Welcome to the Ballroom Manga Volumes: All 12 Books
Welcome to the Ballroom Has 12 Manga Volumes in English — But the Story Isn’t Finished Yet
Here’s the full picture: Welcome to the Ballroom (ボールルームへようこそ — the Japanese title you’ll sometimes see on covers) has 12 volumes published in English by Kodansha Comics, and that matches all 12 Japanese volumes released so far. The English edition has fully caught up with Japan.
The catch? The series is currently on hiatus, meaning new chapters have stopped coming out for an extended period. It’s not cancelled, but author Tomo Takeuchi (竹内友) has dealt with health-related breaks throughout the manga’s run, and no Volume 13 release date has been announced. The story does not have a conclusion yet.
That’s the most important thing to know before you pick this up. The 12 volumes that exist are genuinely excellent — a competitive ballroom dancing manga that has been published chapter by chapter in Monthly Shonen Magazine (月刊少年マガジン, a Japanese manga magazine aimed at teen boys) since December 2011 — but you’re reading an incomplete story for now.
With that out in the open, let’s look at what those 12 volumes actually cover.
All 12 Manga Volumes at a Glance
The table below lists every volume with its Japanese release year and a brief note about what happens in that stretch of the story. One thing you’ll notice right away: the gaps between volumes get wider and wider as the series goes on. That’s a direct reflection of the author’s health-related publishing breaks.
A quick note on “story arcs” — in manga, an arc is simply a chunk of the story that focuses on one main event or challenge, like a tournament or a training period. You’ll see the term below.
| Volume | JP Release | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| Vol. 1 | May 2012 | Tatara Fujita, a directionless high school student, stumbles into a ballroom dance studio and discovers a world he never knew existed. The hook is immediate. |
| Vol. 2 | July 2012 | Tatara begins training in earnest, getting his first real exposure to the competitive dance circuit and the people who inhabit it. |
| Vol. 3 | November 2012 | The first major competition story arc kicks off. Tatara is thrown into the deep end far earlier than he’s ready for. |
| Vol. 4 | April 2013 | The competition arc continues, with Tatara struggling to keep up against dancers who have years of experience on him. |
| Vol. 5 | September 2013 | The competition arc reaches its climax. This is where the series really shows what it can do with tension and motion on the page. |
| Vol. 6 | April 2014 | The aftermath of the first competition reshapes Tatara’s understanding of partnership, and a new partner dynamic begins to take shape. |
| Vol. 7 | November 2014 | The story deepens as Tatara faces questions about what kind of dancer he wants to become. |
| Vol. 8 | October 2015 | The first noticeable gap between releases. The story continues building toward a new competitive arc. |
| Vol. 9 | June 2017 | Nearly two years between volumes. A new phase of the story begins with fresh competitive stakes. |
| Vol. 10 | January 2020 | A gap of over two and a half years. The story picks up with renewed intensity. |
| Vol. 11 | April 2021 | The most recent story arcs continue to develop Tatara’s growth as a dancer and competitor. |
| Vol. 12 | November 2022 | The latest volume published in both Japan and English. The story is in the middle of an arc and does not reach a conclusion. |
All 12 volumes are available in English from Kodansha Comics. If you’re going to start, volumes 1 through 3 give you a solid feel for whether the series clicks with you — that first competition arc is a great test of whether you’ll want to keep going.
Welcome to the Ballroom, Vol. 12
If you’re ready to start from the beginning, Volume 1 is where everything kicks off — Tatara’s first encounter with ballroom dance and the moment the series hooks most readers.
How Authentic Is the Ballroom Dancing?
This is usually the first question people have about Welcome to the Ballroom, especially if they’ve never watched competitive dance. The short answer: the manga depicts competitive ballroom dancing with impressive technical detail, and it takes the sport seriously.
The Physical Intensity
One of the things that makes Welcome to the Ballroom work as a sports manga — manga built around athletic competition, with all the training, rivalries, and high-pressure performances that entails — is that it treats dance with the same physical intensity you’d see in an action series. The artwork captures bodies in motion with dynamic angles, exaggerated perspective, and a real sense of weight and momentum. Dancers sweat, strain, and push their bodies to the limit. If you’ve ever seen competitive ballroom dance in real life, you know it’s an athletic endeavor — and this manga communicates that on the page.
Tomo Takeuchi’s art style is striking and detailed. The way movement is rendered across the individual panels (the boxes or frames that make up each manga page) gives dance sequences a cinematic quality that’s hard to pull off in a static medium. It’s one of the series’ biggest strengths.
Real Competitive Concepts
The manga weaves in genuine competitive ballroom concepts throughout the story. You’ll encounter the distinction between Standard and Latin styles (two broad categories of competitive ballroom dance — Standard includes dances like the waltz and tango with a closed hold, while Latin covers more expressive styles like the cha-cha and samba), the way heats and rounds work in competition (dancers perform in groups called heats, and judges eliminate couples round by round), and the importance of posture, frame, and connection between partners — the physical structure and responsiveness that makes two dancers move as one.
None of this is presented as dry exposition. Instead, everything comes through Tatara’s perspective as a complete beginner. He doesn’t know anything about ballroom dance when the story starts, so the reader learns alongside him. Technical concepts get introduced naturally as Tatara encounters them, which makes the series surprisingly accessible even if you’ve never seen a waltz in your life.
Why It Works Even If You Don’t Follow Dance
If you like manga built around competition — the training, the underdog protagonist, overwhelming rivals, the gap between natural talent and hard work — Welcome to the Ballroom delivers all of that. The specific sport is ballroom dance, but the emotional beats are the same ones that drive any great competition story. You don’t need to care about dance going in. The manga makes you care.
Is Welcome to the Ballroom Finished?
No. The series is on hiatus — it has not been completed, and it has not been cancelled.
What “Hiatus” Means Here
Tomo Takeuchi has taken extended breaks due to health issues throughout the series’ run. You can see the evidence in the release dates: the first five volumes came out between May 2012 and September 2013, roughly every two to five months. After that, the gaps steadily widened — seven months, then another seven months, then about eleven months, then nearly two years between Volumes 8 and 9, and over two and a half years between Volumes 9 and 10.
Volume 12 released in Japan in November 2022. As of now, no Volume 13 has been announced. The series has been published in Monthly Shonen Magazine since December 2011, but new chapters have appeared irregularly for years due to the author’s condition.
The English Edition Has Caught Up
The good news for English readers is that Kodansha Comics has published all 12 volumes, so there’s no gap between the Japanese and English releases to wait out. You’re in the same position as Japanese readers — waiting for the story to continue.
The Anime as a Companion
A TV anime adaptation of Welcome to the Ballroom aired in 2017. Anime are animated TV shows or films, and many are adapted from manga — the anime takes the manga’s story and brings it to life with voice acting, music, and animation. This adaptation covers a significant portion of the available manga material.
If you’ve already read the available volumes and want more time in this world, the anime is worth watching for how it brings the dance sequences to life. If you watch the anime first and then want to read the manga, starting from Volume 1 is still recommended — the manga includes details and nuances the anime doesn’t cover, and the reading experience is distinct enough to be worthwhile on its own.
Should You Start a Series on Hiatus?
This is entirely personal. Here’s what you’re getting: 12 volumes of one of the most distinctive and well-regarded sports manga out there, covering a sport that almost no other manga tackles at this level. The story is in the middle of an arc and does not have a conclusion. Some readers are comfortable with that trade-off; others prefer to wait.
If you do decide to start, you should know going in that you won’t get a neat ending at Volume 12. But those 12 volumes are genuinely great, and many readers feel the journey is worth it even without a destination — at least for now.
Where to Buy Welcome to the Ballroom in English
All 12 volumes are published by Kodansha Comics in standard paperback format. There are no omnibus editions (collected volumes that bundle multiple books into one thicker volume) or box sets available — it’s individual volumes only.
Where to Find Them
The volumes are available through major retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores that carry manga. Digital editions are also available if you prefer reading on a tablet or phone.
A Practical Starting Point
Given that the series is on hiatus with no return date announced, here’s a practical approach: grab volumes 1 through 3 first. That gets you through Tatara’s introduction to ballroom dance and into the first major competition arc. By the end of Volume 3, you’ll know whether this series is for you. If it is, you can pick up the rest knowing exactly what you’re getting into — including the fact that the story pauses in the middle of an arc at Volume 12.
Format Notes
Kodansha Comics’ standard paperback editions are the only English physical format available. The volumes are a standard manga size and are widely stocked. For current pricing, check the Kodansha Comics website or your preferred retailer.
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Welcome to the Ballroom takes competitive ballroom dance — a subject most manga never touch — and makes it absolutely riveting. The art is stunning, the characters are compelling, and the competition scenes will have you turning pages like it’s a thriller. The hiatus is a real bummer, no way around it. But 12 volumes of manga this good? That’s still a lot of great reading.
