Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Whatever Happened to Welcome to the Ballroom?
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DmonHiro
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This show is a mess. I'm not one to get up and angry about gender politics in anime but GODDAMN. And that's not even the worst part: like they said, this anime fails at basic level. It simply does not understand ballroom dancing. Almost nothing they say about how the partnership of the couple is correct. I know this and I don't even WATCH ballroom dancing.
Yeah, most sports anime wildly exaggerate the sport. But even when the guys in Yowamushi Pedal are doing preposterous things like inflating to two times their size or sprouting wings or transforming into Freeza's 3'rd form I can still say "Well, that's still cycling". |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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Im just sitting here trying to wrap my head around the fact that "heteronormative" is being used as an insult.
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Grimvice
Posts: 89 |
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Man, I gotta say how disappointed this adaptation turned out. Besides the weird music choices and not animating half the dancing, they kept leaving out and changing scenes from the manga that fleshed out characters better.
I dunno what it is, but the manga didn't seem NEARLY as weirdly-sexist as the anime felt... Like, is this a combination of conservative Japan and missing research? Because I feel like there's more to it than BUH IT'S SEXIST AND HETERONORMATIVE!!! And "Thank god I'm gay"? Though I agree on a lot of points in this article, I don't think there are many sentences that destroy respect or credibility like that one, besides "Thank god I'm straight".... |
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Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
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Sounds like you are, if you think "inflating to two times their size or sprouting wings or transforming into Freeza's 3'rd form" in a cycling anime is less distracting than traditional gender norms. I know it's [Current Year], but I've seen Pokemon fans less nitpicky about game mechanics being ignored in the show than people here raging about gender politics in Ballroom. Last edited by Lord Oink on Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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eely225
 Posts: 96 Location: West Lafayette, IN |
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Yeah, it's alternately aggressively boring and deeply uncomfortable.
I'm surprised they got through the whole thing without mentioning the brief, inexplicable appearance of Sengoku's rival, Vasilly (sp?), whose function is to be a large, muscular man who is also gay and therefore a sexual predator. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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Keep putting off giving Ballroom a go. A two hour film that explores a "team" sport where nobody is in it for their partner's sake & makes no secret of it is something I'd be interested in. A two season TV show that just repeats that nobody is in it for their partner's sake over & over again? I'll pass.
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jroa
Posts: 550 |
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Interesting discussion. I didn't watch enough of the show to personally agree or disagree with the main points of this exchange, but at least on paper it seems valid to argue that the combination of boring partner dynamics as opposed to more nuanced ones, unlikable character behavior and weird ideas about how dancing actually works is dragging this story down more than the initial issues some people had with the design style.
I don't think fiction always needs to challenge traditional gender roles, but I do think that a better understanding of how men and women actually interact in reality rather than in theory would make for a more interesting experience, period, whether or not that also involved introducing a more diverse portrayal of sexual orientation (which, while definitely well-intentioned, can also result in boring or problematic dynamics if not properly handled). |
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Scalfin
Posts: 249 |
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From my experience swing dancing, I would say that the show does have at least some kernel of accuracy in the lead-follow dynamics. Much like how the military is by necessity highly hierarchical, dance positions are highly dimorphic, with leads being in charge of timing and, in improvisational settings, move choice. A follow not being sensitive to a lead's signals and rhythm or a lead being unclear quickly leads to the partners falling out of synch and the routine breaking down. As such, a follow's experience as a lead would be more a source of bad habits that need unlearning than useful background past the "learning how to dance" level.
The way Ballroom applies it to relationships seems as insane as how it treats all human interactions, though. |
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HueyLion
 Posts: 914 |
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Mate this show was a mess the moment it turned to "Welcome to the Giraffes Ballroom" |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5523 Location: Iscandar |
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I was also excited about this show when it started airing, but I dropped it after episode 8 because IT HATES WOMEN.
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Engineering Nerd
 Posts: 907 Location: Southern California |
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Huh....I have read manga and all those so-called sexist lines are coming from the source material, don’t try to play the usual “manga is sooooo much better” card here. It’s not. In fact, there are a lots of lines that are consider “sexist” that the anime omitted, it’s definitely a flawed adaptation, but do not pretend the source material is innocent. After seeing so much negative energy from the ballroom anime discussion, I revisited the manga, you have no idea how terrified I am every time reading questionable lines from the manga: oh no! If they animated this, it will get ripped apart! It does not deserve a 2 cour adaptation, I am actually glad that IG did not put much effort on this which is doomed on sales to even begin with, as weird as that sounds, and it pains me greatly to say that. |
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6172 Location: USA |
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I've never heard about his show but the comments seem more entertaining than the show. Well, y'know the saying another man's junk is another man's treasure.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4666 Location: New York |
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“Heteronormative” tends to disqualify most opinions people have in my mind.
Focus on how everyone is a garbage person. |
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Maniacal-Marshmallow
Posts: 7 |
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Uh, it was obviously a joke. Don't get your panties in a twist. |
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Pierrot.
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"Heteronormative" eh..yeah ok.
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