Dance Dance Danseur

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Dance Dance Danseur which I will be referring to as (DDD) is a manga which follows Junpei and his Ballet Dancing journey. I will be adding three parts to this review - The good, the bad, and the ugly. First off Junpei is a character that takes time to start liking, he is a protagonist that at first sounds extremely bratty and annoying, however there is a reason behind it. Second of all the other Ruou and Miyako, become extremely dislikeable at the point where I start to wish they would just be removed from the manga in general. Lastly, this manga is in my ... opinion lowkey addicting due to the drama, this lead me to read the raws, which I usually don't do for mangas that are not completed.

The good : The drama in this manga hooks you hard, it makes you want to read the next chapter even if the characters are pissing you off. I believe if the author made some of the side characters even just a little more likeable, this would not have as a low rating as people give it and if they had made Junpei more likeable from the start. Next, the art for this manga is what made me remotely want to continue if some of the scenes were plain bland or extremely annoying ahem (Ruou). The art in this is absolutely fabulous, even through my current chapter the art has not changed, Asakura did an amazing job with the art. Another thing I absolutely loved about this anime was how Junpeis hair style changes as the story progresses, and his growth as a person as well.

The bad: To start, this manga had sky high potential, but as much I loved the Drama, at times it became extremely repetitive and at certain points became underwhelming and annoying. As much as I liked Junpei, he could never let go off his past, which you can see even in the current chapters, and off course you have the other two "main characters", which in my opinion you can't even consider Miyako as a main character. These two character as much as they maybe important, are extremely annoying for no reason whatsoever. Lastly, in my opinion the worst part of this manga is the romance. I will get in depth with it in the ugly.




The ugly: WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS








SPOILERS BELOW READ AT YOUR RISK-

The romance in this oh boy... In my opinion it's a train wreck as a big romance anime/ manga fan the way the romance was set up was absolutely repulsive and revolting. So Junpei ends up with his first girlfriend for a solid couple of chapters, after they kiss; his adversary gets jealous. His adversary then gets really jealous and keep in mind his first girlfriend and adversary are cousins they may not be blood-related however they are still cousins. This eventually turns into a love triangle between the three, in which the first girlfriend eventually picks the cousin.

Then after a while he gets another girlfriend, this would make it girlfriend number 2, and eventually they just drift away, not unusual.

But the MC still has lingering feels for old girlfriend one, which gets really annoying, but eventually he starts focusing all ballet more.

Then girlfriend 3 comes in, his long time rival since the start of the manga, she catches feeling for him and gives him a task saying if he still loves her after his trip abroad she will go out with him.

girl - friend 2B he meets this extremely beautiful girl in the abroad trip they become partners and become really close, eventually it is implied that girlfriend 2B in fact falls in love with Junpei, however he keeps his promise with girlfriend 3 and stays in love with her.




Conclusion: This manga shows the growth of Junpei, from personal tragedy at a young age, heart break, and then lows and highs of success. Some of the side characters also have interesting back stories of their own. As much as I criticize this manga, it also has its strong points as well. If you are a fan of Ballroom e youkoso, or love competitions / tournaments this manga is for you. However, if you are looking for a romance anime without any turmoil, you should have second thoughts before dwelling in. Overall I gave this Manga a 7/10. Hope this helps

I started reading this series to fill the gaping void in my heart left by “Ballroom e Youkoso”’s indefinite hiatus, and that might be the problem.

This series isn’t bad, it’s actually quite good. Asakura is an experienced manga artist and so visually I have no complaints. But I feel like I’m less tolerant of its faults because I kept comparing it to Ballroom e Youkoso.

The protagonist is, in my opinion, just not a very likable character. While Asakura seems to be going for a commentary on how masculine men can do ballet too!! it never quite hits the mark for me. ... In an early scene, you have an adult man telling the protagonist (a young boy at the time, not even a teenager) that since his dad is gone, he’ll have to protect and take care of the family now. NEVER MIND THAT HE HAS NOT ONLY HIS MOM BUT HIS OLDER SISTER. There is no critique of this scene, and fast forward to the protagonist as an aggressively rude MASCULINE type. He only joins ballet (after cutting ties as a young boy in order to be “masculine” ) because he saw the main girl’s underwear when she did a ballet jump in front of him in her school uniform. Like, that’s literally the reason why he goes, regardless of how he’s entranced by the dance itself when he gets to the studio. He still followed her there in the first place because of a shot at her underwear. For the rest of the volume, he basically gets free lessons from her mother, yet refuses to stop calling her “babaa” (extremely rude way of addressing an old lady), and is generally an unhelpful asshole the whole time.

Even though I’ve said all this, it’s still volume one so there is room for improvement. Although potential is not a promise, so I am wary of investing any further in this series. But what REALLY gets me is just that the whole time I was reading, I kept thinking “Tatara wouldn’t do this.”

Anyways, through this experience, I have gained even more respect and love than I knew was possible for Ballroom e Youkoso and the author Takeuchi Tomo. I’ll keep thinking over whether to continue reading this one.

After watching 8 episodes of the anime, I knew I would enjoy this manga, but never would I imagine for it to be on my mind every single hour for the past few days after i caught up to the latest chapter.

This 10 is just a personal rating, as has hit me in a way that I've never felt before after reading so many romance manga, never would I expect a ballet manga to bring me to the heights of "shipping" and wanting the manga to prosper.

The last time I had this feeling was during the peak of Domestic Girlfriend, the way an author is ... able to build up a relationship to get me so invested in wanting to see more.

Bringing in Domestic Girlfriend also puts things into perspective that this 10 may not last as a distasteful direction of the manga could very well ruined the whole piece.

But regardless of the future, as of Chapter 205, the adventure and drama and youth that I've felt is second to none other manga I've read in the recent days.

If you are someone who likes the idea that the first love of the MC is not his final choice (Nisekoi-ish) rather he went the direction of someone whom he build up chemistry and healthily support each other, this is the manga for you.

Regarding the other characters other than the main CP, as much as the author usually portray their darker ways of thinking, in a way all of them always cares about each other, similar to Sasuke-Naruto-Sakura chemistry. There are still some unclear direction as to how the author will lead the audience back to the OG main characters since it has pretty much been focusing on "Naruto". How the author go with "Sasuke" and "Sakura" may make or break the series as well.

But so far, the "Naruto-Hinata" part has been done really well.

I'm new to reviewing manga so my bad if i made some mistakes during this review.
The manga's way of dragging a reader in was just like how Ballroom E Youkoso, I might be comparing these two manga a bit because of the similarity. The manga's build up till the part where it lures you into making you read it with full interest may be a bit slow or dragged but once you get there it was worth it in my opinion. I recommend you to read this before Ballroom E Youkoso if you haven't read both, because the manga Ballroom E Youkoso might overwhelm you ... and might underwhelm you when reading Dance Dance Danseur. I would 100% recommend this to people who likes sports drama with an ounce of romance.

Ratings:
Overall: 7

Story: 7
I liked the story mostly because of the pacing but also the drama is very intriguing.

Art: 6.5
The art may be a little off for me because it may be a little ruffled, I do know that it may be an art style just like Beastars and etc, but Beastars' expressions on the animals are just flawless compared to the art in this manga where it only focuses on the expression of the main characters which could've caused me to give it a 6.5

Characters: 6
All i could say is the main character reminds me of the mc of "My Crossdressing Senpai" and the other characters are just decent in my opinion

Enjoyment: 6.5
Just my overall feelings about the manga made me give it a 6.5, i enjoyed the manga and I 100% recommend it to sports manga addicts! Not sure about people who don't like sports manga though but i hope you give it a chance.

I'd like to say that the series and manga make you want to see it to the end.

To be honest, watching the first few episodes was difficult. My first issue was the reason why Junpei didn't take ballet lessons as a kid, and the second one was why he did after. It made me cringe at the pace. The introduction for the character was too fast, maybe because they wanted to focus on the main story. I'm not sure. (I just watched the anime and just continued with the manga)

Spoiler alert! I found it ridiculous and shallow how things went at first. It was emphasized ... that Junpei fell in love with ballet as a child but decided not to pursue it because other boys found it weird, his father at first felt that he should do something manly, and when his father died, the friend of the father told Junpei that he should do something manly since he is now the man of the house and he needs to protect his family. It makes sense that he decided against it, but how it went felt a little too weak for me. I expected more oomph!

Next is the reason why he pursued ballet despite his concerns about his reputation. Is it the girl or his passion? It kind of felt like it was both and it made him impressionable. It seemed shallow of him to do ballet because of a girl and if he likes ballet, it seemed superficial of him to stop attending because of the girl.

However, despite all that, it was a good watch and a good read after that. Others may think that the love story is unnecessary. However, I believe it's one of the reasons why it's good. If you haven't read Nana, you should. It has a Nana vibe in the manga as a continuation. You can see how he can easily like someone, not that he made moves, but it makes you want to root for him in pursuing the girl he likes. You'll see how very human and common those experiences are as you juggle love, passion, and life, and it's relatable. It makes you want to know who he ends up with or if he'll focus on his career. I look forward to reading new chapters!

I may have some issues, but the fact it made me keep reading is how I grade it.