Ballroom e Youkoso Review ft. Creepy Faces and a LOT of Sweating

Hi everyone and welcome to my place!

So… Yeah… I was not able to watch the Anime I said I was going to watch (In reality I didn’t even started it… I blame Until Dawn… And procrastination). However, I did end Ballroom e Youkoso which I’ve been watching with my boyfriend… So I’ll talk about that 😀

The Anime in general is pleasant, although I’m biased because I love ballroom dancing (I even had some classes… You know when I was healthy and did some kind of exercise). As always, let’s start with the story… Without spoilers of course.

Ah before I forget… I see this anime as 2 different parts (like seasons) although it goes as only one season with 24 episodes. But you really see a difference from episode 12 to 13.

Story:

The story follows a guy called Tatara Fujita which finds the world of Ballroom Dancing. He’s a complete noob, of course, but he has a lot of potential. The main “power” he has is to be able to catch many movements only with seeing it once, with also a lot of hard work and perseverance. For example, his couch in the beginning making fun of him tells him to train the square until he says so and then goes to sleep… Fujita stays all night practicing. Although he is really good at catching movements only by watching it, when it comes to learning new movements through the ordinary way he is just… not good! He meets some great dancers who have been dancing since childhood and his goal starts to be able to be in the same dance floor as them.

I think that summarizes it… As I told there is two parts to this story, but the main goal is always the same. I don’t want to explain a lot more because of spoilers…

The story is good, at least I didn’t lose interest on it, however there are things that I really don’t understand. One for example is the skill about Tatara be able to pick a lot of movements only with his eyes stops being refered at some point and well… It doesn’t really make sense. Don’t know if the idea just died and the creators went with the huge work ethic or something like that.

Other thing that it disappointed me a little was that Fujita is able to compete with people who danced all their life by only being in dancing for like some months (?)… I mean, in real life this is will never going to happen. It’s truth that much of the performative world comes from birth… They call it talent, however if you don’t work a lot and for many years, talent is not enough! I always had good marks when I studied flute and yeah… I was lucky to have some talent, but that never was enough, I had to work my ass of too! I won’t say that 10% is talent and 90% is hard work… But I would say that 30% is talent and 70% is hard work.

Animation:

Now… here I really need to put into two parts because the animation changes a lot from the first 12 episodes to the rest… I mean at least changed enough for ME to notice.

For a dancing Anime in the first part there is not really that dancing happening… I mean, there is dancing, only the animation is lacking. Instead of seeing people dancing, more of them are static images which for me is a little bummer… The anime came out this year! If you are going to do a dancing Anime you HAVE to do a lot of dancing animations (but they are beatifull, so you have that!)… But, ok! I let that one slip this time (just because they really improved it in the following episodes). In the second part they bet a little more in the dancing part and you finally will be able to see the characters really dance and do all sort of things with their feet and body!

The characters also improved in the second part. The traits are more smooth (is that how you say it?) and the Anime seems a little more standard from what you would expect in 2017. However there are some traits that stay equal in all the Anime. The first is the over draw necks (although I understand that in a dancing point of view it is important to have a long neck), I’ll put an image below because explaining this is just… difficult 😀 The second one, although appealing it is really strange! It is the fact their lashes are so long that they almost seem to have the same hair as eyebrows. Image below too!!!

Now… Other thing I really need to address (I mean it IS on the title) is the creepy faces and all the sweating… The creepy faces basically are what the creators think that show the dancers being happy while dancing (?)… It really makes no sense and it’s so over the top that my boyfriend and I ended up laughing looking at those creepy faces. The other is sweating in the new black! Really, the way they show you that they are doing a good job is sending sweat all over the place! I really would not want to be in the first seats watching the competition 😀

Characters:

The characters are likeable. There are an event or another that I felt a little annoyed with Tatara, but in the end the character really improved a lot and I found myself loving him.

I really don’t want to disperse because I would talk a lot about each character… So I’m going to try to wrap all up in one generic paragraph. Basically each character has their personalities. They are SUPER complex, but they are complex enough to make you interested. Sometimes they will behave in some way, other times in another… But that’s life and that’s how every one of us are. I can’t say I disliked any of the characters… Even though some of them may come up as straight “bad” people, after they explain you why they are like that you feel at least more sympathetic with them.

Music/Sound:

The voice acting is really good! They at least made that to work at 120%, so nothing to tell you about that, only that it really does the trick and everything seems natural.

About the music… Well you hear a lot of ballroom dancing music which for me is cool because I like it, but I want to talk is the opening of the first season. One of the most catchy songs I ever heard in an Anime – don’t forget that I normally don’t really like them! I’ll give you the video, easier than try to explain (it would be a poor explanation anyways xD):

In the end, it is really a good Anime. I’m picky with what I watch, so for making me to go through the end it is because it is above average. Is it as good as Yuri on Ice? Not by a long shot. It is not a masterpiece, but it is really decent. So I invite you all to watch at least some episodes of it (it can always not be really your thing, but give it a try!)

That’s all folks! Have you seen Ballroom e Youkoso? What were your thoughts about it? If not, tell me if you are thinking on watching it! Comment down below!!! 🙂

Oh right! Almost forgot!!!! I give this Anime:

4 DROPS OF SWEAT OUT OF 5 CREEPY FACES

See You Soon! 😀