TV-Series
Description
Ai Shizukuishi is a young girl, a middle school student, who leads a double life centered around her passion for dance. In her everyday life, she is portrayed as shy, plain, and clumsy, with unremarkable grades at school. She has difficulty expressing her emotions openly in social situations and is easily flustered, struggling to speak up around others.
Her secret identity is that of "Ai," a popular and cool online dancer. To achieve this persona, she cross-dresses as a boy, wearing a short-haired wig and male clothing to conceal her true gender. She began posting videos of her dancing on the video-sharing platform Smile Douga under this alias on the encouragement of her best friend, Kii-chan. This decision was a direct result of a childhood trauma: an incident in elementary school where boys laughed at her dancing, which made her terrified of performing in public.
Despite her real-world timidity, Ai is deeply ambitious and possesses a natural, fiery talent for dance. When she performs, she transforms, becoming confident, cool, and graceful, fully able to express the emotions she cannot show otherwise. Her primary motivation is to surpass Hayate, a famous dancer known as the "dance prince" and her idol, whom she has declared her rival.
The central conflict of her story begins when her cross-dressing videos catch the attention of an entertainment agency. After a chance meeting and audition, she is placed into an all-male idol dance unit named Buddyz, partnered directly with Hayate. To complicate matters, the agency’s rules require her to share living quarters with Hayate and to keep her true gender a secret from the public and her fellow idol, or else the unit will be disbanded.
This puts Ai in a precarious position where she must constantly maintain her male disguise, even while living and training with Hayate. Her key relationship is with Hayate, which begins as a heated rivalry but slowly deepens into friendship and eventually romantic feelings as they support each other's growth. Her only confidant is her best friend Kii-chan, who knows her secret and provides emotional support. Over the course of the story, Ai gradually gains more self-confidence, learning to overcome her shyness and find her own unique style of dancing, thanks in part to Hayate's secret knowledge and support of her true identity. Her notable ability is her exceptional talent for memorizing and executing complex choreography after seeing it only once or twice.
Her secret identity is that of "Ai," a popular and cool online dancer. To achieve this persona, she cross-dresses as a boy, wearing a short-haired wig and male clothing to conceal her true gender. She began posting videos of her dancing on the video-sharing platform Smile Douga under this alias on the encouragement of her best friend, Kii-chan. This decision was a direct result of a childhood trauma: an incident in elementary school where boys laughed at her dancing, which made her terrified of performing in public.
Despite her real-world timidity, Ai is deeply ambitious and possesses a natural, fiery talent for dance. When she performs, she transforms, becoming confident, cool, and graceful, fully able to express the emotions she cannot show otherwise. Her primary motivation is to surpass Hayate, a famous dancer known as the "dance prince" and her idol, whom she has declared her rival.
The central conflict of her story begins when her cross-dressing videos catch the attention of an entertainment agency. After a chance meeting and audition, she is placed into an all-male idol dance unit named Buddyz, partnered directly with Hayate. To complicate matters, the agency’s rules require her to share living quarters with Hayate and to keep her true gender a secret from the public and her fellow idol, or else the unit will be disbanded.
This puts Ai in a precarious position where she must constantly maintain her male disguise, even while living and training with Hayate. Her key relationship is with Hayate, which begins as a heated rivalry but slowly deepens into friendship and eventually romantic feelings as they support each other's growth. Her only confidant is her best friend Kii-chan, who knows her secret and provides emotional support. Over the course of the story, Ai gradually gains more self-confidence, learning to overcome her shyness and find her own unique style of dancing, thanks in part to Hayate's secret knowledge and support of her true identity. Her notable ability is her exceptional talent for memorizing and executing complex choreography after seeing it only once or twice.