The World Is Dancing ‒ Episodes 12-13 - SEASON FINALE
And so, the proverbial curtain closes on the story of The World Is Dancing, which ended up only covering a very small portion of the real Zeami Motokiyo's storied life and career. This has been a beautiful and often fascinating experience, getting to watch little Oniyasha grow into the artist who would revolutionize the culture of Japan, but it hasn't lately made for particularly incredible television. In the end, The World Is Dancing wound up as one of those artistic projects that inspired both intellectual respect and emotional detachment. It's like getting to a relatively interesting chapter in the history textbook you've been assigned to read for homework. I don't regret the opportunity to learn and engage with new aspects of a different culture, but I'm not going to go out of my way to revisit this material for fun on my own time.
These final two episodes contain some powerful glimpses of what made The World Is Dancing so riveting in its finest moments, but they're sandwiched between the same vague and somewhat frustrating narrative decisions that have characterized the back half of this series. The time skip proved to be a red herring, in the end, since we were not offered much of an opportunity to use the characters' new lives and perspectives in dramatically satisfying ways. Inuo remains as much of a blank slate as he's always been, and most of the narrative revolving around Yoshimitsu's political ambitions ends up falling by the wayside. The most compelling side characters, such as Ishiya and Chiharu, are only just now starting to blossom into the fully-realized humans we've always known them to be, right before the very final credits of the series begin to roll. At first, I was thrilled to see the show bring Oniyasha back to the Kanze troupe's stomping grounds and provide the most literal possible opportunity for self-reflection imaginable, but as always The World Is Dancing holds us at a distance, and Oniyasha's ultimate stroke of inspiration feels unearned.
To be honest, for as beautifully staged and colorful as the climactic performance was, it ended up being just as disappointing as most of the recent theatrical excursions have been. In part, this could purely be a matter of aesthetic preference. I'm such a fan of live theater art that I honestly think most animation is foolhardy to even try replicating its particular alchemy of intimacy and artificiality. On paper, I should be falling over myself with excitement over getting to see a dramatization of the birth of Noh theatre, but in practice I can only be distracted by the limitations of animation as a medium. Theater, to me, is all about the activation of every single sense that the brain can engage. The smell of the shared atmosphere being inhaled and exhaled by the crowd. The subtle sounds of the creaking stage floor and the shoes of the performers. The tangible textures of the costumes and props that you can practically reach out and touch. The weight of each minor sweep of a limb. The way the light catches in the eyes of the actors, or how it might reflect off the paint of those beautiful, delicate masks.
Obviously, The World Is Dancing cannot utilize any such elements of the theatrical experience, but that's where its use of abstract, expressionistic animation has been so critical to the overall experience. For some reason, the show has really downplayed these techniques a lot in the last half-dozen episodes, and while we do get some nice returns to the hand-brushed inks and watercolors in scenes like Inuo's breathless dance, Oniyasha's Noh routine is largely played straight. I can respect the craft on display, and I like getting to see the more traditional aspects of the art form being so meticulously recreated, but there's still that fundamental remove that comes from the lack of physicality and human presence. That's why I could not cross the emotional threshold and really feel what the episode was going for.
This was a lovingly crafted look at an exceptional historical figure, and I'm sure I'll find myself diving deep into the Noh rabbit hole of random research binges and library visits in future. As a television series, however, The World Is Dancing comes up short, often coming across more as the world's most over-produced segment of Japanese Schoolhouse Rock! than a completely engaging story in its own right. It's a shame, too, because even if the sum is less than the whole of its parts, the parts that make up anime were all very pretty.
Episode Rating:
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.
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