Welcome to the Ballroom Series Review

It’s been a rather long journey we took with Welcome to the Ballroom. The new season, Winter 2018, is already past its start and we were able to get enough distance from the previous one to be able to take a look at its series. So let’s take a look at Welcome to the Ballroom! Read my spoiler-free review about the good, the bad, and the ugly, the things worth it and the letdowns.

The Plot

Fujita Tatara is in middle school and has to decide which high school he wants to go to. This step equals deciding what to do with his future since the choice of high school can determine the college you get in. Poor Tatara, however, doesn’t know what he wants to do and slowly his teachers get angry with him. One day after school, he follows one of his classmates to a dancing studio. She seemed to have the same problem as him, but there he sees her and others dance and shortly after ends up joining the dance studio as well. Ballroom dance helps him find himself, gives him a dream and friends. Soon, he even enters tournaments and has to go and find his own dancing partner.

The series is based on a manga. It follows the manga closely and even surpasses the story in the last few episodes. The original author told the production team what he had already planned for the future chapters and they were able to put it into the anime. However, it is not guaranteed to play this way in the manga as well, as the manga author said that things could change while the chapters were being made and to keep following the story to find out what will happen in the series.

The Characters

What makes this series really enjoyable for me are the characters. While this is a sports anime and I love them, it is not a classic sports anime. There is a lot more character development and a lot more background story than in any of the other sports series I usually watch. And the characters are so lovable.

Tatara is the cutest sweetie pie ever, with his hair sticking out from his head and his eagerness to do well, only to realize how much he sucks, just because he is a beginner. On one hand, he is the great genius, but on the other, he always makes mistakes and has so much to learn and find out. Nobody ever points his finger at him and says that he is bad because all of them know he is a beginner and for that, he is doing really well. Also, his family story is very touching. He lives alone with his dad and the scenes we get to see with his family are heartwarming and cute, and I wouldn’t want to miss them for anything. It’s what made this anime so much more realistic.

Tatara’s rivals are all created very well, too. They have different motives to dance, different problems, and none of them is just black or evil. What I liked most is that none of them is exceptionally vicious either. They work hard but play fair. My personal favorite is Kugimiya, because he has such depth, and while I love him, he also creeps me out. Gaju is my least favorite, because he is the one that somehow ends up being Tatara’s close friend and Kiyoharu probably is a mix between friend and future rival if we ever get to see a second season for this series. They are all very lovable. Their background stories will make you fall in love with them even more.

The girls – or ‘partners’, as they are referred to in the series – are also very lovely and I think I could have loved them a lot more if they were given a bit more depth. They are plainly there for the guys to have a partner to dance with. Only the man can lead and only the man is supposed to tell the partner what to do. If the girl leads it shines a bad light on the male partner because he ‘lets the girl do all the work’. They tried to save the theme multiple times in the later part of the series, but it really was sad to see how little importance the female part has in the dance, according to this series. Chi-chan was trying so hard to mix things up and it was really interesting, but at some point, it was just annoying. I ranted about it enough in my review, so let’s just say I didn’t quite enjoy the balance between sexes here.

The Story, Heats and In-Betweens

The first 6 episodes of this series couldn’t have been any better. The story was great, we fell into the world of ballroom dance together with Tatara and I genuinely enjoyed all the ups and downs. The same goes for the first few episodes of the second half of the story, the times when Tatara was not participating in a major tournament. But as soon as the tournament started, the episodes just dragged, because they kept dancing and dancing when all you wanted was the result. Of course, we get to see a lot of background story for each character, but I just wished they showed more cups and the results and that they told the character’s stories through more than one tournament. This was sports anime all over again. Captain Tsubasa running 5km from one goal to the other, without stopping for a whole episode. Son Goku fighting a 10-minutes fight for fifteen episodes, because we have so much insight. It was good, but at the end I felt exhausted by the amount of episodes one tournament took.

The stories before the tournament and the moments when we went back to the past of a character were what made me excited and made me look forward to the next episode and fall in love with all the characters. Looking back, I mostly remember the good scenes, the ones that were fun and were telling me details about characters. All in all, the story left a positive impression, though the overall series felt like it dragged at points.

Pros and Cons

Pros

great characters one could fall in love with right away
beautiful animation (detailed, even sweat was everywhere and it was sometimes creepy, but it added to the atmosphere)
fan service in some episodes for male and female viewers, but never too much
realistic setting
on spot voice acting and voice cast

Cons

dragging tournaments that make us wait for results
dance music in the beginning lacked

In general, the pros are overweighing. The series was a good one, and even though I had to complain a lot at times, it left me longing for more. I want to see how Tatara gets better and better and would love to see what all the other people, who stepped into his life through ballroom dance, will do in the future. If anything, I might skip some of the tournament scenes in the future to just get the flashbacks of characters, but that still would’t break my love for them. The story really got me and if you didn’t try it yet, please do. It is a series for everybody who likes sports anime, for those who enjoy a good character development, and maybe even for those who enjoy some realistic aspects in a series. There is no family disappearing or not caring about the athletes, there is no black and white coloring of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys, and even the romance seems rather realistic to me. If this sounds good to you, please give it a try!

Those who have already watched it, what did you think? Did you like it as much as I did? Tell me in the comments!