LA MAGNIFIQUE GRANDE SCENE (Kenrantaru Grande Scene), by Cuvie. First published in 2013 and first published in North America in 2018.
PLOT:
Inspired by the performance by her neighbor Risa, young Kanade decides to take up ballet dancing. It turns out that learning ballet is harder than it looks, and Kanade's ready to give up even before she gets the pointe shoes she so desires. Maybe what she needs to find her way is a new approach and to learn from the girl she so idolized.
STORY:
La Magnifique Grande Scene is a story about a girl learning ballet, but it does feel like it takes just as much from sports-style stories like Welcome to the Ballroom as it does from classic shojo ballet stories like Swan. While it does focus more on the learning process than the final performance, it does understand the need to balance the art and the athleticism of ballet and it does it with a minimum of melodrama.
One of the things I liked most about this series is that Kanade feels like a realistic young girl. She still has the single-minded focus and excitement of a young child, and like a lot of preteen girls she's eager to grow up and move forward (as represented by her focus on earning the right to wear pointe shoes). Yet she also has the shorter temper of a child: she gets easily frustrated and at one point has a bit of a meltdown. It would be all too easy to make her either too precious or too bratty, but Cuvie keeps those sides of her in balance.
I do like that Kanade's relationships with her fellow students is largely positive and non-competitive. It would have been easy for Cuvie to turn Shouko, a pretty blond student who is a more technically proficient dancer, into The Rival. While Shouko is sometimes impatient with Kanade's struggles, they are still friends and we do see later that Shouko has her own issues to overcome. That being said, the most important relationship here is that between Kanade and Rise.
Rise may be a neighbor, but to Kanade she's equal parts mentor and big sister. Their relationship is the true heart of the story, as well as the closest to that of traditional sports manga narratives. Thus, the two provide emotional support for one another, but Rise also provides motivation and technical knowledge that helps Kanade find new ways to learn to dance or find her own style. It's a little predictable, but it's still well-written. Really, the whole book is just handled so well that it's remarkable, and it's positively criminal that it's barely talked about even in manga reviewing circles.
ART:
Cuvie's art here is visually straightforward, but he clearly put in a lot of hard work and research into it. He clearly strives to draw the various positions and footwork as accurately as possible. The dances themselves are not drawn as fluidly and dreamlike as they were in Swan, but their moves are clear, strong, and mercifully NOT voyeuristic. He pays particular attention to their feet, and I particularly liked the little impact strike that he used to indicate a character putting pressure on a particular foot. It's a good way to visualize a subtle movement that would be difficult to capture in still images and it's that level of attention that distinguishes the art.
RATING:
It's kind of criminal that La Magnifique Grande Scene is a digital-only series. It's a a well-done ballet manga that puts effort into the cast, their relationships, and the actual mechanics of their dancing. It's easily the best thing in Media-Do's library and well worth seeking out, even if you don't normally read digital manga.
This series is published by Media-Do. This series is ongoing in Japan with 10 volumes available. 4 volumes have been released and are currently available from most major digital comic outlets.
Want a chance to win a $25 RightStuf gift certificate? Then check out our Holiday Review Giveaway to learn how to enter!
La Magnifique Grande Scene is a story about a girl learning ballet, but it does feel like it takes just as much from sports-style stories like Welcome to the Ballroom as it does from classic shojo ballet stories like Swan. While it does focus more on the learning process than the final performance, it does understand the need to balance the art and the athleticism of ballet and it does it with a minimum of melodrama.
One of the things I liked most about this series is that Kanade feels like a realistic young girl. She still has the single-minded focus and excitement of a young child, and like a lot of preteen girls she's eager to grow up and move forward (as represented by her focus on earning the right to wear pointe shoes). Yet she also has the shorter temper of a child: she gets easily frustrated and at one point has a bit of a meltdown. It would be all too easy to make her either too precious or too bratty, but Cuvie keeps those sides of her in balance.
I do like that Kanade's relationships with her fellow students is largely positive and non-competitive. It would have been easy for Cuvie to turn Shouko, a pretty blond student who is a more technically proficient dancer, into The Rival. While Shouko is sometimes impatient with Kanade's struggles, they are still friends and we do see later that Shouko has her own issues to overcome. That being said, the most important relationship here is that between Kanade and Rise.
Rise may be a neighbor, but to Kanade she's equal parts mentor and big sister. Their relationship is the true heart of the story, as well as the closest to that of traditional sports manga narratives. Thus, the two provide emotional support for one another, but Rise also provides motivation and technical knowledge that helps Kanade find new ways to learn to dance or find her own style. It's a little predictable, but it's still well-written. Really, the whole book is just handled so well that it's remarkable, and it's positively criminal that it's barely talked about even in manga reviewing circles.
ART:
Cuvie's art here is visually straightforward, but he clearly put in a lot of hard work and research into it. He clearly strives to draw the various positions and footwork as accurately as possible. The dances themselves are not drawn as fluidly and dreamlike as they were in Swan, but their moves are clear, strong, and mercifully NOT voyeuristic. He pays particular attention to their feet, and I particularly liked the little impact strike that he used to indicate a character putting pressure on a particular foot. It's a good way to visualize a subtle movement that would be difficult to capture in still images and it's that level of attention that distinguishes the art.
RATING:
It's kind of criminal that La Magnifique Grande Scene is a digital-only series. It's a a well-done ballet manga that puts effort into the cast, their relationships, and the actual mechanics of their dancing. It's easily the best thing in Media-Do's library and well worth seeking out, even if you don't normally read digital manga.
This series is published by Media-Do. This series is ongoing in Japan with 10 volumes available. 4 volumes have been released and are currently available from most major digital comic outlets.
Want a chance to win a $25 RightStuf gift certificate? Then check out our Holiday Review Giveaway to learn how to enter!
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