Been watching welcome to the ballroom lately and it's really made me think about how... Kinda shit anime criticism is in general?
This show got dunked on pretty hard for its animation aesthetic of having the characters weirdly distort and contort themselves during dance sequences to look like something Peter Chung would draw rather then typical anime characters.
And like, they do. They look fuckin weird dancing. And it rules.
Like people acted like this was some fuck up of production when it came out or just like bad decisions instead of a really dope way to portray dancing? Cause like, I love dancing. I cry at good dancing, but dancing is fucking weird. And like competitive dancing especially. People look fuckin weird when they're doing it.
And animation at its core should exaggerate on that. And in welcome to the ballroom they do. People become distorted to the point they can stop reading as people and start reading as shapes. They embody the dance more then a person ever can. They become these beautiful swirling blurs of shape and colour rather then two people dancing and it's amazing. The dance becomes rather then an act of two people it's like an abstract force that exists in its own right.
I was stalking checking out your profile and I found out you like this series. I wasn't sure if you had a favorite character so I decided to color the mains for you! I hope you have a lovely birthday!
I have a weird fascination with strong red haired women so here's an appreciation post that includes aforementioned strong women (with special guest genderless rock person):
I see now that I am slowly collecting them like stamps....
List of characters and their media (in order, from left to right & top to bottom):
Chinatsu Hiyama from Welcome to the Ballroom
Rubianna from The Duke of Ashleyan's Contractual Marriage