I must confess, Wandance is one of the more conflicted watching experience I’ve had in anime for a good while. Whenever the talk goes to dancing terminology like “walls” and even beats, a part of me becomes a student in a Peanuts special when an adult is talking. I just don’t feel the dancing thing – my being doesn’t resonate with it. And every time (well, almost) we get a serious dance moment and the CGI kicks in it takes me totally out of the moment. Those are big hills to climb, yet I still feel deeply connected to the series so far.
The first one is less of a hurdle. I mean, I don’t feel karuta or volleyball or any number of examples I could cite (ballet the most relevant, probably) either. With some of them there is an intellectual curiosity I don’t really have with this subject, but that’s okay. I’m struggling a lot with the other problem though, as much as I hate to keep bringing it up every week. There were actually one or two cuts that looked kind of okay this week – I thought the underwater dance scene was perceptibly better. But on balance it’s still a major carbuncle on the facade of this show.
But, as I said, I’m feeling Wandance as a whole. For me Kabo is an incredibly interesting and empathetic lead, and as much as Wanda is a bit of a blank slate so far, she’s awfully fun to be around. I really like On-sempai too – her way of teaching is very interesting to watch. I think there’s a deep connection between Kabo and Wanda and the whole dance experience – even if I can never grasp the connection itself, You can feel the intensity of it. Kabo’s speech impediment is such a big part of this – he wants desperately to share himself with the world, and not constantly be getting in his own way trying to do it.
I’ve heard that “underwater” analogy in reference to stuttering before, and I think it’s very effective at communicating just how suffocating the experience must be. The seahorse is Kabo’s spirit animal – and his avatar. He admires its freedom and ability to be so in harmony with its world. And the girls find it cute, which is a nice fringe benefit. I also think the focus On places on not rushing when you’re trying to improvise is very fitting for Kabo specifically. I would also note that I’ve coached public speaking, and invariably when students (ones without a stutter) are nervous, they speed up dramatically. It doesn’t work in a presentation, and even I can see that it won’t work in a dance performance.
This week is all about auditions for the upcoming dance competition, which is seems On is desperate to win (she’s never had much help). Naturally Kabo is terrified as he waits for their turn (dancers always audition in pairs, apparently), and at first he freezes when the music starts. But he has a revelation watching Wanda: she’s dancing behind the music (just as Sinatra always sang behind it). She’s letting it tell her body what to do, not the other way around. And when he finally uncoils that massive body into motion, even a Philistine like me can see that he’s good. Really good. And that the two of them are in perfect sync.
There are a couple of other notable developments here. We finally meet Chekov’s gun, the male sempai who never shows up to the club – Itsukushima Iori (Masuda Toshiki). And you can tell from the way On talks to him that he has talent. And the non-dance relationship between Wanda and Kabo continues to evolve. She stands him up for one of their window-mirror nighttime practice sessions, and he naturally assumes the worst. Turns out her dad is sick, but she doesn’t have LINE (RAIN is a new one on me, ROFL) and rightly assumes he’s bad on the phone. A very considerate act that. Turns out she deleted the app because she hates notifications – and Kabo promptly informs her that she can just turn them off.
It’s a tug-of-war, Wandance. It’ll never be well-received because anime fandom as a whole is simply too unforgiving of the sins it’s committing, but for me the good significantly outweighs the bad. The moment when Kabo unfurled himself like a spinnaker on an America’s Cup yacht and started dancing was truly magical, CGI or not – a great character moment and not the series’ first. Between the highs and lows every episode yanks me back and forth in exhausting fashion, but there’s no way I can walk away from a series that speaks as eloquently as this one does.





