Beginning our list of the Top 10 Dancing Ballroom e Youkoso characters is Akira Koumoto. At first, we don’t see Akira as a dancer in the series. In fact, it takes several episodes from when she’s introduced—around episode 12—before we learn that she was actually partners with Tatara’s new partner Chinatsu Hiyama. Though when Tatara and Chinatsu enter a competition together, they see Akira with a man named Gorou Mine and see her skills in action. When you do see Akira dance, you’ll understand why she deserves to be on this list.

Despite having a rather large chest—oppai if you need us to specify—Akira dances quite smoothly. With grace and poise matched by only Chinatsu, Akira owns the floor several times after she’s introduced. We do learn of the troubled past between her and Chinatsu—which we won’t spoil—but we’re lucky it didn’t cause her love of dancing to be diminished. If it did, we wouldn’t have witnessed one of the better dancing girls in Ballroom e Youkoso. Though speaking of Akira’s partner, he actually will be our next mention on this list.

Some dancers in Ballroom e Youkoso look scary, we won’t lie, folks. That can definitely be said about Gorou Mine, partner to Akira Koumoto. Despite his scary face and rugged looks, Gorou is actually a nice person with a heart of gold. However, that isn’t enough to be worthy of our dancing list. Gorou needs to be able to dance and we promise you, folks, he sure can.

In later episodes—we won’t say exactly to avoid spoilers—Gorou shows his dancing prowess to many of us viewers and needless to say we were lost for words. Originally, before the events of Ballroom e Youkoso, we learned that Gorou’s first partner wasn’t Akira but was actually his wife. However, after some issues with her attitude, Gorou couldn’t dance with her anymore to avoid destroying their family and relationship. Thus, Gorou partners with Akira when she approaches him—with a rather sketchy mannerism—and suggest they become partners. Gorou and Akira might look like an odd pairing, but on the dance floor, Gorou and Akira are simply wonderful.

We won’t lie, folks, when we first met Gaju Akagi around episode 6 we didn’t like the dude one bit. Sure, Gaju had dancing skills and teamed up with Shizuku Hanaoka quite well, but his cocky attitude made us feel he was just rude and some other choice words we won’t mention here. However, during the Tenpei Cup we saw that Gaju wasn’t just a loudmouth. Gaju had the moves to back up his attitude and even we here at Honey’s Anime were a bit taken aback.

Our dislikes for Gaju began to decrease after we saw him dance and after he ended up becoming Tatara’s pal near episode 12. The always angry sounding Gaju became gentler and began to grow on us. Plus, Gaju helped Tatara with bullies, which redeemed him in our eyes. After the Tenpei Cup we unfortunately don’t see Gaju dance as much and he takes on an observer role like several others in the show. Though we won’t forget his earlier dancing and how it made an unlikeable dude actually comes across as kind of cool.

Masami Kugimiya is introduced to us early on in Ballroom e Youkoso, but we don’t learn much about him. Cold, extremely rude and prideful, Masami is another character that can rub fans of Ballroom e Youkoso the wrong way. Here at Honey’s Anime, we observed Masami closely and came to understand something about his way of life. Masami went through a lot and yet is still an incredible dancer.

As his backstory tells us, Masami was actually treated poorly at home and thus, liked to be away from it as much as possible. During a random day of walking around and following a cat around, Masami ventures upon a dancing studio and learns he has a proficiency in dancing. Though as time goes by—we see Masami age quite a bit in his flashback story—Masami continues to falter in his dancing and loses multiple tournaments. Then getting hit by a truck—most likely on purpose—Masami is somehow reinvigorated to dance but now is more about his methods than others. Masami at one-point shows Tatara his dancing style and to say we were impressed is an understatement.

Like Tatara, Mako Akagi seems like a reserved and quiet person. Quick to be lost for words and seemingly able to trip from simple movements, Mako scared us at first when we learned she was going to be Tatara’s partner during a competition. However, Mako surprised us once we saw that she had a drive for dancing. Then, once Tatara became stronger as a leader, Mako in turn became a dancer that blew us away. The quiet clumsy girl we met early on around episode 5 became something quite amazing only several episodes later.

In episode 11, we see Tatara and Mako dance together during the Tenpei Cup and boy, was it awesome. Not only did the two have perfect synchronicity but you could see they wanted to win. There was a shaky moment with Tatara when he began feeling as if he couldn’t do it but Mako was the one to pull him back. Asking Tatra to “make her bloom,” Mako relied on his skills as a leader and the two were able to dance strongly for the remainder of the Tenpei Cup. Did they win? Well, watch the show and find out.

Coming in at episode 12—though in episode 11, we see her briefly—we meet Chinatsu Hiyama. At first, Chinatsu seems to be anything but a dancer—if you don’t watch the opening song that is—as she is quick to make fun of Tatara for his love of dancing as he announces to the class. However, when Tatara goes to see Sengoku dancing in a tournament, he finds a hidden observer in the form of Chinatsu. Surprised to see Tatara, she still can’t hide the fact that she was in the audience watching. From here, Chinatsu’s dancing tale begins to unravel as she becomes Tatara’s final partner of Ballroom e Youkoso.

As we mentioned earlier, Chinatsu use to dance with her friend/rival Akira. However, for reasons explained in Ballroom e Youkoso Chinatsu stopped dancing and left the dancing scene. After being persuaded by Tatara, Chinatsu reluctantly returns to dancing and the two form a union that goes through some rather troublesome moments—especially the last 10 episodes of Ballroom e Youkoso—but this also makes the two get closer. Chinatsu might prefer to be a leader at times, but equally, she knows that with Tatara leading she needs to be a follower and more of a partner for their team to work. Though in the end, the two are tested and Chinatsu shows her abilities which in turn made us truly smile every second of the way.

Kiyoharu Hyoudou was an enigma to us when we first were introduced to his character in Ballroom e Youkoso. Maybe it was Kiyoharu’s always relaxed stance. Maybe it was his extreme skills as a dancer? We couldn’t understand what Kiyoharu was all about and that made us gravitate more towards him in the series to be honest. However, after the Mikasa Cup. we understand what made Kiyoharu act the way he does and it made his character truly intriguing.

You see, initially, Kiyoharu might seem like the perfect dancer in Ballroom e Youkoso. When we see Kiyoharu dancing skills shine is during episodes 1-4; we see what looks like someone who loves dancing and finds it nothing but enjoyable. Then we see the truth behind Kiyoharu’s calm demeanor. At one point in Ballroom e Youkoso, Kiyoharu fell out of love with dancing and while having the skills to dance, it didn’t bring him pleasure. Then when Kiyoharu saw Tatara and Shizuku—his main partner in the beginning of Ballroom e Youkoso—having fun, it made him envious and he realized he needed time to recuperate from not only his ailing limbs but from the sport. Kiyoharu does reappear when Tatara, Chinatsu, Mako and several others go into a dancing retreat for some R&R and practice but by this point, his dancing days in Ballroom e Youkoso come to a close. Nevertheless, we feel Kiyoharu’s dancing skills were easily better than most of the characters here and his contribution to Tatara’s growth were extremely important in the later elements of Ballroom e Youkoso.

When Tatara first went to the Ogasawara Dance Studio, he was greeted by a wonderful sight. There before him, were two dancers, one of which was Shizuku Hanaoka. This calm and collected girl would become easily one of the best girls of Ballroom e Youkoso and one of the best dancers as well. As with several others, Shizuku’s dancing dies out near the end to allow Tatra and others their moments of fame as the main characters, but Shizuku is quite big in the first dozen or so episodes. Let us prove that by talking about some highlights.

Beyond the first episode, Shizuku danced quite well in the Tenpei Cup and The 37th Prince Mikasa Cup. Our favorite moments of Shizuku’s, though, were during the Mikasa Cup when she danced with her original partner—Kiyoharu—and then was forced to dance with Tatara when Kiyoharu disappeared. Thanks to her ability to shift styles towards any, she’s partnered with, Shizuku was able to dance quite well with Tatara and even impress Sengoku and irritate Kiyoharu—who, at this point, made a reappearance—seeing how happy they both were. In the Tenpei Cup, when she was partnered with Gaju, she unfortunately lost to Tatara and Mako but even then, was still a stunning dancer to bear witness to. Shizuku was easily the best dancing girl in Ballroom e Youkoso and despite her often unfortunate ecchi moments—though we weren’t complaining about any of those to be honest—she always held a stance of poise and grace throughout Ballroom e Youkoso.

That’s right, folks. Coming in on the second spot is our main protagonist of Ballroom e Youkoso, Tatara Fujita. From the beginning, Tatara has grown to be one of the best dancers in Ballroom e Youkoso. Regardless of the dancer paired with him, Tatara began to show signs of being a great leader and pushed his partner to their limits. Let us highlight some of our favorite moments of Tatra in Ballroom e Youkoso.

Episode 11, when Tatara dances with Mako, we see him really getting into it. Despite earlier issues the episode prior, Tatara began showing that his previous training with Shizuku and Sengoku was finally sticking with our young dancer. Near the final episode of the series, Tatara showed off skills that we couldn’t believe came from a dancer that only 15 episodes ago was still falling apart trying to master even some of the basic skills. Tatara was truly one of the dancers who grew the most in Ballroom e Youkoso and thus, earned his second place on our list.

For all who have seen Ballroom e Youkoso, you knew who we had to choose for our Top 10 Dancing Ballroom e Youkoso Characters list. That’s right, folks, coming in first place is Kaname Sengoku the first teacher of Tatara. Sengoku has been touted as the overall best dancer shown Ballroom e Youkoso and it’s understandable why. If Sengoku’s dozen victories and fame aren’t enough to convince you, then let us talk about some of our favorite moments Sengoku had in Ballroom e Youkoso. We will make sure you all feel the same about the man who legit is one of the coolest dudes in Ballroom e Youkoso.

From episode 1 and onward, Sengoku’s dancing prowess has been proven time and time again. Not only did Sengoku see what Tatara had inside of him as a dancer, but he was able to unleash Tatara’s skills and is the reason for his future successes. Sengoku, at times, might be a bit cruel and harsh towards the young Tatara, but everything Sengoku did for Tara was to make him more aware of his own latent talents. We don’t see Sengoku dance a lot once Chinatsu comes into the scene, but Sengoku stole the show up to that point. Though let’s be honest, Sengoku did enough dancing for Ballroom e Youkoso and it stayed with us until the end of the series and even now.