Cinderella Monogatari

Directed by Hiroshi Sasagawa (Yatterman) and produced by Tatsunoko Production (Macross), both director and studio has history dating back to notable anime from the 70’s and 80’s.

Most people are familiar with the story of Cinderella, but very few know that there was an anime that came out in the late 90’s with a bit of a spin on the Disney version.

Cinderella’s fathers leaves for a long trip, her mother dies years before, and no sooner after father dearest leaves, Cinderella’s step-mother and sisters begin the treat her as their own personal servant to whip. No sooner than this though Paulette, a seemingly random woman (fairy ... godmother) depicted in the anime grants various animals around Cinderella the ability to speak. Early on Cinderella and the fated prince meet and after a few misunderstandings and chance meetings become friends. They go on various adventures together and so on. In the mean-time, there is a dubious plot within the crown and of course, step-mother and sister out to take advantage of Cinderella.

The plot is all there, but spanning at 26 episodes, this anime quickly becomes tiresome, slow, and repetitive. Not to say there is not the occasional “plot twist,” but this anime does not stray to break new grounds in any way.

The sound and animation are very poor in quality. Not to mention the character design and the layout of the show is very late 70’s early 80’s at best. This is not acceptable in 1996. There is zero excuse for something with this poor of quality. Voice acting is not any better, script writing is very bland, and the list goes on with how poor everything other than the plot is with Cinderella Monogatari.

It would be very much a surprise if anyone other than a small child could watch this extremely poor quality of an anime more than three episodes before having enough. This is unfortunate because the plot is sweet and interesting. However, with animation this bad, it is un-watchable today.