Change is (mostly) good
What They Say:
Haneru is a kid who’s always been into dancing and dreams of becoming a famous dancer like his idol Jey-El. One day while he’s practicing his moves at his usual spot he finds out it’s the same place where a girl named Kanon also practices and she’s secretly a famous dancer known as Rhythm who’s well known on the internet. After being impressed by her moves and finding out she’s been watching his, he decides to form a dance team with her.
The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
Tribe Cool Crew scales things back a bit after getting a bit too serious the last time and mostly for the best since the show’s at it’s peak when it’s just having a good time with dancing. These two episodes bring things back towards that aspect of things, though a bit more on the sillier side. Of course the whole theme of change from the previous episodes is still at play here, and in spite of something of a contrivance, manages to come together pretty nicely.
So the major bit of “change” that occurs for the gang happens in the first of these episodes when Kumo ends up breaking one of his toes from trying to show off too much while dancing. Thanks to that he’s now out of commission for a month and can’t participate in the next round of Dance Road, forcing the others to come up with something new. It feels…more than a little contrived, but I guess you can’t always expect too much from a kid’s show in that respect. The majority of this episode is spent going back and forth between Kumo and the others, as they struggle to come up with a new routine while Kumo seems to be getting more dispassionate from being away from dance for so long.
During this we also learn a bit more about Kumo’s family and the fact that his father apparently doesn’t think much of dancing. Needless to say that’s a big no-no for Haneru and he goes to confront him about it but gets off-put when he finds out how scary of a reputation the guy has. When they actually meet though it turns out that much like Kumo himself, his dad’s just a bit rough around the edges but is otherwise an okay guy. Additionally much like any other parent, while he doesn’t quite get the appeal of what his kid is into, he’s not actively keeping him away from it either which is one of those nice little nods that’s more in line with what I’ve come to expect from the show than the whole random injury thing. It also turns out Kumo’s brooding was actually related to him trying to come up with a new routine for the others more than anything else and while he doesn’t have a solution for it, he’s confident they’ll find one.
Said solution comes during the next round of Dance Road as they get ready to square off against the other teams. As expected, the Machine Guns and the twins actually did decide to form a new team together called the Blossom Bullets (well at least it’s less silly than the old name) and the new routine they put out looks pretty impressive. While the others worry about not having changed enough to compete, Kumo tells them they’ll be able to power through it and Haneru realizes that the group’s actually been changing and evolving throughout their little journey together and in truth, they don’t really need to do anything that drastic to prove themselves. It’s a nice moment of introspection for Haneru which shows he’s grown up a bit, and it’s followed up by another cute little moment where Kanon decides the gang should do a group huddle to pump themselves up and it’s kinda sweet. With that they proceed to bust out what is probably the best choreographed dance sequence the show’s put out to date as it brims out more style than ever and the soundtrack that goes with it, really helps to add to the flair. Things wrap up with the gang having passed through the round, and getting ready to head onto the next one which will apparently be the last.
Though the theme related stuff is the main highlight of these episodes, the Dance Road segment also delves a little deeper into the whole Jey El mystery. Before the teams began squaring off against each other Yuji and the twins started to wonder how much longer the competition would go on for and if they’d even get the chance to meet Jey at all. To satisfy them, Master T shows them a hologram of Jey El that interacts with them and seems to know what’s going on with all the dancers individually. It’s enough for them to buy into but after the whole big drop about how Jey El is probably dead, it’s pretty clear it’s just a cover up and the last scene of the episode where Master T and the other sponsors seem concerned about passing on Jey’s “will” to the dancers in the competition just adds fuel to the fire. Since that’s all but concerned now, I’m really interested in seeing the backlash for it and why there’s a big cover up at all but first it looks like the show’s going back to dealing with Crowd High for a while
In Summary:
The “change” theme for the current round of Dance Road comes to fruition in these episodes, as the gang’s forced though an evolution of sorts, albeit a somewhat contrived one. The payoff’s enough to mostly look past that though, and the Dance Road stuff also does a good job of further building up the Jey El death mystery. It seems we’re nearing the end of the road for the show, so hopefully it keeps going full throttle towards it.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
