Cinderella Girls Gekijou

Cinderella Girls Gekijou is essentially the Puchimas vers. to it's original series.

Cinderella Girls Gekijou is an anime short compromised of 2 minutes episodes of the Cinderella Girls MASTERS Idols going about their daily lives while also paying homage to it's original source material (it's mobage game) through giving us certain scenes that is from their cards just given more context to the situation to Starlight Stage (the mobile phone game) with it's new songs being brought out in the ending credits and newer idols getting voices being highlights (such as Yuuki Otokura, Shin Sato, Shizuku Oikawa, Sanae Katagiri and Yuko Hori) through this anime short.

In ... terms of comedy, the comedy is extremely snappy with it's skit-based format (mainly due to it's runtime of 2 minutes each) however those entrenched in Cinderella Girls like LA is will know many of the references the comedy has, those who are a casual fan will be left in the dust. Though the only upside to this is we do see a more comedic side to the Cinderella Girls because of it.

In terms of animation by Studio Gathering (who also did Puchimas series), the animation for the majority is expected moe chibified format but with this art style allows the comedic moments to come in more easily, plus it's animation does change into full detail (again paying homage to the mobage cards) and those times, it's animation is pretty good for Studio Gathering.

Cinderella Girls Gekijou is one of LA's somewhat guilty pleasure anime shorts for Spring 2017 with obvious reasons (being a fan of im@s series even extending to Cinderella Girls), but even for those just getting into the Cinderella Girls, this is a good place to start off with, bringing us characters that we didn't know (due to Cinderella Girls HUGE ensemble cast outside of MASTER idols) and showing us their daily lives with a hint of comedy to them. LA enjoyed Cinderella Girls Gekoijou without a doubt and is also one of the better anime shorts to come out of Spring 2017.

Cinderella Girls Gekijou is enjoyable for fans of the iDOLM@STER series who want a short fun extension of the series. The five minute episodes are split into three scenes, that are generally allotted to one or two characters at most. Scenes typically follow the 4-koma panel joke set up of setting, build up, punchline and tsukkomi.

Plot is minimal and serves purely as fan-service, (not sexual), which is why it is hard to enjoy without being an iDOLM@STER fan. While the recent iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls anime features several girls in Gekijou's cast, there are also several cast members from the game series included.

Art and sound are ... minimalistic, ocassionally becoming more pronounced during close-up scenes or fan-service moments. On the other hand, ending themes are pleasing 30 second excerpts of their full version songs. Since series focuses on character fanservice, it is more enjoyable if you like iDOLM@STER's cast. However, fans of the original iDOLM@STER cast will rarely see representation for its characters.

As said before, Cinderall Girls Gekijou is a short and fun experience for fans who enjoy the ambiance and cast from the iDOLM@STER series. However, viewers looking for a plot heavy or serious show will be left disappointed.

Obviously shorts series like this usually aren't up to much since their very nature means they don't have any time for a real plot or much characterization, but they usually manage to get a few jokes in and be somewhat enjoyable. Not so with this series. Part of the problem is that the episodes are even shorter than usual, at about 2:30 once you take out the OP and ED, and they're then divided into three shorter segments! So you're looking at segments of under a minute each, which isn't much time to do anything. But even at that, the stories (such as they are) ... just don't offer anything of value at all. No jokes, no nothing. Worse, they're apparently based on the game, rather than the anime, which does mean that we get to see some of the characters who didn't make it into the anime, but also means that rather than our buddy P-kun, we have these teenage girls trying to seduce the producer character, which is just gross.

I will say the first episode isn't bad - it covers Miku bribing Anzu to work using candy, and Takumi (my girl!) crushing on Chieri - but the rest are pretty hopeless. Just dull.