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This Week in Anime - What's Missing From Welcome to the Ballroom's Characters?

For people saying the issues will be addressed later on in the series, keep in mind we're about halfway through the anime's announced 12 episode count. Let me repeat, the show is basically half over already.

*whispers* It's still fair to judge an anime on the anime though *

But it's a lot of lively movement that's just nice to watch when it shows up.

Now, it's quite possible we'll see future seasons, and so we'll eventually reach the content that addresses the issues people are having. Or maybe we won't. Regardless, "it gets better" is not a defense of how the show is NOW.

Sometimes I see things in this show that take me back to my competition days, but I unfortunately also see a large amount here regarding partner relationships and gender dynamics that are completely alien to me, and don't have any relationship to the reality of ballroom dance.

At the same time, I think a lot of points made in that discussion were valid. Sengoku is a horrible teacher and pretty unpleasant person. He constantly screws up with these kids and makes things worse than is necessary. At times he seems like a total toddler there to simply mess up the lives of teenagers. He (sometimes literally) yanks these kids around and doesn't really understand any of them. If the point is that he's one of those athletes that really sucks at teaching/coaching (which is a thing that exists) then fine. But right now he's just the worst part of the show.

I do feel for Shizuku a bit. When she's on the dancefloor it's "oooh Hyodo" since he's clearly dancing by himself right? But, I could at least get the idea that Sengoku is super talented and maybe outshines Shizuku's talents. But then you have outside the dance floor. She has legitimate grievances with both Hyodo and Sengoku. Neither tell her anything and she's left to figure things out by herself. This partnership is a pair thing just half the pair is basically not consulted on any level.

Considering the baffling lack of female leads in sports anime nowadays...

Considering the baffling lack of female leads in sports anime nowadays, one could hypothetically watch Welcome to the Ballroom in order to fulfill that desire even if she's just a co-lead with the male protagonist. Heck, the very premise of using ballroom dancing suggest omnipandering fanservice for both male and female audiences. But unfortunately it seems like according to this, the female partners so far are essentially trophies for the males compounded with all the other problems. It's rather aggravating how this series squandered a really good opportunity here.

Is this really the case?

Most of the negative stuff I've read has just been on ANN or from a few select people on twitter.

Everywhere else I've been the reactions to the show seem to be fairly positive. Heck, the main complaint I saw were people complaining about still shots during some of the dance scenes. Admittedly, I've seen people mention their dislike of Sengoku or at least some of his actions(which I understand), but that's about as far as that's gone.

I don't know, it honestly just seems like one big overreaction to me if it's really as bad as some people are saying it is, but like I said, I haven't really seen that in most of the sites/forums that I frequent.

darkchibi07 wrote:

Considering the baffling lack of female leads in sports anime nowadays, one could hypothetically watch Welcome to the Ballroom in order to fulfill that desire even if she's just a co-lead with the male protagonist. Heck, the very premise of using ballroom dancing suggest omnipandering fanservice for both male and female audiences. But unfortunately it seems like according to this, the female partners so far are essentially trophies for the males compounded with all the other problems. It's rather aggravating how this series squandered a really good opportunity here.

Sports anime are mostly aimed at men, so male leads are only logical for readers to identify with the characters. As in this case, Ballroom runs in a shounen mabazine. Criticizing that aspect seems akin to criticizing shoujo for having mostly female leads.

ANN generally has a different outlook on shows compared to other anime communities.[...] Subjects like 'female agency' are usually only a concern here.

Being aimed at men (and whether sports anime are aimed mostly at men in this day an age is highly debatable, considering it was fujoshi who made Kurobas, Yow/apeda and Haikyuu a success) does not excuse having poor writing for its female characters.