Wandance
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| Kabo's character personality is very normal for his appearance. Seems like he's the type of introvert who has inner thoughts often. Wanda is more energetic and personality than him so their meeting is kinda unusual. It seems for now, the two are building a relationship/story in their school setting. The dance club thing is part of it too of course. Decent start imo, has a lot of potential. |
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| Mangaka Coffee's Wandance is quite easily, a Madhouse-backed hyped show (along with Cyclone Graphics' 3DCG), that's for sure. A musical dance series, absolutely requires J-Pop boy band BE:FIRST's debut OP, and it's really just oozing with style. The school setting of Ichirin High, where one such student of Kaboku Kotani just can't stand people dancing, him being captivated by a silver-haired stylish girl who catches his attention, his friends thought he's going to the dance club to pick up on girls, but seeing the same silver-haired girl doing her own private dance (and even one of his friends recording her in the act), it's in the presence of combined classes that he figures out who she is: Hikari Wanda. Kotani trying to strike a conversation with her in his stuttering is quite the approach, though Wanda is as light as a feather, and telling of how his dancing back in his middle school was made a laughingstock that the trauma set in with embarrassment in tow, though Wanda doesn't blame him one bit for that. Despite problems with his speech, Kotani is trying his best to make do of where his speech falls short, and taking inspiration from Scatman John's iconic "I'm a Scatman" song, it's the start of change for him, along with his friends' harassments of Wanda. On the other hand, Yaffle feat. Yujin Aramaki's song of which occurs Wanda's private dance, and with Kotani doing his amateurish dancing with shuffling and all, it's the feeling of being free with dancing and the expressions that tell it all. This had better be one of Fall 2025's standout shows, this premiere is off to a good start. |
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| Sometimes you look at something and just feel bad. That’s exactly the case here, twice over. First there’s our MC and his stutter, and second there’s how downright awful this show looks. And no, I’m not even talking about the dance segments yet, those are terrible in their own special way, but overall this thing feels completely devoid of any soul or passion. I say “feel bad” because the premise introduced in this first episode is actually amazing. Under any other circumstances, I’d call it a hidden gem, maybe even a contender for best of the season. But that’s the tragedy, it could’ve been. Now, back to the dancing, which, if you haven’t caught on, is kind of a big deal here (it’s in the title for a reason). If it’s going to keep looking like whatever mess I just witnessed, then I’m sorry, but this is instantly going to be one of those “just read the manga” situations. I don’t know how, in the year 2025, the once mighty MADHOUSE is getting outdone by ENGI, studio FUCKING ENGI of all studios when it comes to CGI integration in a sports anime. All you can really do is feel bad for the author and for anyone who was actually looking forward to this. It’s a crime against anyone with functioning eyes. And that OP is probably down there with some of the worst OPs I've seen in my time as an anime fan, my ears were bleeding while the visuals made my eyes do the same. This truly is an adaptation of what seems to be a great manga... just a painfully bad one. |
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| Peak finally here. Soon as I found out BTS choreographer was involved with this I had it near the top of my hype list and the first episode lived up to it for me with the caveat of the 3DCGI… I love these seinen coming of age stories about embracing your passions and following what makes you happy rather than conforming to societal norms. Ultimately you are the only person who has to live with yourself, so you better make sure you like the person you see in the mirror each day. Premiere hooked me,Kabo dealing with the toxic masculinity of his friends and trying to fit in with them while holding back on the things he really likes to do felt suffocating even just as a viewer. Meeting Wanda and seeing someone who doesn’t hide what she likes and looks so free when she dances is such a big turning point in his life and I can’t wait to see their relationship develop. Her face card is up there with Scarlet from MayIAsk as the deadliest of the season. His friends taking and spreading that creep shot video had my stomach churning tho. Sadly that’s not at all unrealistic at that age, respect to Kabo for standing up for Wanda and telling them to delete it. The big issue here is, as you guessed, the 3DCGI. It looks really cheap to me idk, I am biased against 3DCGI in general, but lately we’ve had LL Superstar season 3, Duke of death and several other shows that incorporated 3DCGI in such a good way and this just feels like a massive step back. The choreography looks amazing, the songs are bangers, the 2D stuff looks great.. but if you’re a dancing anime you kinda need a lot of dancing and it just looks bad here to me. I’m still gonna be happily watching this every week because of Wanda and the music. Kabo being ass at dancing is great too because we get to see him grow and learn the basics of dancing. Laughed so hard when bro could only do the running man lmao. Good premiere |
Marinate1016Oct 8, 5:46 PM
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| Another madhouse banger. |
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| Expected Ballroom/Dance Dance Danseur but this looks awful, madhouse's cgi has never been their strong suit but man this look as bad as the cgi they used in Kiseiju like 10 years ago, might read mango instead who knows but i can't |
| Deep dark fantasies |
| Scatman John is such a nostalgia trip but having his music video straight up play in an anime for a full minute caught me off guard (in a good way) The 3D models will ...take some getting used to but are the moves themselves mocap'd by actual dancers? That's genuinely really cool if so. |
FarCriticalOct 8, 9:57 AM
Reply to Yukimoun
@IzanaSolos This isn't Madhouse's fault, man. It's all the fault of the production committee who chose Cyclone Graphics as their CGI studio. Even the director himself is a CGI director. I think they would have been better off with Madbox.
| @Yukimoun Actually you are probably incorrect. Its almost certain that they got madhouse first, and then madhouse themselves got cyclone as the second main studio and katou as the director. They have worked together since forever and are very closely related studios. @IzanaSolos Honestly i dont agree this looks awful. The CG? Yeah i can see that. The rest of the show really doesnt look all that bad, and you can definitely see that it does have passion in places. The backgrounds are some of the best this year honestly for me, just super good stuff (i will admit they are kinda carrying the show rn), and the directing is also quite competent. Do i think the 2d animation and art has really anything great? Nah definitely not, they are pure definition of mediocrity. But if you have mid animation, good directing, amazing backgrounds, and really shit CG. By mixing all of them, you at least get a somewhat mid looking show. Not a bad or even a soulless one, especially this one where you can see the director is actually trying to make it good. I will say the op does indeed kinda suck, doing a solo ka op on a dancing show was really not the best of ideas |
VP2003boiOct 8, 9:46 AM
| why do I exist? just to suffer?  |
| That was a solid first episode ❤️ Loving the character designs so much. Wanda is such an ethereal and divine beauty 💖✨✨ I have no complaints with the 3DCG. Did all the dance moves involve motion capture? Kotani seems to be an interesting character. He should quit basketball already. Hoto was really getting on my nerves. Glad that Kotani was able to speak his mind without stuttering to make his friends understand how he feels. The op and ed were fire ❤️🔥❤️🔥💯 It was great listening to Scatman. This is gonna be the gem of this season. Madhouse's gonna deliver. |
| Only 10 minutes in right now so don’t know if I’m correct in saying this, but does our main character have a natural stutter? That’s so cool, as I have/had a natural stutter too, so I’m getting some representation! I’m liking the dynamic with the main two already, the CGI is very jarring, hopefully I’ll get used to it or it’ll get better as we go on. |
Yuki_NijiOct 8, 10:50 AM
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| Maybe it's because I've been watching Love Live! But I didn't find the CG to be distracting at all!! I think it's an incredible adaption so far, ofc I prefer the rawness of how dance is depicted in the manga, but GYAT DAYUM I LOVE THIS ADAPTION!! Doing it's own thing, feeling the magic between wanda and kabo bloom all over again. God I need the new chapters to be tl'd STAT!!! |
| As someone with stuttering problems, i thought they would take it very seriously but i felt like they were playing around with it and it made me uncomfortable. CGI/3D or whatever is also very bad, I expected better. The art is good and carrying the show right now EP1 6/10 |
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| The CGI dancing is definitely jarring but just off of the few songs we heard in this episode, it seems like the music at least will hit. |
| People on MAL refuse to actually enjoy watching anime. Your taste in anime isn't a personality trait. Take me back to the days before MAL became infested with Twitter's favorite buzzwords. |
| the way her hair bounced in the cgi dance scene flashed me back to mmd, heh. The story is looking good so far, though! |
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The anime is really good but I don't like the moments of dancing I mean why at the time of dancing characters are like 3D characters I just don't like that it's like 2D In 2D , otherwise it's a good anime accept the dancing characters design. |
| The first CGI dance was a bit alarming. Expected better, but Wanda's dance CGI at the end looked better so it gives me hope. Its not the end all be all because I know the story is good. |
| So, is this really a dance anime with CGI animation in the spirit of the idol gatcha games? Does Bushi or Bamco have anything to do with this? |
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| Its sad the cgi is not good tbh, the plot is quite interesting |
| step up but in anime? anyway, as a street dancer for 1 year myself, her freestyle really spot on, with 8.5/10, why still such low score? if only they are not animating the dance scene with cgi, this show will be peak i hope his running man improved further with his freestyle surrounding his perfected running man. |
| Maybe is me being overly critic, but feel they k-popfied Kabo a little. Probably because defined the main part of the design the bowl cut. Reading the manga I understand the CGI choice very much. The manga is very stylized. Let's see how the production will handle the perms for songs. Wanda is so beautiful. |
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| The CGI is horrible but as long as the story is good/decent I can ignore it. |
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| I was scared of the adaptation and it's a success the way he talked was really well done, and we don't really have often this type of character the dance move was better than what I was expecting for the music,unfortunately, they changed them but I knew it now I'm excited for the episode 2 |
| PLEASE STOP RATING!!! less than 4 means that you don't know how to judge Anime / Manga!!! best recom on https://www.instagram.com/otakuweek?igsh=em5kY3Q4NTVtNXlh or Discord https://discord.gg/vbZrk64uH7 |
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