed. Of course, if it happens, I can possibly get onboard but I do like what we have now: a nice friendship duo that’s fun to watch. And if he wants to win her over anyway, he’ll have to work his ballet feet out.
Now about that scene. It is such a short and simple scene but man, it is so beautiful. I absolutely love how it communicates Jumpei’s inner conflict about wether or not truly committing to ballet. The smug look on his face as he rejoices over having so much already, the technical aspect like the music and lightning and finally culminating into him doing ballet. It’s just like what he’s been doing for years – making excuses and running away from it in every possible way but in the end, his body can’t deny it. It is ballet. It’s an interesting point of view to have a 14 years old going through this – committing to something at that age is extremely hard to do and as if it wasn’t enough, there’s the fact that he doesn’t feel ready to face whatever society has to say about it. Judging by the next episode title’s perhaps through the perspective of Luou, a fellow boy, Jumpei can wrap his head around and finally do ballet. For real this time.
A technical aspect that I’m also enjoying and feel like worth mentioning is how everything is treated. Everything outside from ballet seems so ordinary (as if they were mimicking the first person viewpoint in the opening) but when they get to ballet everything feels regal, majestic and almost out of this world. I may be reading too much into it, but this also works as a reflection of Jumpei’s heart. And also, those eyes – I was puzzled by how big they are but they’re allowing for so much vivid expressions… If the anime’s doing this good job, I’m curious to see how the manga handles it. Anyway, those are my thoughts and now I’d like you to share yours. Leave those in the comments below and I’ll be seeing you soon. Have a Happy Easter Sunday and be safe!
OTAKU SPACE 