Yes, I know - I already wrote 1500 words about this movie. But as someone who fell in love both with ballroom dancing and with a guy I met in beginner ballroom class, I have many more feelings than I could put across in 1500 words. Also … as I mentioned … the 10 Dance story is unresolved. So: what do I think they could or should do next?
First, let’s get one thing straight. The Shinyas are not rivals - not when 10 Dance begins. They compete in different styles. They aren’t up against each other for rankings, awards, partners, costumes (not that the men in Dance Sport have as much fun with costume as the women), or - probably - even students. If you want to learn Latin, you go to a Latin champion for coaching. If you want to learn standard ballroom, you go to a ballroom champion.
So that preconception, in approaching 10 Dance or in reviewing it, needs to be discarded.
The 10 Dance movie leaves us hanging both in the romance arc and in the dance training arc. While the movie closes with Shinya Sugiki (ballroom) and Shinya Suzuki (Latin) dancing together - even sharing a kiss on the dance floor - it is not clear why Sugiki invited Suzuki to the floor, whether that happened in real life, whether it was a wish, dream, or vision, or whose point of view it was really supposed to be. More on that later.
There are two ways the filmmakers could proceed.
Sugiki and Suzuki could get back in the studio with their partners Fusako and Aki, recommence training in earnest for the 10-dance competition at Blackpool (world championships in the movie and in real life), and would then be legitimate rivals.
Sugiki could have a complete personality transplant, embrace his attraction to and affection for Suzuki, and propose that they compete in 10-dance together, as partners, leaving Fusako and Aki on the sidelines.
You can probably guess where I suspect they will go, should a sequel be in the works. Which is most realistic? Option 1. Is Option 2 even possible? Actually, yes! Same-gender partnerships have been accepted by most national dance federations and by the World Dance Sport Federation for years now.
That doesn’t mean same-gender partnerships are common. In fact, I don’t know of any at the professional level, though I’ve been on the sidelines of Dance Sport myself for quite some time. (I suspect I’ll be looking into this soon, because just as Fellow Travelers and Of an Age sparked story ideas for me, so has 10 Dance.)
The real reason I think the filmmakers would go for Option 1 in a sequel is that they went to considerable trouble to keep Sugiki closeted, to himself and the world. They kept him opaque, repressed, conflicted. These qualities make him a shitty potential romantic partner and not much better as a dance partner.
For Sugiki to realistically achieve open, expressive, whole-hearted acceptance of his own nature and his needs/wishes would require an entire movie on its own. As a romance reader, viewer, and writer, I can assure you: that work should be on the page/screen, or we won’t believe it.
That movie would be so full of drama and trauma that trying to insert a romance storyline, even one as weak as in 10 Dance 2025, would be difficult and possibly self-defeating. If we’re coming for romance, we want to see a relationship work. At the very least, we want to see the people involved in the relationship openly trying to make it work. And if it’s billed as romance, there needs to be a happy-for-now, if not happy-ever-after, resolution.
Walking away from the dance floor with a smile is not a resolution, filmmakers. It’s a tease.
To satisfy that tease, we need to see Sugiki and Suzuki at the actual 10-dance championship. Given the first film as history, we need to see them opposing each other on that 10-dance competition floor. How to accomplish that while maintaining a romance storyline - preferably stronger than in 10 Dance 2025?
Here’s how I’d do it.
First, we need to see both partnerships working on their training. It’s not uncommon for professional Dance Sport couples to work with the same coach. Couples on a trajectory to dance against each other, however, most likely would not. And they certainly wouldn’t coach each other, as the Shinyas did in 10 Dance 2025. So a new Dance Sport figure is needed, or maybe two: one Latin specialist, one standard ballroom specialist. This will introduce plenty of conflict, because there’s a good chance these specialists have judged the Shinyas before. They might have been, in the past, direct competitors.
Taking that who’s-coaching-who conflict out of the Shinyas’ relationship would mean that they can see each other outside the studio with one less tripping hazard. They could bond over their difficulties with the material or their annoyance with what they’re being told to do; they could defend each other from the specialists’ critique. Along the way, they’d be forced to change. Nobody likes change, but both these guys need it.
Second, we need to see both partnerships on the competition floor. If the sequel stuck to the established timeline, they have a little under six months to get ready for 10-dance. There are enough competitive events for each of them to do both their usual style and their new style (i.e. for both partnerships to enter standard ballroom or Latin events or both, in competitions that don’t offer a 10-dance event, as most don’t) without them having to constantly face each other in those events. Both partnerships need to do all three - standard ballroom, Latin, and 10-dance - in competition, as part of their training. You don’t just roll up to the world championship for 10-dance having only ever competed in one style.
They could thus gain experience, improve as competitors, and assess their progress outside of their personal relationship. It would give them one more thing to talk about, a way for them to trash-talk (I’m looking at you, Suzuki) or sympathize (Fusako and Aki), without it being too personal.
Third, we need to see the Shinyas outside the Dance Sport context, as two young men who happen to share a profession and who happen to feel a strong attraction. There might be cultural reasons why they can’t say so out loud, but both men need to find a way to admit what they want and where they want this to go (I’m looking at you, Sugiki).
Sugiki’s desire to dance with Suzuki, which I believe underlies his invitation to train for 10-dance in the first place, is something he needs to acknowledge and accept before they can really move forward in their personal relationship. Sugiki’s opacity (emotional dishonesty, in fact) in 10 Dance 2025 hurt Suzuki, who might be inclined to forgive - but the viewer wants to see Sugiki grovel a little. We want an apology, and it needs to be sincere, which means Sugiki has to fully understand and own up to the roots and consequences of his own behavior.
A key question: Was the conclusion of 10 Dance 2025 for real?
If that concluding scene, with Sugiki inviting not Fusako but Suzuki to the dance floor for a 10-dance exhibition, really happened, then Sugiki is the one who, once again, must open negotiations. But he needs to do it with full knowledge of his heart this time. He has outed both of them. Why? What does he think happens next? What does he want to happen next?
If on the other hand that concluding scene didn’t happen for real, then it was either Sugiki’s vision or Suzuki’s. If it was Sugiki’s, then he really danced with Fusako, wished he were dancing with Suzuki, but has not changed. This is not who we want Sugiki to be.
Whereas if the concluding scene was Suzuki’s vision, wishing himself onto the dance floor in place of Fusako, the door is still open for Sugiki to accept and return Suzuki’s love - which is what the romance viewer wants. If, and only if, Sugiki can learn to be honest about it.
A sequel should get them to the championship, facing off against each other in the 10-dance. Do we need to see who places higher? Does one of them win? Because both of them can’t, unless they truly do dance together as partners (and as noted above, I sincerely doubt that’s the way these filmmakers would go).
Would it be better to see a 10-dance montage, as at the end of 10 Dance 2025, highlighting both of them … but sparing us the result? Or would we be furious to be denied the result, with its inevitable fallout?
The thing is, there’s a lot of story to get through if we’re getting them to the world championship again in two hours of screen time. I think it would be better to close at the end of the event without revealing the result. The next movie then opens with two partnerships; one has placed higher and the other is hella mad. So movie three is the fallout. Now they’re truly rivals, they have equal stakes in the game, and wherever their relationship was going before, it’s probably been derailed. Men aren’t good at staying friends, much less lovers, when their professional status is on the line.
Obviously, I think this is a rich vein to mine. Anyone who’s read the manga, fill me in - how off the mark am I?