In a world where physical strength and endurance are associated with masculinity, dance is one of the few activities that encompasses both traits yet is still tied to femininity. However, even within dance, none gets tagged for girls more than ballet. While its fashionable clothing, love stories, makeup, and hairstyling do portray the dance in a more feminine style, it is without question that ballet is a physically strenuous activity that requires copious amounts of endurance, flexibility, and strength. Athletes, actors, and even wrestlers train in ballet to develop better posture, strength, and core, but that fact is rarely talked about. Dance Dance Danseur points out this discrepancy through the character arc of its protagonist, Junpei, and helps him reconcile that ballet and masculinity can not only coexist but also define each other.
Dance Dance Danseur doesn’t bother hiding its theme like some heteronormative stories that breach the subject of gender conformity do — it announces it through a large blowhorn. From the very first episode, we watch Junpei’s eyes sparkle as a professional ballet dancer leaps on stage. He immediately decides to learn ballet like his sister, even though everyone else in his class would be girls. His well-meaning and loving father makes an innocuous comment about learning martial arts to be more “manly” but quickly shows support for his son’s decision to learn ballet when Junpei proclaims his passion for the dance.
Unfortunately, that innocuous comment lodges into Junpei’s childhood brain, and it makes an even bigger impact once his father abruptly dies. Junpei’s uncle tells him he’s now the man of the house who needs to protect his mom and older sister, and Junpei finds himself choosing to erase a part of his identity in an attempt to fit the image of a man that he is expected to embody.
There is no question of the fact that both his father and uncle loved him, but the story powerfully illustrates how even the smallest comments meant to comfort or convince can hurt and change a child’s life. His deceased father clearly didn’t see anything wrong with Junpei’s love for ballet because of how quickly he agreed to Junpei’s request for ballet classes, but his comment about martial arts rippled with his death. By the time we see teenager Junpei, he had committed himself to exactly the type of “manliness” he believed his deceased father wanted him to have — a martial artist and sports player surrounded by other guys interested in similar activities. He proves his ability to protect his family and uphold the “man” mantle by acting loud, aggressive, and competitive.
However, Miyako, the daughter of a ballet teacher, noticed Junpei’s tendency to incorporate ballet moves into his martial arts. She approaches him and accurately deduces his knowledge of ballet. Junpei continues to push back on her requests to join him in a ballet performance until she makes a comment about how she was stupid to believe he knew anything about ballet. Despite his vehement denials, with his main argument lying on his gender as a man, Junpei leaps into action and displays that even all those years of cutting himself off from the dance did not destroy his hidden passion for ballet.
In typical stories, most protagonists struggle through a small obstacle to prepare for the larger, longer running conflict in the story. These smaller obstacles are usually resolved in only a single episode; some of them are resolved in the first episode alone, and others are resolved at the start of the second. The setup positions Junpei’s struggles with his masculinity as that small obstacle as it introduces the conflict in the premiere and even ends it with him dancing ballet powerfully in a studio. However, Dance Dance Danseur chooses to go through the harder route by diving deeper into the conflict.
Junpei’s reconnection with his passion does not simply unravel the years of conditioning and self-convincing he’s undergone about the idea of manliness. While he no longer finds himself capable of denying ballet, he still rationalizes his reasoning for pursuing it. He tells himself he only wants to practice because he’s attracted to the girl. He wants to argue against the girl’s sharp-tongued mother who’s critical of his ballet. He’s not taking it seriously — he values his soccer team, martial arts, and his other “manly” friends more than ballet. The more he rediscovers his love, the more he forces himself to other “manly” commitments to make up for it.
Enter Luou, the rival that every anime protagonist has. Like Junpei, Luou is a guy who dances ballet. Unlike Junpei, Luou is the opposite of what defines “manliness.” His face is delicate and beautiful. He’s scared and cowers around people. Ballet is the only thing he knows while holding little interest in anything else. The two characters take an instant dislike towards each other, both for personal reasons. Junpei, with his loud, unrefined manner of speaking and tendency to challenge arguments, reminds Luou of the bullies he lived his entire school life with. Luou is a manifestation of Junpei’s biggest insecurity.
The insecurity becomes tangible when Junpei’s own friends decide to bully Luou in school. Like most bullying, it starts off with jabbing remarks but soon spirals into full humiliation in front of other classmates and physical abuse. Junpei spends the day silently judging his friends’ bullying, but he also finds himself annoyed at Luou. Why won’t he fight? Why won’t he yell back? Why can’t he just be a man? Fighting, yelling, and aggression are what defines manhood. “So uncool,” he thinks at one point when Luou curls up and whimpers instead of attempting to defend himself. His definition of masculinity is so toxic that even though Luou is pelted with soccer balls, Junpei concludes that showing fear is showing weakness.
However, his continued denial of Luou’s victimhood distances him from ballet. He stops attending lessons, he stops watching ballet performances online, and he practices alone with a closed door. At the end of a school day, after another bullying session from his friends towards a defenseless and scared Luou, Junpei tries to rationalize his decision to remain a bystander and is finally forced to admit — he doesn’t feel manly at all.
He feels like a coward.
Masculinity and strength have become synonymous throughout the years, but the anime puts out an important question: What kind of strength? If it’s truly just physical strength as many people like to believe, then the bullies who often are physically stronger than their victims should be venerated for their manliness — except we know they’re not respectful people at all. Additionally, if physical strength is the only indicator, then ballet would’ve been swept into the circle of masculinity alongside martial arts and soccer. At one point in the series, Junpei attempts to lift Miyako up from the waist after watching a professional lift a fellow dancer and fails miserably. Miyako points out his lack of muscles to lift her that way, and Junpei realizes he isn’t strong enough for ballet despite all his other physical activities. Yet, he still hides that part of his life from everyone else.
Dance Dance Danseur answers its own question: the strength that defines masculinity, that makes boys “cool,” is the strength to embrace and love yourself. Junpei learns this after Luou is forced in front of the school dressed in a girl’s uniform, and, after facing a sea of faces mixed with confusion, horror, and mockery, kicks off his shoes and performs ballet without hesitation. Tears roll down Junpei’s eyes during Luou’s unashamed performance, and he realizes with a mixture of shame for himself and admiration for Luou that Luou was the true definition of manliness he was trying to capture all this time.
Humans naturally seek categorization. Even as a child, we learn to associate certain actions with certain holidays, which classmates are friends or best friends, and which activities are hobbies or nuisances. Masculinity, as a result, will likely always be categorized with strength, even as we seek to recognize that strength is relevant regardless of gender.
Dance Dance Danseur doesn’t make the argument that we should simply stop categorizing — we can still associate manliness with strength. What we need to do instead is properly define what those words mean and ensure those words do not leave us feeling anxious, embarrassed, and unhappy like Junpei felt whenever he denied himself ballet. At the end of the day, these categorizations exist to help us grow, to push us forward, and to better our understanding of ourselves.
Junpei embodies that best. When he reconciles that ballet is manly because that’s just what he loves, he dances through the hallways of the school with the biggest smile on his face — showing his freedom, pride, and love for himself.