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REVIEW: IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls Season 2




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garlogan78



Joined: 01 Mar 2014
Posts: 171
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 10:45 am Reply with quote
I thought S2 had some of the worst forced drama I had ever seen. =/
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Knight Baron



Joined: 02 Jun 2015
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:07 pm Reply with quote
garlogan78 wrote:
I thought S2 had some of the worst forced drama I had ever seen. =/


And 2011's drama wasn't at all forced? spoiler[Kuroi being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole, Producer getting into that stage fall accident just to amplify drama out of amplifying Haruka's dilemma, which was selfishly resolved by all the characters bending to her will, etc.]

CG isn't what I'd call the pinaccle of well written drama but I thought it was well grounded enough in respect to cg's much more somber / tranquil atmosphere in comparison to 2011's much more lighthearted atmosphere. If anything, 2011's drama felt forced to me not just because it was much more severe but because it juxtaposed too much to the show's more peppy happy go lucky aura that it no longer becme believable.

Dont get me wrong, I loved 2011 as much as CG but I feel like people compare it too much to the original series.

Or maybe it's because of a stigmata that developed from shows like Love Live or Aikatsu or akb0048 that idol shows must be happy 24/7.
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Via_01



Joined: 24 Aug 2014
Posts: 551
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:08 pm Reply with quote
This is nice to hear. I enjoyed the original Idolmaster a lot, but the dramatic arcs were definitely a step down from everything else. The only one I can say I enjoyed was Amami's, and that's only because I was going through something similar at the time. If Cinderella Girls S2 is actually a step up from that, then I'll definitely check it out soon.
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danpmss



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 762
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 2:00 pm Reply with quote
Story should be B- at best (C- imo)

But nice review, even though I disagree with it in some points.

An emotionally rich experience in a musical anime, try watching Nodame Cantabile.

Idol anime has too much pandering and try hard moe for me to enjoy, thinking about it. I have one exception (K-On Movie), but besides that, it's pretty much it.

My musical tastes being part of the score (obviously subjevtive in that matter, since I find the songs to be rather irritating and stuff), my score would be so-so (I don't care too much about the animation if it isn't important to the overall execution of the anime. Shigatsu would gain some bonus (just for how beautiful and melodic it looks) from me for that, but not this one (while colorful and well animated, it just don't transmit any feelings for me)).

5-6/10 (extra point for the Producer, just for the lols)


Last edited by danpmss on Mon Mar 21, 2016 2:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 2:39 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, gotta agree with the other people who felt like the drama didn't work so well. I thought it was marginally better then CG season 1, but not by much. Idolmaster excels to me when it forgoes the drama for something more lighthearted and fun. The original series did a reasonable job of it, minus a few moments, but CG is chock full of the most absurd drama. I just can't get past it. The entire plot concept is just ridiculous. And not in a good way. Oh well. I might need to be more selective with idol shows going forward. Of the idol series I've seen, Wake Up, Girls! is the only one that has actually captured what felt like realistic drama.
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garlogan78



Joined: 01 Mar 2014
Posts: 171
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 8:40 pm Reply with quote
I am getting into semantics here, I guess, but when I said that S2 had some of the worst forced drama I had seen, I consider that drama different than the original IMAS series.

The original series got melodramatic, but the conflicts that happened were grounded in things I could see as believable. Miki was upset at not being let into Ryuugu Komachi, Chihaya has a tragedy in her past that affects her career, Haruka becomes disheartned that the girls she struggled with to make a name for 765 Pro are all going their own separate ways. At times it got ridiculous, like the Producers accident, and the sheer amount of tears shed. But after spending a lot of time with the characters I was invested in these things that happened to them.

With CG, I see it as forced drama. An (anime original?) character comes in and messes up the status quo just to make an endless chain of dramatic episodes. Also, CG doesn't have the underdog story that the original had, so I am not as sympathetic to the characters. It is like, oh boo hoo, you work for a huge corpration that can make anyone famous through sheer money and influence, but you want to do things /your/ way. It was just cringe worthy to me to see P-chan arguing with her about the /power of smiles/. I mean, really?

Also the amount of idols in CG was staggering. As an anime only viewer, I feel like pretty much every character was largely under developed. Even girls that got more screen time were still just one note. Like, Uzuki's whole deal was still her saying ganbarimasu every single line.

I have no issue with idol shows not being happy go lucky all the time, but it has to at least be well done. In my opinion, CG was not.

Despite that though, the music and animation was really good. I also play starlight stage.
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AholePony



Joined: 04 Jun 2015
Posts: 330
Location: Arizona
PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:15 pm Reply with quote
garlogan78 wrote:
I am getting into semantics here...


I agree with you. I think cg ultimately suffered from underdeveloped/sympathetic characters so it was hard to buy the drama. I do agree with Nick that s2 was quite a bit better than s1 of cg.
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PackMontoya



Joined: 27 Aug 2015
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 3:33 am Reply with quote
I guess I disagree with everyone commenting here >_>

CG's drama is the most well done for me because they mainly arise from the characters' inherent flaws and shortcomings, not some external power beyond the characters' control. The original almost lost me with Kuroi, he was such a bad, over-the-top villain whose only role was to cause mayhem. Take him away, and the lives of the idols would be pretty peaceful and orderly. spoiler[Chihaya wouldn't have gotten caught up in a scandal, Takane wouldn't have had to deal with a stalker paparazzi, Hibiki wouldn't have gotten stuck on a cliff, etc. ] He was literally there to force drama on to the show. And don't even get me started on that ugly bowl cut guy from WUG. That's not to say Mishiro didn't serve a similar role, but I believe that a lot of the characters would have had to face their demons all the same. Almost every character had something about them that was holding them back from moving up with their careers. Something about them that they needed to overcome in order to become better idols and this makes sense because the main characters were all just starting out. It's to be expected that they'd have things to work on before they really became "idols" in the sense of being someone whose talents elicit admiration and even worship. The whole corporate restructuring (something one is more likely to face in their work life than a rival group trying to constantly sabotage them, by the way) brought about by Mishiro put more urgency in the need for the characters to grow up. Also, Mishiro actually had a clear motivation for her actions, which was turning 346 Pro into her ideal talent agency. Whereas Kuroi was just picking on a small time company out of bad blood with said company's faceless owner.
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garlogan78



Joined: 01 Mar 2014
Posts: 171
PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 4:40 am Reply with quote
PackMontoya wrote:
I guess I disagree with everyone commenting here >_>


From that perspective, I can see where you are coming from. But for me, I felt that every character in CG was so one-dimensional I could not invest in them. It did not help that in S2 they threw in a ton of other idols instead of doubling down on the girls from Cinderella Project.

A lot of it comes down to just subjective enjoyment. I had a ball with the original IMAS series, and I was super looking forward to CG. But I didn't really enjoy it at all (aside from the music). So even if I can twist my view of the show to be more forgiving, it won't change that I didn't enjoy it D: Which I guess is what opinions are....ahahha
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PackMontoya



Joined: 27 Aug 2015
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 8:34 am Reply with quote
garlogan78 wrote:
PackMontoya wrote:
I guess I disagree with everyone commenting here >_>
It did not help that in S2 they threw in a ton of other idols instead of doubling down on the girls from Cinderella Project.


Yeah, CG pretty much faced the same problem Kancolle did when it came to fan expectations. They can't please everybody while trying to keep a coherent story going. In the end, what could have been a story told using 20 or so characters ends up having 40+ just to sneak in all the cameos and Easter eggs. It honestly went against the more serious tone the anime was going for sometimes.

On the bright side, we have all these voiced characters in Starlight Stage now.
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