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REVIEW: IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls




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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Not even comparing this to the original, as I hadn't seen it at the time, this show was pretty bad. The character drama was awful. Some of it not making any sense at all. Mio's spoiler[breakdown after not getting a massive crowd at their Mall performance was one of the most cringy pieces of drama I've ever seen.] Other than that, the story was "okay" at best. All in all, the best things about this show are the character designs, some of the character animation and dance sequences, and Megumi Kouno's consistently good sense of motion animating them.
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:10 pm Reply with quote
Hadn't seen the original when I first watched this one either, but I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I mean yeah, the show did take its time to develop its cast and some characters never really outgrew their initial one-note quirk, but the animation was solid, the core cast was likeable enough and I was actually sold on the drama. As Rebecca mentioned in her episode reviews, the aftermath of New Generations' first live show was pretty realistic teen behaviour, and as Nick mentions here, the episode that deals with it really stands out in its direction. Plus, the Producer being so strikingly different in demeanour from your average male harem protagonist felt pretty fresh. Not gonna argue that the original Idolmaster had a much stronger and more consistent first season though.

Quote:
Minami and Miku (initially defined as “plays lacrosse” and “is a catgirl”)
Eh, the former's role was supposed to be more of a "token adult" (technically still a minor, but the oldest one in the group and the only one in college). The subs on Daisuki made this less clear initially, since the line where she says that she'll be like the older sister to the other members was mistranslated as her talking about Uzuki, Rin and Mio instead of herself. The episode with the training camp does expand on it though.
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Muffum



Joined: 09 Mar 2016
Posts: 100
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 3:03 pm Reply with quote
Honestly, I ended up preferring Cinderella Girls to the original iM@S. That's obviously a very minority opinion, but I think for me it comes mainly down to the drama and the antagonists in each. I think even some of the worst drama in CG was better done than the average drama in the original. In particular, the ending drama sticks out to me; Uzuki's drama in CG was one of its extreme high points, while I wasn't really fond of most of the last few episodes of the original. As a result, CG's ending heightened the overall experience, while the original's ending kind of soured me on the whole thing.

And as for the antagonists, Mishiro wasn't the greatest antagonist, but I felt she at least helped push the development for a lot of characters forward. Meanwhile, Kuroi was an almost literal Saturday morning cartoon villain, and I ended up disliking nearly every episode that had him in any major capacity.
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Juno016



Joined: 09 Jan 2012
Posts: 2418
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:02 pm Reply with quote
I haven't seen either IDOLM@STER or Cinderella Girls's anime, but I own the IDOLM@STER 2 game (beat one route) and I've been playing the Cinderella Girls mobile game for several years now.

I hear the IDOLM@STER anime is loosely based on IDOLM@STER 2, right? If so, then I'm probably going to finish the game before I watch it. Not necessarily for spoilers, but because I liked the way the characters were presented in the game and I want to experience the others I haven't seen as much in the same way.
But I have a different question. The thing I worry about most with Cinderella Girls' anime is that, much like the mobile game, they'll turn out to be really, really generic. Never straying from their one-dimensional characters. I mean, I don't mind it in the game, since I just really like the art of the game and hearing Miku say "nyan" at the end of all her sentences when I play them can be cute. But in the anime, I'm hoping for at least some depth to separate my one-dimensional view of her from the game with the character I'm watching the story of.

Idol shows are always so hit-or-miss with me. I liked AKB0048 to an extent and I really enjoyed Love Live! (season 2, especially). Even Aikatsu!, which is cares about its story and characters, is a ton of fun. But most of the rest I've seen ("Wake Up, Girls", "pretty rhythm", "Pripara", "Million Doll", and even "UtaPri") have been very, very boring or just... generic and off-putting. Even Gen'ei Ibunroku #FE (SMT x Fire Emblem) has been quite mediocre with its idol-focused storytelling (I'm pretty sure I've gotten past the halfway point, at least). I hear IDOLM@STER is really good, so I'm not too worried about that one, but I'm somewhat afraid of Cinderella Girls' anime making me feel like I want to put down the game. I really hope it's reasonably well-written as the review here suggests...
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Southkaio



Joined: 11 Jul 2012
Posts: 384
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:56 pm Reply with quote
Is a custom for many Japanese anime television series based on manga and video games to have only thirteen episodes?
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Juno016



Joined: 09 Jan 2012
Posts: 2418
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 9:14 pm Reply with quote
Southkaio wrote:
Is a custom for many Japanese anime television series based on manga and video games to have only thirteen episodes?


It matters little if it's an adaption or an original work. Some shows are made to be one-cour (about 12-13 episodes) and some shows are made to be multi-cour (about 24 episodes or more). It often depends on what the schedule of the animation studio is like and what kind of work it is.
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PackMontoya



Joined: 27 Aug 2015
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 5:10 pm Reply with quote
I don't think it's fair to the first half of CG to be comparing it to all of the original Idolm@ster. I'll give that it traded some of the original's quirky Gainax-y charm for a more melancholic feel but it's not like the 1st season of the original had such a stellar narrative either when the height of it's drama at the time was also spoiler["I quit being an idol because my unrealistic expectations weren't met!"] The original's story only really got interesting in the second half and the same could be said for Cinderella Girls'.

Also, TakeP > AkaP
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