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The Idol M@ster Cinderella Girls
Episode 3

by Rebecca Silverman,

Have you ever danced on stage? If so, you will immediately recognize the emotions that Uzuki, Mio, and Rin experience as they prepare for their first live performance. (You might also recognize them if you've acted or sung; all of my experience is in dance.) The nervous excitement, the panic, the mistakes in rehearsal...all of it is presented in perfect detail and enhanced by anxious background music so subtle that it took me a minute to even realize what was helping to make me relive the nerves of my first performance. While other aspects of this third episode of The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls are also very well done, this is the ongoing theme that really stands out, right down to the way the actual performance itself goes by in an instant.

As you will recall from last week, newcomers Uzuki, Rin, and Mio have been chosen by top idol Jougasaki Mika to be her backup dancers in her rapidly approaching concert. None of the girls have ever been on stage before (or at least not one like this), and there's a lot of prep work to be done in order to get them ready. There's a little rivalry in the larger Cinderella Girls group as well, with Miku (the one who says “nya”) continually challenging the girls in an attempt to take their places. For the most part the travails of the episode are handled with a light hand that allows us to interpret what's going on ourselves rather than beating up with the Sledgehammer of Symbolism: for example, when Mika first starts working with the girls, you can see from her fleeting (and fluid) facial expressions that she's starting to have some serious second thoughts about her plan but can't quite find a way to get out of it. Mio couches her fears behind increasingly manic perky behavior, while Rin's general discomfort is obvious from her stiff body language. Even during the dance scenes, we can see Rin as being the least flexible and graceful of the three, which speaks to the fact that previous to the story, she had no interest in being a performer at all.

The slow build and rush of the concert play very well on viewer emotions while also mimicking real life. I know I've complained before of poorly paced episodes in other shows, and you'd think that this would be a candidate for it, but the subject matter is so well integrated into the storytelling that it avoids that particular pitfall. That the animation is beautiful helps, of course – I won't wax rhapsodic again about the way hair and cloth move, but it is worth paying attention to the girls' appearances as the concert goes on – we can see sweat beginning to clump their hair a little and make their costumes just a little bit clingier. Again, this feels very realistic, and I applaud the animators for showing them sweaty and disheveled at the end of the performance. You dance, you sweat – it isn't pretty, but it definitely is how it works.

On the less good side, there's a thus-far rare artistic issue with Mio's stage costume, which in the first scene we see it on her goes down much lower on her hips, showing the lower curve of her stomach; after that shot we never see it that low again. There's also a scene where the perpetually sleepy Anzu is being held and her pants don't look quite right; these feel jarring simply because the rest of the artistry is so good. I also had issues with Daisuki's player as I was watching. The video kept freezing, causing me to have to reload the page three times (and watch the only commercial the site seems to have play roughly 900 times), with one freeze resulting in a 404. I'm also not entirely sold on the “Cinderella” part of the story, which feels like it's being pushed to its limits, but I do like the clock imagery that is used in the show, even if that gives it an ominous feel at odds with the story.

The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls is quickly shaping up to be a favorite for me, although perhaps three episodes is a bit early to make that call. Its cast still feels too large – thank goodness all the girls call each other by name every time they talk – but the fidelity to how becoming a performer really feels gives this show an edge over other idol shows I've seen – and that it looks nice and has catchy songs doesn't hurt either.

Rating: B+

The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls is currently streaming on Daisuki.

Rebecca Silverman is ANN's senior manga critic.


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