Anyway, I ordered two nice Kancolle figures, one Hatsune Miku and another Love Live! School Idol Festival figure.

Since I ordered a number of rather fanservice centered and expensive figures this year, I planned to focus more on the casual figures that are offered. This post slowly shows that change.

ordered figures

Kantai Collection ~Kan Colle~ – Kashima

Kashima is of course a very pretty character in the Kancolle game, having a training cruiser as her base. I was really impressed by the elaborate look of the prototype, the figure looks amazingly pretty with her sweet face, the especially nice curves and fashionable uniform. The skirt is of ridicoulusly short length, but reveals Kashima’s wonderful legs.

Kashima is a sad example for the exploitation of fictional pop culture characters, a friend once showed me a four panel manga about that featuring Kashima, after realizing the bigger picure behind it, it made me feel quite sad and guilty.
I will talk about this in detail when I will review this  figure. To protect her dignity a little, I ordered this figure.

release date: ~ February 2018

GOOD SMILE Racing – Hatsune Miku – Racing 2016 Version

I’m not really a fan of Miku, but I also don’t dislike her, I liked a few of her figures in the past. The best aspect of the Miku 2016 racing version for me is the cute and colorful concept. Her outfit looks less futuristic compared to other “racing versions” here she is dressed as nearly normal grid girl sitting on a pile of tyres. The addition of red, orange and yelllow colors make this figure look very happy. Also her face looks very adorable and portrays Miku in a happy mood.

release date: ~ December 2017

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Kantai Collection ~Kan Colle~ – Shigure – Casual Ver.

The guns on the Kancolle figures never were of much interest for me, I always was more interested in the character design, I actually thought that it would be nice to have the lovely characters dressed as normal girls. You probably can imagine how happy I was when GSC announced this figure. On top of that Shigure is one of my favorite characters from Kancolle. This is an amazingly pretty figure dressed in an outfit suited for autumm. The red glasses are a nice addition, as well as the vintage camera. The figure is nicely articulated, being placed on a fence with a leaf covered base.

release date: ~ June 2018

release date: ~ March 2018

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Nendoroid – Little Witch Academia: Sucy Manbavaran

Yes, a Nendoroid. Of course I would like to have scale figures from Little Witch Academia, since I really liked this hilariously crazy anime. The unnecesary final arc aside, ït has been a while that I liked an anime that much. I chose the character of Sucy because I like her the most, her sarcastic remarks and Schadenfreude about Akko’s adversities.

release date: ~ April 2018

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Interesting figures

SHOW BY ROCK!! – Cyan – Limited Edition

I recently noticed this nice figure of a charming cat girl playing the guitar. Cyan already was released. Since a few delays occured I have available budget o get another figure this or next month, Cyan would be something I’d like to have.

release date: ~ October 2017

Date A Live – Kurumi Tokisaki

I never watched Date A Live to be honest, but this concept of Kurumi as an attractive girl posing on a big cat tree.

release date: ~ March 2018

Granblue Fantasy – Narmaya

Manufacturer Broccoli decided to make an extremely complex figure adaption of Narmaya, a quite awesome figure with an awesome base. As to be expected it also is a really expensive figure. Could someone please make a figure of Lyria?

release date: ~ May 2018

Eromanga Sensei – Sagiri Izumi

Awww I really like this figure of Izumi with the Super Soaker gun, it might not be state of the art quality, but even with a few cutbacks this figure would be really lively and adorable.

release date: ~ November 2017

Koakuma Kanojo – Akuno Mika

Haha, earlier I’ve mentioned that I planned to buy less ecchi figures and then they show me something like this beautiful purple haired girl in a bikini XD Well, she should be released next month, one more sexy figure in 2017 won’t hurt anymore anyway lol. Mika looks really cute with her short, curvy body and the extremely adorable expression. Furthermore she is scaled 1/5 which is pretty big.

release date: ~ November 2017

THE IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls – Anastasia Story of Revolving Stars Ver

Seeing ALTER going crazy with their prices for the Cinderella Girls, GSC shows us with this beautiful Anastasia, that they can make a gorgeous figure also for an affordble price. The figures costume looks beautiful and Anastasia is also posed in a dynamic way.

release date: ~ August 2018

Is the order a rabbit?? – Cocoa

Manufacturer PLUM is focusing on figures of loli characters and apparently does a good job with it. I recently saw this super cute Cocoa san, she was my favorite character in the fluffy anime “Is the order a rabbit??”. They made her so adorable, I really consider to get her. I would like a to have an extremely cute figure again after a while.

release date: ~ October 2017

Original Character – Kaguya

The Raita proportions are quite a challenge for the idol outfit, the boobs are too big and the skirt is too short. Nevertheless what I like about it, is the nicely designed and creative idol outfit and the characters pretty face.

 release date: ~ May 2018

THE IDOLM@STER – Haruka Amami

In the IDOLM@STER anime (2011) Haruka really was my favorite, unlike this terrible Miki XD Ok first I think that is a great figure, I’ve heard a few people complain about the figures eyes being too far apart, nevertheless the figure is already sold out on AmiAmi. I think she is cute, I only feel a little sad about the fact that every figure of Haruka has a wide open mouth.

release date: ~ April 2018

White Elf – yapo Original Figure

I really like the Elf archetype, pointy ears are pretty. Unfortunately in terms of figures Elves are rarely seen. Magic Bullets recently announced their “White Elf” based on an illustration of yapo. I like the pose and figures design a lot.

release date: ~ February 2018

Hitori no Shita THE OUTCAST – Fu Houhou

This certainly very pretty figure has a quite different look and atmosphere than the happy, colorful or ecchi figures we see all the time. One of the reason could be that it’s adapted from an anime produced by an chinese studio.

release date: May 2018

Kantai Collection ~Kan Colle~ – Ooyodo

I like Ooyodo for being a modest ship girl from Kancolle, she has a cute uniform and just shows a minimum of her apparently nice legs. Amakuni really makes all the beautiful Kancolle figures and Ooyodo is no exception.

release date: August 2018

And so my personal overview about the current preorder situation comes to an end, unfortunately it’s difficult to decide to preorder anything, since many figures are appealing and pretty. Haha and most of all I have limited space and budget. How do you actually cope with the pretty figure avalanche?

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?