Welcome to the Ballroom premiered earlier this month, and has drawn attention from various online anime critics for its positive and subtle portrayal of long-necked half-giraffe people throughout its cast. With permission, we have posted segments from an article written by “GiraffeSpotting,” a tumblr that focuses on giraffe person representation in various media.

“There’s been lots of monster-people anime in the last couple years featuring creatures from snake girls to snow women, but this is the first anime adapted of a manga that includes giraffe people, a largely overlooked and under-represented group in anime. Sure, we’ve had long-limbed characters in shows like Code Geass and xxxHOLiC, but these anime have strayed away from presenting characters with long necks, which giraffe people are significantly stigmatized for.”

“It’s also nice to see a monster-person anime that just presents giraffe people in such an optimistic way. Whereas Monster Musume and Interviews with Monster Girls had a large focus on monster girls trying to integrate into human society, in Welcome to the Ballroom the giraffe people not only make up the majority of the main cast, but their presence goes uncommented on throughout the episodes so far, as if no one in the show notices their neck size at all. Welcome to the Ballroom is about giraffe people who love ballroom dance, and who live in a world where they don’t have to face prejudice to live out their dreams.”

Beneath GiraffeSpotting’s tumblr post is the comment, “At the very least, it’s certainly better representation in a sports anime than Yuri on Ice was,” followed by 4000 angry comments ignoring the original post entirely.

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