The results are in!
What They Say:
The last category in the Tenpei Cup is the Quickstep.. Tatara steps onto the floor to dance a special variation that Sengoku has taught them.But he is physically exhausted and his feet become heavy, exposing his lack of skill as a beginner.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As with any shounen series, we started out with every episode or pair of episodes standing on its own while building up the foundation for the rest of the series, but after a few of those, got into an arc that spanned a good chunk of episodes. This has clearly been the first major arc of the series, having taken up most of the first cour, but it’s almost quite apparent that we were nearing the climax. The four characters we’re watching have all made strong showings for themselves, but only one of the two couples can win, and we’re at the point that they each have to make the best case. Tatara has fired up the audience, the judges, and the other dancers, including Gaju himself, in different ways from his recent dancing, much like he did with Hyodo while ago. He even affected Gaju so much that he made some mistakes that were easily beneath him, and with Tatara seeming to achieve the goal of making his partner shine more than Gaju was able to in their solo performances, it looked like he might actually win. But as time goes on, it becomes all too obvious that Tatara is not nearly as experienced as his competitors, and his performance deteriorates while Gaju and Shizuku’s soars, putting the spotlight squarely on them while Tatara is either frowned upon or, perhaps worse based on Sengoku’s advice, forgotten entirely. He may be our amazing protagonist, but he’s far from perfect, and it wouldn’t be right if he was just able to sweep the competition away from people who have been working at it since they were children.
The animation in this show is often less thrilling than it should be, but they still know how to do a climax, and the climax of the first major arc is a special one. It almost seems to come out of nowhere, but the sequence that begins with Sengoku and Hyodo looking upon these dancers and wishing to jump in and Hyodo doing a little step of his own despite his injury flows beautifully into a journey through the hectic dance floor, showing each of our main couples at their best with some of the most creative animation in the series thus far. Because it’s so abrupt and so different, it’s honestly a little jarring, but it does feel like, as brief as it was, a slightly more earnest attempt to replicate the intensity of the giant panels that are sprawled all across the original manga series.
While the conclusion to this arc is a satisfying one in a number of ways, the anime cuts one of the most important scenes to understanding just how sure Shizuku is that she lost. It’s also incredibly short in the manga, so it’s a baffling choice to omit it, but apparently the writer of this adaptation had other thoughts regarding how to convey that. There haven’t been many significant deviations from the source material, but when they do crop up, I find myself even more disappointed with the writer than the director. Hopefully what’s to come is better, though, because one of the best characters in the series will be introduced, and we even got a little glimpse of her in a cameo.
In Summary:
This adaptation won’t be halfway over until next episode, but this arc is definitely over in this one. Such is the way it works when you’re adapting source material and don’t want to stretch it out too much. It’s a great conclusion, but some of the pieces that really made it fit together in the original story are strangely omitted in this version of it. On the bright side, there is at least one very slick cut of animation to take in before it all wraps up, and the future has a lot of potential in this series.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Anime Strike
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
