Ballroom e Youkoso Episode 12 Review https://animeride.com/arspecial/review/6818/ballroom-e-youkoso-episode-12-review/ #BallroomDance, #Chicuru, #Chinatsu, #Fujita, #FujitaTatara, #GajuAndTatara, #Mako, #SengokuAndChizuru, #Tatara

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Ballroom e Youkoso Episode 12 Review

Oh yeah this is what I was excited for last week.  Sengoku showing off his stuff and he did look Great ! So Ballroom e Youkoso episode 12 lets break this down.

BallroomThoughts

Alright so this was the “cool down” episode. With all the tension from the Tenpei cup finally gone we get to relax a bit and ease into the next arc of Ballroom. We find out Tatara finally learns how much he sucks when he and Shizuku watch the film from the Tenpei cup and he’s downright embarrassed and ashamed at his performance. We all knew how much he sucked but it’s nice to see him finally grasp how much he needs to improve. We also get to see good ol Gaju again being in the same school as Tatara so if you weren’t really ever a fan of him I’m gonna have some bad news for you. He’s going to be sticking around so I’d suggest opening up a bit to him. Since he’s more or less pretty damn friendly with Tatara after he got mad at him…….oh for what?….cause Mako started wearing a bra, and I’m not quite sure if he’s mad cause he doesn’t want to see his little sister grow up, is a strange pervert brother, or is just upset that it happened after Tatara paired up with her. I’m going to guess the latter in that he thinks Tatara did some unsavory things to her. I would also like to point out Tatara’s LOFTY goal now that he’s in high school.

He’s definitely got more balls than I would telling his entire class that he likes ballroom dancing since it’s such a niche thing and people may find it odd. I certainly wouldn’t end up telling the class if it was me. But hey, that shows his determination towards his goal and love for Ballroom dancing.

HAHA HOWEVER those little things wasn’t why I was excited for this episode: that happened in the latter half. When Sengoku finally gets to show his stuff to both Tatara and us the audience by actually dancing in a competition. And boy does he look good. I can dig whatever outfit or hairstyle he uses cause he can really pull off anything. We see him and his partner dance to the quickstep where he decides to show off in front of Tatara a bit. The dancing itself looks pretty good since they gave us a good amount of actual movement this week. So when I say pretty good I mean it looks like some of the best consecutive dancing we’ve seen without interruptions or panning shots. Also worth pointing out that I believe this is the first time we hear the song for the quickstep all the way through without interruptions and I really liked it. It seems that the production team aren’t big fans of letting us hear most of the music the characters dance to, but they don’t have much of a problem letting us hear the Waltz or Quickstep even if they are for a short time. I find it odd.

Things start to get interesting once Sengoku steps on for the Waltz. We see him do some basic moves before deciding that it’s the preliminaries so they should mess around some. It’s hard to describe what he does but I’ll try my best. He ends up noticeably lengthening his strides before he ends up dancing where his back is strangely twisted and his head is tilted back more than normal. In most other cases this would cause dancers to break their hold but for Sengoku it’s apart of his unique style of dancing. Tatara thinks back to when Sengoku said the Waltz should be like a smooth moving current in the water and I love the effect the art and animation take at that moment.

Sengoku’s dancing distorts like ripples in the water making his, and his partner’s, figures look distorted and underwater. The music changes to sound like it’s cutting in and out, and honestly it made it seem like kind of creepy music which adds to the distortion. Of course Tatara can see it’s like they are moving in water but he himself feels like he’s seasick because of the massive difference in skill between Sengoku and himself that he’s finally seeing. He’s a bit overwhelmed by the fact that he’s seeing his teacher dance for the first time AND he’s just finding out that Sengoku is Japan’s only world level dancer……….oh did I not mention that? Yeah my Man Zoro is Japan’s ONLY world level dancer so he is obviously no schmuck.

He feels like he’ll never get to Sengoku’s level but of course we all know that’s probably not true. Time to give Sengoku’s partner a name. Her name is Chizuru and man do I love her. I always have in the manga and thankfully in this episode she still keeps her spitfire attitude by literally beating the shit out of her partner because he changed the flow of their dance without letting her know. Chizuru and Sengoku are easily one of my favorite pairs because they are such a power couple and I hope Ballroom keeps the little extra details that the manga has which shows how close their relationship really is. She switches between being a hothead with Sengoku to being such a mom around Tatara with a snap of the fingers and it’s adorable really. Though I have to say I think she looks better with her hair down than all dolled up, but that’s just me personally.

Lastly we get formally introduced to Chinatsu the real heroine of this series. I can see people not being real big fans of Chinatsu because she’s quite the tsundere. She hears Tatara tell the class that he likes ballroom dancing and she tells him that she thinks it’s lame straight to his face, but later during Sengoku’s competition at the end of the episode we see that she was actually there to watch, so she’s a hypocrite and a closet dancer. But I’m excited because she’s the one who will make Tatara a truly better dancer in the long run so I hope people do like her because I certainly do.

Overall I really did enjoy this episode. It was really well paced, had good character introductions, and it was a good episode to let us breathe easier after the last arc. Seeing  Sengoku’s dancing animated was fantastic and I got some good quality Sengoku screenshots from it. Chizuru is a spitz of a personality that adds a good color to the cast that we already have and Chinatsu adds to that as well. Oh, we also do get a new opening and ending this week. I know people were salty about he opening’s spoilers but really what can you do? If you didn’t guess that Chinatsu was going to be Tatara’s dance partner from the moment she was on screen I think you need to learn the old “only character in the room with colored hair” rule in the anime world. I was a big fan of the ending myself.

But it seems that next week we’ll see Tatara actually being the partner follower and Chinatsu be the leader in their practicing together so that surely will be interesting to see.

So what’s your thoughts for this episode ? Do let us know in Comments ! Have a nice day !