I first found this show from discussion online about people discussing how bad the 3D animation was. After watching it for myself, I can confidently say for the first half especially it was genuinely terrible. Even the 2D animation is average at best and looks very crude. Not to mention how sometimes they used 2D and 3D animation at the same time, or quickly switched between them, which made both look even worse, especially since the 3D is smooth 60 fps while the 2D is stuck with the traditional 20~. It is baffling to have 3D animation this bad after Girls Band Cry last year, which was almost purely 3D and imo looks way better than 90% of 2D anime, and Medalist at the start of this year, which similarly to this show used 2D for it's normal scenes and 3D for it's performances, but pulled it off perfectly and didn't end up feeling out of place at all, utilizing 3D to deliver the performances with minimal embellishments. They could have went pure 2D like Dance Dance Danseur or Ballroom e Youkoso, both of which relied on more dramatized and embellished shots to sell you the narrative. But that was not what those who made Wandance wanted to go for, they wanted to portray all of the details as they are like Medalist, which is understandable. But in that case you really have to do the 3D justice, and they clearly didn't for most of the scenes.

It looks the worst when the focus is on female characters, as their longer hair flies everywhere like jellyfish, and their faces are usually modeled pretty badly. The most egregious example is the female lead, who looks like a blow up sex doll, and that really pulls you out of the show when other characters are fawning over how well she dances. On's model is better but it's still not great. But when the focus is on male characters (except Usen whose face and head also looks really weird), it looks a lot better, even good at times. Their shorter hair causes jello shenanigans to be limited to their clothes, which wasn't that bad, and their faces look much more natural and well modeled. Watching Kabo and Iori dance didn't bother me at all, dare I say sometimes it could even look good and I saw the vision they had. I thought it might be about choreography at first but that wasn't really the case. Even though the popping style On used against Iori in their dance battle in episode 8 is something I love to watch in real life, it still looked iffy because of her model and hair. Meanwhile I don't care about the house style Iori used yet it looked much better.

It wasn't all bad though. The animation; 2D, 3D, and their combination, gets a lot better towards the end of the season, starting from episode 8. Part of this is because the focus shifts more on to the male characters' performances. But also due to the usage of different visual effects and more abstract styles to support the 3D animation, not that dissimilar to the pure 2D shows I talked about prior, which really helped during the dance battles in the final episodes. After those episodes, I can confidently say 3D didn't just start looking alright, but it was the correct approach to take, just implemented terribly at first. By the end my biggest issue with the show was not the animation, but how the season ended at an extremely hype point. I just need 1 more episode, please...

I think a topic which is important but not nearly as talked about as the dances is the music, which was hit or miss, and similar to the animation, got better in the second half. I'm not a huge fan of hip hop but sometimes it really felt like they chose some of the worst stuff they could, it was almost like elevator or lobby music, especially the song they play in the competition which is played so many times in the first half. However the songs in the dance battle between Iori and On, and especially in the dance battle competition, showcased a wide array of music, and better helped me understand the different vibes and genres in hip hop.

As for the rest of the show, I won't talk about it nearly as much as I did the animation because that's what I wanted to primarily talk about. I thought it was pretty good for an anime in this genre, which automatically makes it great and above most anime. Characters feel alive, they have interesting motives and opinions on the subject matter, interesting dynamics between each other, and the competitive atmosphere is as always pretty fun. However you do not feel the characters practice and prepare themselves for the competitions as much as other shows with similar vibes, for example Kono Oto Tomare. Overall it was very enjoyable. Kabo is a great main character, and I found him to be a lot more likeable than most other main characters in shows like these, with only his obsession with Wanda being off putting. Speaking of which, I found her to be a very meh character. Partly due to her bad dances as I talked about prior, but I also never really liked her as a character, as I felt like she didn't have a very strong bond with dancing or music like the other characters, despite her assertions otherwise. Iori is a pretty chill dude and his personality allowed him to be a good contrast and a good guide to Kabo. On is also a dependable teacher and her dynamic with Iori was interesting. Kabe wasn't shown a lot but in the little time he did get I ended up really liking him as a character. He is kind of an asshole but you can understand his mentality, one of those characters who you love on a screen but would hate to deal with in person lol.

Whether or not the animation will be enough to ruin the show for you is going to be dependent on your own tastes. But in my opinion, disregarding the entire show for sometimes having bad animation is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The core of the show; the characters, the narrative, and the general message are well written. If you like these kinds of shows centered around competition, and bad animation isn't a dealbreaker, I would definitely recommend.