The circumstances shown in Dance Dance Danseur saw an unstable Mori Luou fleeing his home and entering a Japan that he is ill-prepared to handle on his own. This left Godai Miyako and Murao Jumpei unsure of what to do. One of the drawings that Luou often displays on his wall is gone, and Miyako surmises that he may be seeing the person who provided them—their grandmother, who suffers from severe dementia and currently resides in a care facility.
In Episode 10, when Miyako and Jumpei travel by bus and train, the fullness of the trauma Luou and she experienced as children—wrung out by the evil side of ballet—is eventually revealed.
Dance, Dance Luou was abused as a youngster, as has been made abundantly evident by Danseur for some time, but the severity of the abuse was never completely understood. He was abandoned by his mother because she couldn’t stand the abuse, and he was left alone in a run-down mansion with only his grandma to talk to. So scathing was his grandmother’s criticism of her own cultural background that he was not permitted to attend a school or even engage with Japanese culture. She teaches Luou tirelessly, forcing his body into terrible positions, striking him when he sobs since Russian ballet is the only kind that would work.
When Miyako threatens to quit coming to the house after the two had a quarrel and Luou threatens to ingest the supply of their grandmother’s medications he has been stockpiling, Luou’s dependency on Miyako becomes startlingly apparent. In addition to isolating Luou from all of society, beating him physically, and torturing him emotionally, their grandmother gave him access to lethal medications and fostered suicide idealizations in a young boy. Now Miyako must also carry that weight. Even when Luou stays with her and her mother, their grandmother’s devastation is still too much to take; part of her will always feel obligated to look out for Luou since she once vowed to defend him.
Now that the gritty reality has come to light and Miyako and Jumpei are en route to the grandmother’s house, Jumpei makes it very plain that their Swan Lake roles were never properly allocated. Since the beginning, Luou has been under a curse, and his grandmother was a malicious sorceress. This is highlighted further when they come and see Luou trying to perform for his grandmother—who, due to her condition of dementia, only knows him as his mother—as he falls and slides through the sand in an attempt to finish Odile, the Black Swan’s dance.
The three teenagers from Dance Dance Danseur are still mired in Swan Lake, but it is now obvious who they really are. There is only one person capable of lifting the curse placed upon Luou. The White Swan perishes in the end because the prince unintentionally falls in love with Odile as well, and Jumpei is able to accept this after realizing it and taking a step back. Jumpei sacrifices his feelings for the lady he likes in order to free Luou from his past, demonstrating his selflessness and the fact that Dance Dance Danseur has taught him so much more than just ballet. The audience can only hope that this interpretation of Swan Lake will end well.
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