Dankira!!! -Boys, be DANCING!- is a free-to-play mobile Rhythm Game developed by Land Ho and published by Konami, released on May 21, 2019 for Android and iOS platforms. The game revolves around a cast of high-school students who aim to be top dancers not just within their school, but the entire world.
Dance Killer Trick, also known as Dankira, is a global phenomenon where dancers challenge one another. The story says that several years ago, a group known as Seven Origin was the first to create what is now known as Killer Trick, special moves used to impress the audience within their dance choreography. When one member was about to collapse from fatigue, at that exact moment, the others improvised by taking the hand of the exhausted dancer by supporting the waist that was about to drop to the ground and presented it as a special trick. From that day on, this became known as a Killer Trick.
Fast forward to the present day when a fresh new trio of dancers - Sora Asahi, Reiji Yano and Mahiru Hinata - enroll in Benizuru Academy after training in the Sheep Manor orphanage. Benizuru Academy is known for producing top dancers, and so they, along with you as their coach, aim to be among the best.
Aside from the mobile game itself, Dankira!!! -Boys, be DANCING!- has a number of supplementary manga: Dankira Bitesize Rough Sketch, which is uploaded on the official twitter, focuses on each possible Soul Link pair in the game. While the series ended with Soma and Ageha's chapter, the series restarted to include B.M.C.. The second and third manga adaptations focus on each character and teams respectively.
Unfortunately, shortly before the 1st Anniversary, Konami announced the game's server termimation, with Benizuru Academy eventually closing admissions on August 5, 2020. On August 6, 2020, the offline version was launched so that players could continue to raise their dancers as well as keep playing the game, with content such as the ending of the main story and additional Killer Tricks added.
Get your trope list moving in, get the tropers to descend:
- Air Guitar: As part of the choreography to Risky Business.
- Alice Allusion: The Eh? In Wonderland event has the boys put up a play based on Alice in Wonderland, with Noel imagining himself and the others in the story itself.
- April Fools' Day: For April Fools Day in 2020, the Dankira matches take place in a hot springs, with the cast in nothing but a Modesty Towel and a white light to censor the 'naughty bits'. Players are forced to use the 'Hot Springs Auto Ticket' on the first Dankira match of the day, but the ticket (which has infinite uses) can be toggled off and on again in subsequent matches.
- Arc Words: "BODY AND SOUL" printed on everyone's casual outfits.
- Break-Up Song: Heartbeat Blast; the entire song is about the singer's attraction and passion towards someone until the very last sentence reveals that the subject is about to leave the singer."Are you going to disappear somewhere?"
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: As with all mobile games with in-app purchases, you can choose to buy more Aqua (the in-game premium currency) with real money.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: As the title indicates, the cast is loaded with good-looking preteen and teen boys.
- Casting Gag:
- The Eh? In Wonderland event is not the first time a character voiced by Daisuke Hirakawa is associated with The Mad Hatter...
- For that matter, Yukari and Noel have shared the same dorm room before.
- Seito is interested in the occult and has his side of the room filled with related trinkets. His voice actor Noriaki Sugiyama has voiced two well-known occultists before – England of Hetalia: Axis Powers and Abe no Seimei, regarded as Japanese Merlin, from Onmyōji (2016).
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Each group has a representative colour associated with them in-game and in merchandise:
- Merry Panic - Yellow
- Etoile - Blue/White
- Theater Bell - Red
- Sanzensekai - Green
- TOXIC - Purple
- B.M.C - Black
- Benizuru Academy as a whole is represented by hot pink. Fittingly, Benizuru means Flamingo.
- Within Benizuru Academy, students living in Goldheim Dormitory (and therefore under the Dankira programme) have gold lining in their school uniform as opposed to the usual silver worn by regular students as seen in Merry Panic and B.M.C's main story chapters, where the respective teams are first seen with the regular uniform but after the headmaster admits them into the Dankira programme they change into the uniform worn by the Goldheim residents.
- For that matter, 4* Killer Tricks and 5* Killer Tricks share the same colour-coding as the school uniforms; silver for 4*s and gold for 5*s.
- Crossover: With another Konami game, pop'n music. 4 of the songs from pop'n music appeared in this game, but only 1 is available for free (Players have to get the other 3 via paying with Aqua). Unlike the original songs which are labelled Works, the 4 pop'n music songs are simply labeled 'songs' instead and have mashed-up choreography from existing works, since they're said to be for practice.
- Dance-Off: The entire premise of the game. Teams of three face off against each other in a Dankira match and aim to gain the support of the audience with their moves.
- Elaborate University High: The school premise is so large and its facilities so fancy it resembles a university campus more than a middle-high elevator school.
- Excited Episode Title!: The event names follow this format.
- Evolving Title Screen: After B.M.C's debut in the game, the title screen is edited to include Ginko and Vega alongside Sora, Noel, Soma, Mitsukuni and Shiki where a empty space used to be.
- Fiction 500: The school, especially the dormitory, seemingly has facilities way too lavish for any school in reality to afford. Worse, the school is attended by students of not particularly wealthy backgrounds.
- In terms of businesses, we have Shido Cosmetics run by Akira's family and Jörmungandr - Shiki's fashion label, of which he's the CEO along with employing Ageha and Tsukumo as models. While the former is excusable by virtue of said family's actually being rich, one does have to wonder how the latter whose family and financial status are unknown can keep a high-class fashion house afloat.
- Friendship Song: Kizuna, Shirisomeshi Kisetsu.
- Genre Roulette: Pop, classical, jazz... you name it, they most likely have it. To accentuate the variety of songs even more, they even have a Bollywood and a Heavy Metal song in the form of Namaste☆Dancing and AVENGER'S ROAR.
- Gratuitous English: PAYA♡PAYA. while cute and peppy, its lyrics are quite all over the place.
- Gratuitous French: Seirei no Musette.
- Gratuitous Japanese: AVENGER'S ROAR is in both English and Japanese, but the English lyrics exceed the Japanese ones.
- "I Am Becoming" Song: NO FEAR."When we first started out/Didn't have no idea/We were coming u up as kids/Even though we made the mistakes that we did…"
- "I Want" Song: NEED THE POWER.
- Intercourse with You: The tracks Heartbeat Blast and Karamitsuku Doku wa Utsukushiki Senritsu. In a way, Who Wants 2 Party.Step in to the peak baby baby/I'm taking you to Heaven, follow me follow me/Shy baby, come here and lose your mind (here Left dancer performs a "body curve feeling" motion on Center dancer) /A super good time just as promised
- Konami Code: This is a Konami game after all. On the title screen, swipe the screen the same way as the Konami Code and then tap the capital letters B and A in the subtitle. This unlocks the game's BGM which can be heard in the preview room.
- Leitmotif: Most dance music tracks are associated with specific teams and thus can be considered those teams' themes.
- 'NEED THE POWER' seems to be this for the game as a whole as variations of the song play throughout various screens in the game.
- Merry Panic has SO DANCE, a cheerful song encouraging people to just dance. According to Reiji, Sora loved the song so much it was often played during practice to the point where it became the team's signature work.
- Étoile has Banquet, from Ballet Suite “Jewel”, fittingly for the team's status as The Beautiful Elite.
- Theater Bell has It's Show Time, a jazzy piece that'll excite the audience. To a lesser extent, Heartbeat Blast is attributed to them since the Night Entertainment♡Gold Club event focuses largely on them.
- Sanzensekai has Kizuna, Shirisomeshi Kisetsu, which was written and sung by Yukari.
- TOXIC has Karamitsuku Doku wa Utsukushiki SenritsuEN , a sensual song that pairs well with the choreography.
- B.M.C gets the dark yet encouraging NO FEAR.
- Lucky Charms Title: PAYA♡PAYA, a peppy J-Pop song part of the original lineup.
- The Namaste☆Magnificent Dancing! event adds Namaste☆Dancing, a fun and energetic Bollywood song.
- Lyrical Dissonance: Despite the upbeat guitars and drums, Heartbeat Blast has very sensual Intercourse with You lyrics. Make of that what you will.
- Metal Scream: AVENGER'S ROAR, natch.
- Obligatory Bondage Song: Karamitsuku Doku, with lyrics like:"The sweet sound and the kiss we exchange are the contract that offers my entire body"
- Pep-Talk Song: Risky Business.
- Revenge Ballad: AVENGER'S ROAR, in which the singer expresses how miserable and angry they are and their desire for vengeance.
- Serious Business: Dancing, and Dankira matches. The latter half of the main story focuses on 2 teams in preparation for a tournament for Dankira.
- Shaking the Rump: Part of the choreography to Heartbeat Blast – near the end, the Left dancer would stroke and jut out their behind to the audience, slap it twice and swing it side-to-side.
- Silly Love Song: My World.
- Sudden Downer Ending: The ending to Heartbeat Blast's lyrics; see Break-Up Song above.
- Talking Is a Free Action: Characters frequently exclaim remarks in the middle of performances, and this doesn't affect their concentration, rhythm and timing in any way, shape or form.
- Tired After the Song: Each dance sequence always ends lingered on characters' holding their ending pose for a while as they pant.
- Theme Naming: Each team has a certain theme going on in their names:
- Merry Panic - Temporal Theme Naming
- Étoile - Rock Theme Naming
- Theater Bell - Edible Theme Naming (but after drinks)
- Sanzensekai - Shout-Out Theme Naming
- Toxic - Animal Theme Naming
- B.M.C - Floral Theme Naming
- Even the NPC team Signal Brothers aren't exempt - they have Colorful Theme Naming based on Japanese traffic light colours.
- Outside character names, revival events always start with 'It's Back!' before the name of the original event.
