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nathandouglasdavis

  • Joined Feb 23, 2019
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Tatara Fujita is coincidentally introduced to the world of competitive ballroom dancing. Fe is impressed by the passion and intensity of a video fe sees, and having been yearning for something which could give feir life purpose, fe feels that this might be feir special something. (First of all, as a nihilist, I don't think that Life Purpose is something people should feel empty without. But as an avid manga reader, I love the level of zeal and determination which this mindset creates in characters.) We quickly see that Fujita has a knack for dancing--fe struggles with intellectually understanding dance steps, but is a genius at watching and intuitively learning.

One of the major ideas in this manga is that dancing can't be done alone, and that the partners need to have a strong bond in order to sync well together. The idea of leading and following. There are dance couples and rivals introduced throughout the series, but two primary couples are worth singling out. First is Sengoku Kaname and Chizuru Hongo. Kaname is a world champion level competitive dancer who first introduces Fujita to dance (sort of like Takamura's role in Hajime no Ippo) and acts as a bit of a mentor. Then there's Shizuku Hanaoka and Kiyoharu Hyodo. Both of them are very talented dancers and function as rivals for Fujita (also fe has a bit of a crush on Hanaoka). Some other people worth mentioning are Makoto, Akira, and Kugimiya. And of course Chinatsu Hiyama, who is absolutely adorable. In general, all the art is crisp and flows well during action shots.

The manga is really good up until around chapter 34, then we start getting chapters with drawn-out filler material. I wouldn't say that it gets to the point of being bad quite yet, but it certainly isn't nearly as enjoyable as the beginning. And if this is a long-term stylistic shift, the manga will probably become tiresome. It's dull extending a story by including a bunch of audience reactions and epiphanies and shit.

[Reviewed at chapter 49]

8/10 story
9/10 art
8/10 characters
8/10 overall

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