The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls is based on a mobile Game, made by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment. The anime started airing in January 2015, it is a 2 cour anime , in the post which was supposed to be a review, I’ll write about my impressions of both seasons.

https://youtu.be/n-_HcT6eRSI

When it started airing, I watched two episodes and thought “Well, maybe I’ll rather stop here”. The whole Idol hype around that time appeared rather awkward to me. Miette-chan was more excited about it, I noticed that my lack of idol knowledge started upsetting him XD. Since I also wanted to watch a complete anime anyway I decided to continue with the anime.

The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls is labeled as Comedy, Drama and of course Music anime.

The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls game features around 190 different Idols, but of couse not everyone could appear in the anime. It centers around ~14 main idols, but there are some short guest appearance, each character gets their fair amount of screentime.

The anime centers around the big talent agency 346 Production and a newly developed project, called the Cinderella Project! “Normal girls” who are actually not considered as idol material are chosen to be aspiring idols. The first episodes are used as intro of the setting and introducing the Idols, each character gets steadily more fleshed out as the show continues.

The nameless Producer-san is in charge of scouting, managing the Idols and develop their career. He is a dilligent office man, although rather inexperienced. His outer appearance makes him look kind of suspicious, which turned into a running gag now and then.

Comedy is an essential element in the beginning, the excited and impatient Idols obviously create quite a ruckus in the office, but it gets less crazy soon. Producer-san tries his best with preparing each Idols debut, the story slowly goes on and tells more about each Idol. As the Idols and Idol groups are going to be official, each gets a nice episode dedicated to them.

The second season is more about moving on as Idol, parting ways, etc. Also an antagonist is introduced  in shape of the label boss, who strictly uses an authoritarian leadership style, which makes things slightly uncomfortable for everyone. Most episodes center about the weakness or problems of the single Idols and Idol groups some weeks after their debut.  In this aspect it feels more grown up than the other iDOLM@STER anime from 2011.

The anime has an overarching plot, focusing on the three aspiring Idol trio Uzuki, Mio and Rin, together they are New Generations. Surprisingly the happier episodes are dedicated to the more eccentric Idol characters and their struggles and adventures in the Idol industry.

Personally I have a little problem with the Idol industry by default, the Idols only stand there in cute clothes with their created image. The music and text already gets arranged before the Idol does anything or can anything decide by herself. Sure most popular pop songs weren’t written by the performer. Furthermore, I would agree that singing and dancing is already hard work enough for a teenage girl, I can’t demand that they all can write their own songs.

Surprisingly the issue of having only little influence on the music and image is also addressed in one episode, I nodded approvingly. iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls adresses the problems and circumstances of the Idol business rather openly. Although most idols mainly experience smaller hardships. Uzuki, Mio and Rin experience the really bad things.

The members of New Generations are high maintenance, it is a problem group. Their story consists of drama, the last heavy drama, made the audience suffer with a mentally stressed girl, reduced to a pile of bitter tears. I was surprised about such an heartwrenching event.

The reduced amount of happy events concerning the members of New Generations makes them look neglected, as they are ought to be main characters.

In summary

As a whole The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls is a very good anime, as it is portraying the adventures of normal girls with lovely personalities, that are chosen to be sparkling idols.

Most idols are naturally enchanting, some are a bit crazy but that doesn’t make them look bad. The nervousness an anxiousness of inexperienced idols is shown very convincing. Another strong point of it is definetely variety, funny, thoughtful, dramatic or touching episodes, everything is there. The authors did a good job with the setting and making every idol, not only fit in the plot, they wrote great subplots for each girl to make them shine.

I had a few prejudices when I started to watch this show, but I quickly enjoyed this wonderfully made  anime. While a few things, like adding such an antagonist were slightly questionable. Also the main characters except Uzuki couldn’t really convince me, Rin is beautiful, but emotional she is a bit awkward and Mio… she really made things a mess, not only once. Fortunately the other idols make up for the little shortcomings of the anime.

On another point Cinderella Girls is real eye candy, it looks very appealing with it’s mainly great animation works. Music also sounds very good, quite some effort was put into it.

The appeal of animes with so many idols is, that there are guaranteed a few characters the viewer might like or can relate to. While watching the show and the especially nicely directed subplots I liked nearly every Idol in this anime and I also developed supporting feelings.

In the next paragraph let me languish over my favorite idols XD

Kirari Moroboshi was quite a surprise for me, I instantly fell in love. Kirari is extremely kind and brimming with positive energy. Kirari loves all cute things and all cute girls. I liked her great sense of fashion. She is a somehow crazy and upbeat girl, also the tallest idol. She always pitches her voice at the end of the sentence *kyahhh!*. Her size and personality and the fact that she always has a helping hand for others, make her a happy hippie older sister type.

Anastasia is the daughter of a japanese mother and russian father. She often uses russian words in her speech . Her soft, slow paced way of speaking gives me impression that she’s a thoughtful person. When dealing with other people she is very gentle and extraordinary sensitive torwards others feelings. And just look at the gorgeous eyelashes (｡’▽’｡)♡!

As group I really liked Miku Maekawa and Riina Tada. At first Miku is an annoying girl, but she grow on me, she’s actually enchanting. When put together Miku and Riina appear like an impossible combination with their totally polar interests, over time they really grow together as group and also as close friends.

And you… have you already watched The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls?

Do you like a certain Idol?

In this post I want to discuss the reasons why anime themes get exchanged and if it is always a good idea to change them. For examples we will take a look at some opening themes of still ongoing shows like Golden Time, Tokyo Ravens, Strike the Blood, Magi and Yowamushi Pedal.

By default a two cour anime will probably have two different opening and ending themes.
For the music, professional and popular bands, voice actors or cute songstresses are hired.
They support the anime with providing a song that already exists or make a new one.

The Opening Theme is the figurehead of an anime, it is the first thing the viewer experiences. Opening and also Ending themes consist of audio and video, animations from the anime or extra made animations that show the viewer what to expect in the first cour in a compressed, artistic format. The music tries to convey the atmosphere from an anime.

As I started to watch animes, I had the opinion that animes with 24 or more episodes, but one opening theme are lazy, especially when the song is not so good, only when there is a very good song, a change is regretable. For the viewer a changing Opening makes an anime fresher with new animations and music. At best the new theme is as good as the first one or even better.

Financial aspects play an important role in this regard, both music labels and anime studios make extra money with CD sales and will gain attention with the music played in an anime.

An anime profits from a popular band and a band profits from being part in an anime adaption since their songs reach the ears of the anime audience. Without anime I would have missed a number of great japanese artists. From electronic beats to romantic ballads, there is a wide range of genre’s that are used in anime, Higashi no Eden even had a western song.

Now lets listen to a few Songs of several 20 + episode animes and compare them.

Golden Time

 “Golden Time” by Yui Horie

The sweet and clear voice of Yui Horie make this a really romantic happy and enjoyable song.
The cozy and artistic animations focuses on the pretty main heroine in many cute scenes.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqU_JPwig_4

“The♡World’s♡End” by Yui Horie

Yui Horie performs a more dreamy song that gives off a distant, nearly lonely feeling, the noise over her singing is a bit distracting from her angelic voice, but it shows the personal conflitcs of the main heroine very well. A good opening change with a different mood.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN-nTIXLwEQ

Tokyo Ravens

“X-encounter” by Maon Kurosaki

Not a bad song for this one, dynamic song and also good animations.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVTwa-RDOKM
 

“~Outgrow~” by Gero

Well, that throws the first one out of the water, a very powerful song till the end, that’s the kind of song I prefer personally, the animations are really cool.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pje4GXgNNec
 

 Strike the Blood

“Strike the Blood” by Kishida Kyoudan & The Akeboshi Rockets

A great opening with it’s rough, energetic speed and the strong female voice, the song reminds me of Highschool of the dead, it is a bit similar and very fitting for an action orientated, shounen anime. It’s one of the songs where I set the volume to maximum, I love songs that make me feel like grabbing a guitar and jumping around like a wild monkey.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAFSVQkavKw
 

“Fight 4 Real” by ALTIMA

That song really is weird choice, that’s a case of bad change, the song doesn’t want to fit.
I’d rather listened to the old one for another dozen of episodes, at least the darker scenes in the animation have a good atmosphereThe fitting for the show.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l6Qar6gXmw
 

Magi

“ANNIVERSARY” by SID

Magi always has nice themes, not something I would get as CD but they are good. A soft male voice is good for a shounen show that has friendship, trust and adventures as main topic.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxxznc1yGOI
 

“Hikari (光-HIKARI-)” by ViViD

I would say that is as good as the previous one, the animations are a bit more interesting, I love the part at 1:19.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3q8Yzp6eGU
 

 Yowamushi Pedal

“Reclimb (リクライム)” by ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D

ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D is a great band and I like this song a lot, it fits very well to the beginning of the anime, where the shy Otaku Onoda lost his club, but found himself a decent hobby where he can grow both mentally and physically, make friends and challenges himself.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyk3dM6qUhU
 

“Yowamushi na Honoo (弱虫な炎)” by Dirty Old Men

I already thought that “Reclimb” was the perfect song for this show, but Dirty Old Men pumped their song with so much power and passion that it is a really great song for this bicycle sport anime . I ordered the single and an album of the band, sorry I can’t find the video in a decent quality.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wl8XaqEoCg

What do you think about the changing of Opening Themes?

Was there a time when you were really dissapointed or relieved by such a change?
Please tell me in the comments.

I have another Soniko merchandise related post for you, this time Soniko sings a few songs for us. This CD is called SONICONICOROCK Tribute To VOCALOID – Initially Pressed Limited Gorgeous Edition. As the name implies Soniko is performing some popular songs of Vocaloids. Don’t misunderstand Soniko is none of these synthesizer singers, since the Sonicomi game promotion started, she has a real voice, which is given to her by Ayano Yamamoto.

To tell you the truth I mainly bought this CD, because I liked the cover and another reason was that it is a limited item with some small nice extras included, AmiAmi also added a postcard for purchasing this CD. The included extras are a metal keystrap, a telephone card (my second Soniko telephonecard, lucky!), and a small illustration booklet. You know what this means?

 SCANNER TIME!!!

I don’t know many vocaloid songs, but I guess most of the songs were already sung by vocaloids, I could find a few of the songs on youtube, anyway the following titles are included.

As I inserted the CD I was quite surprised that the songs sounded that good, she has no exceptional strong voice but I really like the tone of it and it works well with the music. Im really enjoying this CD. To give you a little impression about how Soniko sounds, I will show you a few of my favorite songs.

However here you can see the advertisement which features all the included songs in short

httpvh://youtu.be/xb7XQvrpcVk

Aria

httpvh://youtu.be/NMENS3J91UA

Soar

httpvh://youtu.be/D61a0xvn9oM

Twinkle

httpvh://youtu.be/zDlJqNZ6osE

Dear (From Sonico to You)

httpvh://youtu.be/S3YY-1toMh0

HAPPY SYNTHESIZER (ハッピーシンセサイザ)

httpvh://youtu.be/tiQoVgr1GpE

The CD has a good mix of songs, most of them have a Rock/Pop touch, befitting to the girl with the electric guitar, there are a few ballads, a few faster songs and a few dance hall songs, the less artificial voice makes the songs better in my opinion. I expected nothing but now I keep playing the songs like there is no tomorrow. The songs turned out so nice, the box is pretty and so Im glad that I ordered this Initially Pressed Limited Gorgeous Edition. I paid 2800 Yen for the limited edition which is already sold out, but the regular release for 2200 Yen is on backorder 

]]> http://wieselhead.de/featured/soniconicorock-tribute-to-vocaloid-cd/feed/ 9 12479 http://wieselhead.de/anime-related-2/best-anime-openings-fall-season-2010/ http://wieselhead.de/anime-related-2/best-anime-openings-fall-season-2010/#comments Sat, 01 Jan 2011 13:09:35 +0000 http://wieselhead.de/?p=1687

A Happy New Year to all of you, I wish you all the best for 2011

Some more anime season  related stuff  as little filler until I’ve finished the rest of the shows I’ve started in fall seasons. I think there were some very good openings and ending in this fall/winter season. Opening and ending themes in anime are very important to me they should be catchy and should fit to the atmosphere of the anime. For starters lets have a look into the openings I liked first

1. Amagami SS “Kimi no Mama de ” by azusa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzKqLOVprhw
2. Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru “DOWN TOWN” by Maaya Sakamoto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2n29wa-4Fw
3. Sora no Otoshimono: Forte “Heart no Kakuritsu ” by Blue Drops

4. Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge “COSMOS vs ALIEN ” by Etsuko Yakushimaru
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKii8YAlXUg
5. Motto To LOVE-Ru “Loop-the-Loop” by KOTOKO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOL6Rvbrw60
6. Yosuga no Sora “Hiyoku no Hane” by eufonius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzhdL4k-uZE

best anime openings fall season 2010 is coming soon…