For the love of Jey
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):
So we’re (presumably) getting pretty close to the end of the show which means that we should be pretty close to the show trying to throw a bunch of plot at as. Oddly enough that’s not quite the case here though as while we do get a direct continuation of the Crowd High stuff, it’s followed up by more fluff, and the latter looks to be what we’ll be getting for a while. That makes me wonder exactly what the deal will be going forward but for what’s featured here, at least the first of these two episodes is pretty dense.
Continuing from the previous episode’s question of to Crowd High or not to Crowd High, Haneru went with the latter and begins taking it up with Lui and Moe despite Kanon’s concerns. At first he’s not really sure how much further he wants to take it since his main goal is to become one with the music through his dancing and stand behind Jey-El someday. Of course Lui and Moe believe that kind of thinking is small potatoes and instead he should be dreaming big about surpassing Jey and going head to head with him. In fact, going up against Jey directly seems to be the main M.O. of the Crowd High movement as it continues to spread and now the public is starting to reject his style entirely.
Later on, Haneru decides to show off Crowd High to Kumo and the others first hand since they’re curious about it, but by that point Haneru’s already decided to accept it for himself and wants to compete with Jey. However Kanon’s firmly against him going any further with it since she feels that he’s veering towards using dance as a means to an end rather than his own sense of passion towards it. Given how the previous episode touched on that particular subject matter it almost feels like backtracking since Kumo acknowledged that Lui and Moe being driven by ambition doesn’t invalidate their dancing. Though it’s clear that in this case it’s more directed towards it going against Haneru’s own set of principles when it comes to dance, and gives him something to chew on. Especially in light of Jey-El announcing to them that the theme of Dance Road’s final round is centered around the spirit of their dancing and why they do it to begin with.
That night, Haneru has a dream about Jey where he tells him about his dream, but Jey suggests that in spite of everything he’s accomplished so far he’s still not quite there yet. This gives Haneru something of an epiphany and when Lui and Moe hit him up for another Crowd High dancing session, he only goes in order to decline the offer in person, realizing that what he wants isn’t just to dance with Jey someday but to share the stage with him as an equal. It’s not all that different from his previous goal but it’s something of an improvement, although the nicest part of the whole thing is that Lui and Moe are fairly chill about it and are still up for going against Haneru in another dance battle someday. With his passion renewed, Haneru decides to have a friendly dance battle with Kanon and ends things on a mostly high note…though Gallagher’s plan to take down Jey El still looms in the background along with that dang supernatural element that seems to keep insisting on being something that exists.
From there things pretty much descend into fluff with the following episode, and to really drive home how fluffy it is, it’s a beach episode. This of course includes obligatory fanservice (which is at least briefly mocked) and lots of shots of the characters doing nothing despite supposedly being there for a training camp. Though it wouldn’t Tribe Cool Crew if the show didn’t make it tie into dancing somehow and we get a by the numbers story involving Kumo meeting a mysterious pretty ghost girl on the beach…or at least it seems that way. She’s been waiting around for a mysterious dancer (three guesses who it is) who once showed her a dance that apparently made the ocean sparkle. After finding out she’s a ghost, Kumo decides to have everyone attempt to pull off the same thing and succeed (albiet through a fairly mundane explanation) only for it to turn out she apparently wasn’t a ghost and is not only alive but a middle aged adult, with Kumo reacting appropriately. It’s a pretty solid punchline though one that probably isn’t best to think about too hard. Next week: dancing with superhero costumes.
In Summary:
Tribe Cool Crew wraps up the Crowd High stuff for the time being by making Haneru choose between dancing with Jey El or surpassing him and comes to a decent conclusion on that end that helps Haneru grow a bit, although not quite that much. The episode that proceeds it though is pretty much just fluff and while there’s nothing really wrong with it as opposed to some of the show’s other side stories, it doesn’t do much of anything aside from a joke at Kumo’s expense. It looks like the show’s going back to that kind of thing for a while though, but hopefully it won’t take too long to get back on track.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
