The Idol M@ster Cinderella Girls

Episode 12

Those only familiar with the Disney or French versions of the Cinderella story might not know it, but the title of this week's episode seems to be a reference to the variant collected by The Brothers Grimm – in that version, Cinderella plants a magic tree and waters it with her love and sorrow for her mother. That is what is needed to make her magic “flower” bloom; for the girls of the Cinderella Project, it is two other emotions: confidence and happiness.

The Idol Fest is looming for our new idols, and in preparation for it they've all gone off to one of those training camps so beloved by anime. Once there, they find out that they don't only have to ready their unit performances, but also a group one involving all thirteen of them. For a group who have only performed in small numbers, this is a daunting task – it's one thing to coordinate your movements with one or two other people, but a group that large takes a lot more practice...and just when they're feeling down, the Producer announces that he has to leave! He puts quiet Minami in charge before he goes, and it seems like everyone has some mixed feelings about that, not the least of whom is Minami herself. After a couple of rehearsals that don't go all that well, so realizes that the problem is that no one is really aware of what the others are doing in terms of timing or, well, anything. Much to everyone's confusion, she arranges a series of games such as you might find at a party or school event in order to help everyone work better together.

As far as cute episodes go, this one is right up there. There's plenty of chances to see each of the girls trying her hardest, not quite making it, and showing off her own unique personality. (Anzu's waterfight skills are pretty awesome.) Unfortunately this is once again shown through a lot of still shots, taking away from the attractive animation that made early episodes so much fun to simply look at. We do see more dancing when the group is practicing their idol festival routine – yes, it is the opening theme – and those scenes do a good job of showing us how each girl is moving to a slightly different rhythm with a few of them being spectacularly off in terms of timing. In other scenes, however, everyone is horribly off-model, and one scene of Miku and Riina in profile definitely has something odd about their faces. Minami's hair length seems to change from scene to scene, not in terms of “up” or “down” styling, but rather that it is at different lengths in the same style in different scenes. To call this episode visually disappointing might be putting it mildly.

This week's plot isn't particularly thrilling, but it is a nice one that is pleasant to follow. It's really enjoyable to watch the girls get better at trusting each other and improving over the course of the half hour, and even more rewarding to see Minami grow into her role as interim director. Anya gives her clear and constant support, and it has become possible to see their unit as one equally as cohesive as New Generations, who once again play a bigger role in the episode. Producer fans are in for a bit of a disappointment, as he only features in two scenes, but the show does its best to make that worthwhile by making this episode as full of adorableness as possible. The waterfight scenes do go on a little too long – I didn't feel it was necessary to show all of them getting splashed with water, but this may not be an issue for you.

With renewed courage and confidence, the girls of the Cinderella Project are getting ready to take on the festival, if not the world, at the end of the episode. This wasn't the best the show has given us, but hopefully it's gearing up for something spectacular.

Rating: B

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

Rebecca Silverman is ANN's senior manga critic.