It's hard not to compare Idolmaster: Cinderella Girls to the original Idolmaster. While Cinderella Girls isn't a direct sequel, it's an adaptation from the same broader media empire, takes place in the same universe, and even following roughly the same structure. A set of ragtag girls are thrown together at the bottom rungs of idoldom, and slowly try to climb their way to the top. Friendships are made, failures are weathered, and many less-than-glamorous jobs are suffered through in the pursuit of fame and fortune. And eventually, the girls make their way to their first full group performance, the crowning event of both shows' first seasons.

All these things that tie Cinderella Girls to its predecessor are a bit unfortunate, because the Idolmaster casts a very long shadow. The original show was a genuine modern classic, one of the best-staffed and most beautifully executed anime of the last few years. Featuring a broad lineup of talent that ran the gamut from ex-Kyoto Animation artists to many former Gainax animators who'd go on to shine at Trigger, along with a director so passionate about the project he worked on direction, composition, scripts, animation, and even character design, The Idolmaster was essentially a greatest hits catalog of many of anime's leading lights. Its vivid directorial and animation talent came together to tell a consistently engaging series of idol vignettes, making a show that still stands at the peak of its genre.

In light of that, it'd be unfair to even hope that Cinderella Girls could match its predecessor. The Idolmaster's director Atsushi Nishigori isn't present on this project. His replacement, Noriko Takao, is extremely talented, but she doesn't carry with her the all-encompassing, quality-assuring reach of Nishigori, and much of the ex-Gainax talent that made the original so powerful is absent as well. You can clearly tell when an episode of Cinderella Girls features Takao's hand; in contrast to the original's diverse but consistently top-tier aesthetic strengths, here the “focus episodes” stand out in sharp relief from the mundane ones. Clearly some portion of the original's magic is gone.

But stacking Cinderella Girls directly against the strengths of its predecessor is a cruel way to assess it; instead, it would be more fair to highlight what sets the shows apart.

In many narrative ways, Cinderella Girls actually comes off like the anti-Idolmaster. Where that show opened with its full cast together in a low-rent office, here the story opens with just Uzuki Shimamura, an idol-in-waiting who dreams of being picked up during some studio talent search. Cinderella Girls' early episodes stick close to the perspective of Uzuki and her first two fellow idols, Rin Shibuya and Mio Honda, as they find themselves swept up in 346 Productions' nascent Cinderella Girls project. The three experience their first on-stage performance by the third episode, and their first confidence-shaking disappointment by the sixth. Things happen quickly for these idols, but as their very well-to-do studio moves each of the Cinderella girls towards stardom, it becomes clear that just having a successful studio behind you doesn't guarantee you'll make it in showbiz.

Where the original Idolmaster largely avoided forming smaller units, and let its entire cast develop in various ways at the same time, Cinderella Girls divides its focus between several specific subunits of the fourteen overall stars, letting Uzuki and her two friends lead the way for the entire first half. This approach has its pluses and minuses. On the negative side, because Uzuki, Rin, and Mio are the only real stars for the season's first half, the other eleven girls feel like one-note side characters for far too long. Additionally, the fact that all the drama is concentrated in the firmly established subgroups means that unlike the original Idolmaster, the characters rarely have a chance to bounce off each other in unusual ways. You pretty much know which characters are going to be hanging out with each other in some given episode, and when the group is all together, characters tend to just be expressions of their big quirk (“I'm lazy,” “I'm a chuunibyou,” etc). On the plus side, the subunit structure does give the show a firm sense of focus and progression across its early segments, even if the drama isn't strong enough to wholly carry the audience along.

That focus on questionable drama may be Cinderella Girls' most inescapable problem. The original Idolmaster also wasn't particularly good at telling multi-episode dramatic stories, but in that show, stories like that were confined to the second half of the second season. Here, the early movement towards “I'm going to quit being an idol”-style theatrics means you don't get much of a chance to know these characters before you're expected to care about them. Additionally, Cinderella Girls largely lacks the inventive, energetic vignettes that were the highlights of the original show. One of the best things about Idolmaster was how well it evoked a sense of fun, and that doesn't seem to be one of Cinderella Girls' priorities. The show is more subdued and pensive than the original, and those just aren't things Idolmaster tends to do well.

Fortunately, the second half of this season fixes a number of the show's early problems. As other subunits are introduced, characters like Minami and Miku (initially defined as “plays lacrosse” and “is a catgirl”) gain welcome texture, and the ways the characters struggle and try to help each other start to carry some real dramatic weight. Cinderella Girls' best moments lean into the uncertainty of stardom, and make emotionally real the stress and uncertainty of reaching for an impossible dream. The impossibility of making it through alone is consistently emphasized, and when these girls occasionally stumble, it feels truly encouraging to see them pick each other back up. There's definitely still plenty of heart in the Idolmaster name.

As mentioned before, Cinderella Girls' aesthetics can't really match up to its predecessor. The direction here is competent throughout, but lacks the consistently inventive, purposeful spirit of the original. The episodes outright directed by Takao are real stunners, but the rest tend to fall into visually pleasing but largely just information-conveying patterns. There's just not that much directorial or tonal diversity, leaving the sometimes lukewarm narratives to wholly carry their own weight. The animation is similarly a step down, though there are certainly plenty of animation highlights. The show's character acting remains best-in-class, and the way performances come to life has to be seen to be believed. More personality is often conveyed through one Idolmaster scene's animation than through an entire episode of a regular anime. And it seems like this show must have a dedicated hair animation consultant, because there is some kind of magic fluffiness in the way these stars' hair bobs and floats in the breeze.

Cinderella Girls' music is largely just functional in the non-performance scenes (light, repetitive piano and occasional guitar strings), but those are obviously not the focus here. The actual idol music is as diverse as ever, featuring a wide gamut of pop tunes fitted nicely to the various images of the subgroups. It's all shimmery, synth-heavy bubblegum pop, but hey, that's the stuff that idols are made of.

Overall, Cinderella Girls' first season is a reasonably successful show with some strong aesthetic highs that has the misfortune of being the followup to an actual classic. Things that might not come across as a flaw under normal circumstances, like the show's choice to focus on three central idols for half its running time, in this context feel like reflections of why this show can't match its predecessor. In spite of that, the show still features stellar animation, some strong individual episodes, and an ultimately endearing cast. It may lack the consistent highs of its predecessor, but it's still a reasonable watch in its own right.