Pretty dancing boys slowly falling in love!

This is a pretty cool manga that is very far from the normal stuff I read. There’s no supernatural elements here, everyone is human and neither of our main characters are in high school! Whoooo!

In the world of ballroom dance, Shinya Sugiki is god. He’s won the triple crown a ton of times and he’s trying to becoming champion in the 10 Dance Competition, but standard ballroom is his bread and butter. In order to win, he has to master the other half of the 10 Dance, the Latin style. He and Shinya Suzuki, the number one Latin dancer, decide to train one another in the dances they both need to master in order to become champions.

I absolutely adored the art style of this manga. I can’t properly describe the style as I know nothing of art, but it portrayed a much “older” aesthetic. I believed the characters were in their late 20s rather than the popular, younger looking manga style art. It gave weight to the characters and their world and it made everything seem more real and honest.

I found the characters to be interesting and their chemistry was great. I felt like the relationship between them that will develop is doing so slow burn style, because I don’t feel like we got to see a lot of that in this volume. My only issue with their relationship is we’ve learned a lot about who they are to one another and the world within the realm of dance, but I wish their personalities, relationship histories, sexuality, etc, would be more explored.

The one struggle I had with this book is a leaning curve on my behalf, but I found a lot of the dancing terminology to be difficult to pick up on and I had to read a few sections over in order to figure out what I was supposed to be taking away. There’s a small glossary in the back, but I had to look to it and google a few times, which messed with the books pacing for me. However I did ADORE how they take the time to discuss how Suzuki was struggling in the role of the female partner when he’s used to leading, and Sugiki gets him in position to explain how difficult it is being a woman in that position and how much work and effort goes into being guided. I found it to be a very interesting perspective to have and it was worded really well in a way that suited the characters.

Title: 10 Dance (Volume 1)
Author: Satoh Inoue
Format:  Paperback
Pages: 210
ISBN: 9781632367655
Three Descriptors: Fast-paced, Authentic, Bittersweet