Last time, Kanade came to realize that school (and by extension the normal life of a kid) wasn't where she belonged while also realizing that she absolutely needs a scholarship to dance professionally. Her parents reinforced this while laying out the difficulties if she decides to forego schooling for dancing and she's not able to make it. At the same time Kanade rushed to see off Sakura leading to an emotional Sakura to hug her and tell Kanade that she better catch up to her. Kanade watched as her friend left, headed for a year long stay in Munich.
This chapter, with the YAGP preliminaries almost here Kanade continues to train hard with a little stern assistance from Saki who's temporarily back in Japan.
It's also our once-a-volume Risa chapter. It's nice how even though Risa's been retired for like 4 years Kanade still holds her in incredibly high regard.
I actually meant to post it maybe an hour or so ago but got caught up in other things. I've found that the threads tend to not get buried as quickly in the evening/at night. Especially on weekends.
This manga is reciving a lot of love from you, but I can't pinpoint the reason. Is the MC your waifu? Did you want to become a ballet dancer when you were younger?
So Kanade will get a costume from Risa after all (much to her delight) while Risa has found something she truly loves and wants to make a living out of in costume design. Good for her.
That finishes this chapter. Next chapter, volume 7 closes out with the start of the YAGP.
Ballroom e Youkouso got a lot of attention, before and after it had an anime.
Christopher Young
>waifu Not a lolicon so no if I had a waifu from this series it's Tamaki.
Nothing to do with ballet either. I think it might've been posted in a OPT or something a month or two back. I just remember liking the art and looking for something else to read. It really grabbed me and I think it's just a really well done and engaging series without going too far into all kinds of dramatic cliches.
Legit, one of the fantasies I've always had if, say, I won the lottery is having money to start sharing/giving exposure to the things I think are neat; not causes but dumb shit so I kind of connect with Kanade a bit on that. So I figure I can do the next best thing and if I'm into a manga, just dump/storytime it and hopefully get some more people into it too. Once I've caught up to the scanlations of this series I'll probably find something else to dump.
Easton Davis
Ballroom dancing is a lot more approachable, imo, and the series is more shounen-like, as far as sports series go, with a pretty strong, attractive pen and waifu teenage characters. It's great, but this series feels very different, in a better way for me personally.
Angel Jenkins
My only exposure to ballroom dancing is Sesuji which I loved but I'll also eat up damn near anything Yokota does.
So I can't speak for Ballroom's approach but here the series is obviously grounded hard in reality. The dramatics are more low key instead of soap operatic (the closest we've gotten was the arc with Shouko and her father), the tension comes from the competitions in a fairly grounded manner as well as seeing how far Kanade's dream can take her. Ballet's pretty niche as is and the series eliminates a lot of other stuff (slice-of-life focused chapters and really anything outside of ballet) that people might have an easier time connecting with.
On the flipside, I think it does a really great job at pulling you in and explaining things such that you're able to get an understanding and appreciation for ballet. It's obvious Cuvie loves ballet and it's reflected in Kanade's own love. I don't think the series works at all without that earnestness.
Isaiah Carter
Yeah, Ballroom is more soapy. It inches more towards interpersonal conflict, which also ties into romance tease with several attractive partners. Has them overcoming their differences to dance well together, with a lot of focus on the actual competition against others, and thus also brings up some other random competitors' struggles (to compare them against our main characters). The last bit I really couldn't buy into, unfortunately.
Kenrantaru focuses a lot more on personal conflict, its artform through various lenses, and handles interrelationships waaay better, which is what makes the series for me.
Wyatt Cruz
I for one think the Tatara/Chinatsu relationship is by far the most complex and interesting one I've seen in a manga. In the end, Ballroom is really about the character struggling to overcome huge hurdles in front of them, either in their relationships or with their dancing skills, while En Scène is more focused on simply following the story of an MC who never really struggle, her progress, her growth, and how she naturally overcome the events she has to face to reach her goals. She's never at the top compared to her rival, but she's always following them just behind and also never fall hard or fail like her rivals/friends occasionnally do. That's 2 different approaches. Anyway, we'll probably never see the rest of Ballroom e Youkoso.
Juan Brown
I think a big part of Kenrantaru is having a positive attitude, a strong will and support. Kanade doesn't struggle with the hardships as such because she's just a naturally optimistic person willing to go head first into things who sees any set backs as opportunities to grow. The same attributes are why she has the support network she has as well from Shouko to her teachers to Sakura to Risa and her parents and without them she'd never have made it as far as she has.
I'd also say it emphasizes something entirely mundane: the grind. We don't see every moment of Kanade's life after all but she's going to lessons pretty much every day and when she doesn't have lessons she's going to practice (as in this chapter) anyway. She's been dancing for 4 or 5 years since the start of the series and has largely worked her ass off to get to where she is. But you can't do a bunch of chapters of just nothing but practice either but her work ethic is something that's always strongly emphasized.
Bentley Roberts
Yeah, 2 different approaches, where most sports series approach it the way Ballroom does. I was also pretty vested into the Tatara's conflicts with his partners (certainly not to your extent), but it failed at contrasting them with other dancers. I'd rather it just focused on them. But then you wouldn't have the sports-shounen aspect that sells I guess.
You can't realistically take that approach with ballet, though, because the sport is less approachable. There's no school club about it, because you kill your feet without guidance. No partnering until way into personal training. And not much chance at being pro if you don't start in your (early) teens.
We're following Kanade who appears to naturally overcome events to reach her goal (even though she's already probably put well over an order of magnitude more training than Tatara has by the end of the series, by age 13) because if we followed someone like Risa (which is most people practicing ballet ever), you'd just have tons of personal training into average performances into quitting. I mean, it could make for an interesting shorter main story, but it'd be kind of disappointing to read 20 volumes into an ending like that, so Kenrantaru explores those realities through secondary and tertiary characters instead.
Matthew Davis
Which is interesting given that Julia post-YAGP seems to be in the same kind of position Risa was in just before she retired. I hope she gets some attention after the NYC stuff so we can see if she winds up like Risa or is able to push through it and find her motivation like Ema did.
Carson Stewart
Her are Ryou, probably,, and no further than this chapter for another good example: Saki came to the realization she wasn't good enough to pursue a career as a dancer earlier in the series, and is instead studying to become a teacher.
There are other examples all over the series of people who were once passionate about dancing coming up short. Rena with the bowed legs, that one girl who Kanade replaced in a small role in The Sleeping Beauty. I recall The Sleeping Beauty casting hiring semi-pros in mid-range roles as well, Takimoto with the career-ending injury, Tamaki I assume not landing more than small gigs, etc. I think it's really interesting to see this contrast, having them come to that realization, accept their situation and still be able to cheer on Kanade and others.
