As you know if you’ve been reading my Top 10 posts, the last couple of spots were a real nightmare for me. I’ll spoil the #11-20 post a little (though I don’t think it will shock anybody) by saying Wandance was one of those 5 fighting for 2 places. It was agonizingly close, and to be honest Wandance was on my first draft of the list and stayed there a while. In the end it just missed out but, as I said over there, it was basically a five-way tie. And if I did default to that “favorite” over “best” metric – the series I had the most affection for personally – it would have been in.

I suppose a logical question would be, “If you’d been able to wait until the final episode aired, would it have changed the result?”. And I would have to answer that no, it wouldn’t. This was an excellent finale – with one frustrating element I imagine most people could guess – but it didn’t change things either way. I pretty much knew we would be getting a read the manga ending (though we also got an announcement for a live-action movie) so I was OK with that. Wandance is the sort of story, depicting young adults just on the front end of an explosion of personal expression, that can be satisfying without being conclusive.

It’s a measure of the sort of series this is that the main character barely said a word out loud for the entire episode. That’s really the point – for Kabo, communication without speaking means everything. So when he says Wanda “gets” him, that means something even more than it would to most lovestruck teenagers. Dance is a lot of things – a sport, a leisure activity, an art form – but most pertinently here it’s a form of self-expression. Their routes to holding that in such importance are very different, but Wanda and Kabo both treasure that element of it.

But most of this final episode is really Kabo vs. Kabe. They’re a mismatched pair in so many ways, obvious and otherwise. Kabe is a B-boy, a break-dancer, a technician. He doesn’t improvize so much as choose a set pattern to fit the song being played. And his discipline carries a tradition of confrontation – trying to beat the other dancer mentally, to get inside their head. Like the phantom handshake to start things off, or pulling his mask up over his eyes in the first round. That serves two purposes – it gives him the cachet of dancing blindfolded, and it shows that he’s dissing Kabo. That Kabo’s dance isn’t even worth watching (though Kabe later muses that he just didn’t want to watch Kabo embarrass himself).

I don’t really know jack about breakdancing. And I would say I find it less compelling than some of the other styles in Wandance. It’s more about athleticism than artistry to me, but even I can see that Kabe is pretty amazing at it. What’s interesting here is that Kabe assumes Kabo is dissing him, all part of the mind games – but I didn’t see that at all (much less short jokes). Kabo isn’t capable of that to begin with I don’t think but I’m with Wanda here – I thought he was very respectful. He even gave Kabe a little hand-bow after his first round.

Kabo’s moves were where the improvements in the anime’s presentation really showed themselves. The whole notion of him feeling the music in a way Kabe doesn’t was really communicated well. And it’s funny, this whole time I thought the shot at the end of the OP was Iori, but it was actually Kabo after he did the sweaty hair thing. That was a sort of sneaky important moment, about more than just dancing (though it was crucial to his success there). This was a teenage boy with self-esteem problems admitting to himself “fuck yeah, I’m cool”. And being able to do that is a huge step for Kabo both as a dancer and as a person.

In the end, Kabe does win – a result I acknowledged last week did make some narrative sense. But once more Assay is the odd judge out – he votes for Kabo because, he later tells Iori (who asked) Kabe’s face looked like he felt he’d lost. Objectively, making the semi-finals as a first-year and almost beating Kabe is a great result for Kabo. He actually surpassed Wanda in this event, and was universally credited with performing at a very high level. But he’s a kid, and losing sucks. He was this close to facing off against Iori, who’s become his beloved mentor, and it guts him. He’ll be okay though – a kid should react that way. And he has Wanda at his side.

The one disappointment for me, of course, is not seeing the Iori vs. Kabe final. They too are opposites – Iori is Fred Astaire, all grace and fluidity. Kabe is a breakdancer, and never has anyone fit the name more. Everything is “break” with him – his teeth, his phone screen. It would have been fascinating to see – I can read the manga to see how it comes out of course (and might), but Iori is my favorite dancer in Wandance and it wouldn’t be as satisfying as seeing it animated. On the personal side a “to be continued” ending is fine because these kids are in transition in every way. But the sports side of it? Well, seeing that resolved wouldn’t have sucked.

One can’t take stock of Wandance as a whole without considering the CGI and how it was used in the dancing sequences. There was some good stuff there – real dancers wearing motion capture suits were used for each character, so we were seeing a representation of their individual dance styles. But needless to say, in terms of facial animation and background characters these sequences were rough sledding for a long time. They got way better – peaking in Episode 11 – but there was still an opportunity missed here. It didn’t stop me from loving the series, but the frustrating thing is that it surely caused a lot of viewers (including manga readers) to never give it a chance.

As usual, I can only go by my own impressions, and not worry about not meshing with the zeitgeist. Wandance clicked for me in so many ways. These are really interesting, nuanced characters and the way the series dealt with Kabo’s stuttering was insightful and endearing. As a romance, as a coming of age story, and as a sports series it worked. It got me more interested in dance than I’ve ever been, which is quite an accomplishment. In some years it would have made my top 10 for sure. Whatever verdict is pronounced by others, my vote is the only one that matters for me, and I consider it a resounding success.