Welcome to Ballroom is a manga about ballroom dancing, following our protagonist Tatara as he begins to dance and find himself in this artistic world of dance. It's a high-quality manga with interesting characters, a dramatic and engaging story, and wonderfully beautiful art.
Characters
The characters are multidimensional; they aren't one-dimensional in the sense that you'll find characters with a huge spectrum of emotions and actions. Obviously, some emotions will be more prominent than others depending on the character, but in any case, these characters exhibit a rare emotional depth in manga. They seem like real people, not just heroes or villains; they are people with certain interests that sometimes go against our protagonist. The evolution of the characters and Tatara is palpable in the sense that just by his posture it's possible to distinguish how far he's come from the beginning. The intimacy that Tatara slowly develops with the other characters is also spectacular, as our protagonist begins to see others not as gods because they know how to dance better, but as human beings, with fears, envy, and so on.
World
The world is somewhat closed off, as it practically only has three spaces: the school, the competition venue, and the training area. But honestly, this doesn't affect the manga's experience that much because the manga is so focused on what's happening that the world doesn't need to develop the environments, as there isn't much space like in Goodnight Punpun, for example, which has a lot of silence and reflection.
Pace
Frenetic, terribly frenetic. Something is always happening; there's no moment to breathe properly, always moving forward quickly. But it's a pace that fits the story well, as it serves wonderfully to convey the emotion of the competition, the dance, and the connection between the characters.
Story
The story is very dramatic, but equally good and engaging. It's wonderful to see the evolution of the characters, the competitions, and the whole environment itself. Again, there's a lot of drama, fights, and emotional nuances of the characters involving each character's past (which are incredible, as they greatly increase their depth).
Conclusion
I conclude by saying that Welcome to the Ballroom is very good; it's an extremely competent manga in conveying diverse emotions, very fun and tense. Lots of speech bubbles, lots of text; it's a complicated read, even worse if you read it fast. It gave me a headache at one point, but it's very worthwhile. It made me want to dance again, it was so good.
(Translated with Google Translate, I originally wrote it in Portuguese)
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