Ballet Hero Fantasy manga featuring Steven McRae

[DavidW]

I'm not sure if Doing Dance is the best place to post about this, but I thought some DSs (and DDs!) might be interested.

 

I ordered the english translation of "Ballet Hero Fantasy" from Amazon last week and it arrived on Monday. This is the manga (Japanese comic book) about ballet featuring Steven McRae.

 

First, let me just say that if you have a DS (or are a boy doing ballet) then buy this! I think it is an absolutely *huge* step in getting boys realising that doing ballet is cool. I know that if you have a DS they probably already think ballet is cool, but being able to show their friends this is awesome. (I even showed some of my PhD friends and they thought it was cool - and they're all in their mid-twenties!)

 

It is the story of a boy at a ballet school (looks like the entrance to RBS Upper School in the drawing) who isn't great at the fancy stuff but works hard to get the basics right. He sees McRae rehearsing in an empty studio one evening and watches him vanish through the mirror - and so in true Narnia style follows him into another world.

 

They end up in Danceworld (inventive name...!) and this "Act" (what they're calling this volume) is set in the Nutcracker world. In short, they have to use dance moves to scare off the bad guys and McRae helps the hero Dan realise his potential.

 

The dialogue translation is a little stilted at times, but overall this is awesome. The drawings are cool, the character is relateable, and McRae is awesome. I particularly love that for a few moves (coupe jete en tournant, tour en l'air) they give a description of the move in a footnote. It's cheap and well worth the money although it's very short and any older kids will read it in a flash. I'm fairly sure there have been more "Acts" in Japan so hopefully they'll be translated soon - I imagine each one will cover a different ballet.

 

I'll be doing a full review on my blog soon but I just wanted to post here to encourage people to pick up a copy! Hopefully they'll start stocking it at the ROH shop and other dance places soon for those who don't like using Amazon... 

[Picturesinthefirelight]

Wow very interested in this. Both my non dancing ds & dancing dd love manga

[Busymum]

My son loves it. He is pestering me for the next one but obviously it isn't available over here yet.

I think it's absolutely brilliant to have a cool ballet book for boys. It really was long overdue.

[HumflyDumfly]

Just bought this for my dancing nephew (dn?)'s 13th birthday!