Forum - View topic

REVIEW: Welcome to the Ballroom GN 1 & 2

I expect to see my bacteria friend here soon

That said, great analysis. And about the art, for some reason i see this as what Sui Ishida's art would look like at it's highest level.

Or maybe its a YoI withdraw, I dunno.

Couldn't help seeing paraells of Yuri on Ice with this...the cover looks like Eros Yuuri. The story reminds me somewhat of it...weird, huh? Or maybe its a YoI withdraw, I dunno.

It was a good review, but there was a mistake. It's Shizuku, not Shizuka.

Lactobacillus yogurti wrote:

It was a good review, but there was a mistake. It's Shizuku, not Shizuka.

Yes, I liked the review, but Shizuku's misspelled name bothered me too.

pikopika wrote:

Lactobacillus yogurti wrote: It was a good review, but there was a mistake. It's Shizuku, not Shizuka. Yes, I liked the review, but Shizuku's misspelled name bothered me too.

I know, right? I just don't know what to do to let the higher-ups know about it, since I doubt they'd read my post.

Couldn't help seeing paraells of Yuri on Ice with this...the cover looks like Eros Yuuri. The story reminds me somewhat of it...weird, huh? Or maybe its a YoI withdraw, I dunno.

After enjoying Yowamushi Pedal so much (I've only read to the end of the second omnibus, and I read it pretty recently too, I'm late to this party), Welcome to the Ballroom definitely failed to engage me. It had that problem that I have with other series where it focuses entirely too much on the sport and entirely too little on the human element. Tatara is kind of just a regular loser guy, he didn’t feel very well developed to me. It seems he’s more avoiding tell his parents out who knows what, his parents don’t seem like they’d be mean or unsupportive, so I really don’t understand why he doesn’t confide in them since the relationship with Tatara and his parents isn’t established well enough. I feel the characters for Yowamushi are much better defined, the main kid there (Onoda) really wanted friends and thought anime would do it for him, but he still embraces the call of pedaling, even without realizing it would get him friends at first. You can also more easily believe why Onoda would have natural cycling talent, since he biked to Akiba at least once a week and has for years, but I really don’t buy why Tatara is a sudden natural at ballroom dance. Even with ending v1 on a cliffhanger, I don’t entirely care how it turns out for Tatara. But I actually want to see how Onoda continues to make friends through biking, even though v2 didn’t end on a major cliffhanger. I want to see more about Onoda as a character, not as a cyclist, where I feel like Tatara was so underdeveloped, I can only hope to see him as a dancer and not as a character.
I'm also not a fan of Tatara's dance mimicking thing either. Onoda has a good base, with all of his previous weekly anime biking, but he still needs to learn to improve (especially since he doesn't actually know much about bikes, oddly enough). Tatara's thing seems like it has the potential for so much cop-out as the series goes on.
Also, since reading vol 1 of Welcome to the Ballroom, I have also seen Yuri on Ice, which is fast paced, beautiful, and has fantastic characters and is also about a type of dancing (I suppose you could see it that way, sure). So with the existence of far superior series about far superior characters, I just found Ballroom vol 1 a massive waste of my time (no matter how pretty it looked, in fact, I think the art is the only thing Ballroom had going for it).

classicalzawa wrote:

After enjoying Yowamushi Pedal so much (I've only read to the end of the second omnibus, and I read it pretty recently too, I'm late to this party), Welcome to the Ballroom definitely failed to engage me. It had that problem that I have with other series where it focuses entirely too much on the sport and entirely too little on the human element. Tatara is kind of just a regular loser guy, he didn’t feel very well developed to me. It seems he’s more avoiding tell his parents out who knows what, his parents don’t seem like they’d be mean or unsupportive, so I really don’t understand why he doesn’t confide in them since the relationship with Tatara and his parents isn’t established well enough. I feel the characters for Yowamushi are much better defined, the main kid there (Onoda) really wanted friends and thought anime would do it for him, but he still embraces the call of pedaling, even without realizing it would get him friends at first. You can also more easily believe why Onoda would have natural cycling talent, since he biked to Akiba at least once a week and has for years, but I really don’t buy why Tatara is a sudden natural at ballroom dance. Even with ending v1 on a cliffhanger, I don’t entirely care how it turns out for Tatara. But I actually want to see how Onoda continues to make friends through biking, even though v2 didn’t end on a major cliffhanger. I want to see more about Onoda as a character, not as a cyclist, where I feel like Tatara was so underdeveloped, I can only hope to see him as a dancer and not as a character. I'm also not a fan of Tatara's dance mimicking thing either. Onoda has a good base, with all of his previous weekly anime biking, but he still needs to learn to improve (especially since he doesn't actually know much about bikes, oddly enough). Tatara's thing seems like it has the potential for so much cop-out as the series goes on. Also, since reading vol 1 of Welcome to the Ballroom, I have also seen Yuri on Ice, which is fast paced, beautiful, and has fantastic characters and is also about a type of dancing (I suppose you could see it that way, sure). So with the existence of far superior series about far superior characters, I just found Ballroom vol 1 a massive waste of my time (no matter how pretty it looked, in fact, I think the art is the only thing Ballroom had going for it).

You kinda have the same problems as I did, with the only difference being the characters.
Tatara didn't have a lot of personality, getting pushed around by the rest of the cast and barely standing up for himself, even when it's clearly not entirely his fault.
Not to mention that the rest of the cast is some bland mixture of jerks and clichés.

PotatoGirl wrote:

classicalzawa wrote: After enjoying Yowamushi Pedal so much (I've only read to the end of the second omnibus, and I read it pretty recently too, I'm late to this party), Welcome to the Ballroom definitely failed to engage me. It had that problem that I have with other series where it focuses entirely too much on the sport and entirely too little on the human element. Tatara is kind of just a regular loser guy, he didn’t feel very well developed to me. It seems he’s more avoiding tell his parents out who knows what, his parents don’t seem like they’d be mean or unsupportive, so I really don’t understand why he doesn’t confide in them since the relationship with Tatara and his parents isn’t established well enough. I feel the characters for Yowamushi are much better defined, the main kid there (Onoda) really wanted friends and thought anime would do it for him, but he still embraces the call of pedaling, even without realizing it would get him friends at first. You can also more easily believe why Onoda would have natural cycling talent, since he biked to Akiba at least once a week and has for years, but I really don’t buy why Tatara is a sudden natural at ballroom dance. Even with ending v1 on a cliffhanger, I don’t entirely care how it turns out for Tatara. But I actually want to see how Onoda continues to make friends through biking, even though v2 didn’t end on a major cliffhanger. I want to see more about Onoda as a character, not as a cyclist, where I feel like Tatara was so underdeveloped, I can only hope to see him as a dancer and not as a character. I'm also not a fan of Tatara's dance mimicking thing either. Onoda has a good base, with all of his previous weekly anime biking, but he still needs to learn to improve (especially since he doesn't actually know much about bikes, oddly enough). Tatara's thing seems like it has the potential for so much cop-out as the series goes on. Also, since reading vol 1 of Welcome to the Ballroom, I have also seen Yuri on Ice, which is fast paced, beautiful, and has fantastic characters and is also about a type of dancing (I suppose you could see it that way, sure). So with the existence of far superior series about far superior characters, I just found Ballroom vol 1 a massive waste of my time (no matter how pretty it looked, in fact, I think the art is the only thing Ballroom had going for it). You kinda have the same problems as I did, with the only difference being the characters. Tatara didn't have a lot of personality, getting pushed around by the rest of the cast and barely standing up for himself, even when it's clearly not entirely his fault. Not to mention that the rest of the cast is some bland mixture of jerks and clichés.

Don't worry, later on that becomes an important plot point for his development