Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine

Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine lives somewhere in the intersection of three common anime tropes.

1. The "Sports anime" trope. Including, but not limited to (A) the character that used to play the sport but doesn't play anymore, no matter how much you ask her to join your club (Suzuki), (B) the character that takes the sport too darn seriously while everyone else just kind of wants to play and have fun (Nozaki) and of course (C) the hyper-optimistic team leader who spends most of the show trying to keep everyone together (Shinonome)

2. The "Starting a new club in school" trope. Including but not limited to (A) ... fighting with the school council over creating a club, (B) struggling to get new members and (C) long explanations about technical subjects related to the club (in HnCN's case, mostly about Baseball equipment and technique).

3. The "Cute Girls Doing Cute Things" trope. Which is self-explanatory.

While HnCN won't defy any of its trope's conventions, the series does a good job of playing to each trope's strengths. Meaning that yes, if you enjoy all three of these tropes, HnCN might just be the show for you. However if you're looking for any sort of depth here, if you're looking for unique, distinguishable characters, if you're looking for well thought out dialogue, or if you're looking for something, anything else beyond the youthful optimism of cute bat-swinging 2D girls, then you're better off looking for another show to watch.

Here's where the technical qualities of the show come into play. Certain shows that play to their tropes distinguish themselves from the pack with good background art and fluid animation. In HnCN however, beyond the character designs (which are decent-to-good), the art quality makes this a difficult watch as the background art is simple and repetitive, the animation lacks fluidity and the character's faces are oftenly off-model.

Overall, I find this show to be quite enjoyable: I like the three tropes I described earlier, so I'm naturally inclined to score this higher than it "objectively" deserves, and I can honestly see some people actually enjoying this. With that being said, the poor art quality, the lack of depth in dialogue and character building and the mostly unoriginal story will turn-off a lot of people, especially those who aren't interested in the three-trope intersection previously described.

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What is most important in sports club for high school students? To have fun or, engage in fiercely competition there winning is everything. Can you be friends with your teammates? Or do you need to drive them hard so they improved themselves . Can you coach a team with kindness and understanding, or do you need to be tough and use a whip and forced people to advancement? Well lets find out! Welcome to Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine!!



...

First there where no baseballs teams for females.But girls wants to play as well and are as competent if not even more capable then the men!! Tsubasa have always love the sport, and one day in the school assembly hall. The student are gathered for a meting and presenting different clubs to join. Tsubasa see her opportunity and bravely takes the floor, even if its a risk she is going to be ridiculed she loudly and proudly announce her love for the sport .And telling the whole school that the baseball club for girls looking for members .This is a epic saga about relationships hardship struggle love and baseball!!



Story 4/10


Not a big sport fan! And the drama segments in this anime are not impressive .Its way over the top ,scenes that you are suppose to take serious becomes very silly and laughable ,, And that is not what they where after, does drama scenes fails miserably in my book! I was close dropping this anime a couple of time just because of the horrendous drama! But it got better after a while



Art 6/10


Pretty low quality to be honest especially in the beginning but it improves in later episodes. And i'm here for the pretty girls and they are really cute and have a good character design. Akane stand out the most she is just a doll.. She is very adorable and does cat ears suits her tremendously well.So because mostly of the girls I give the art a bit over average in score



Sound 6/10


The music is noting special in that meaning but it works, and are suitable to the scene , I really enjoy the op.Its doesn't stand out but it neither hurt my poor old ears



Character 10/10


And we have our first home-run and not by a little bit the ball goes out all the way to parking lot when its come to the alluring characters. We have everything and more, We have the shy Akane that sometimes are a bit intimidated to speak up, But she always hangs in their she never gives up and she wants to improve herself. We have the leader Tsubasa that wants to win but never sacrifice friendship over it.She is so kind and loving and instead of screaming or being angry she lift her teammates up, by being a gentle and understanding.We have the girl with Asperger's or a light form of autism ,She may have some problems with social situations but her friends love her and she is a part of the team.And she is a lesbian that flirting wildly with another female it's very cute. For me its a monumental plus when they include diversity. I love all my girls! I don't care if they have Asperger's autism or are in a wheelchair or any other form of handicap. They are all beautiful and I cherish and treasure all of them. And I like to see when they include what is not consider to be normal, because they exist and should take part in anime!!




Enjoyment 10/10 Yuri 7/10


We have another home-run. I love and adore the girls so much, and with that strong attachment I having a lot of fun. I got really invested because of the strong pulchritudinous and warm females. I need my girls I need to love them if I do all the rest will fall in place. And I will enjoy the anime and my girls delivers strongly. And I especially enjoys the strong side characters. Remember one scene in particular ,When unexpectedly a girl wanted to speaks up,, And I know her from a earlier episode and I considerably approve of her , Go ahead Honey! Speak from your heart! What she then said is up to you to find out,But most importantly if a female that I like wish to express herself she is allowed to do so, and I want to hear what she have on her mind., That's an important aspect for my enjoyment,Really like that this anime take its time with scenes like that .And we also have a lot of flirting and sympathetic females that really love each other , So there definitely existed some Yuri elements. Which I enjoy greatly




Overall 10/10


There where an considerable amount of bad drama and some other problem like the animation. But because of the righteousness females and the good character development I really like this anime. and they included a girl with autism .Its was fun its was delightful and it was so heartwarming , and to witness the girls grow so much made me both happy and very proud Akane fought worked suffered and pulled trough .And Tsubasa was a shining star. She didn't back down from her believe and shepherd her team with love and encouragement, and not treating them badly .Overall it was more about female loving other females. Rather than fierce competition, and if you after an anime with that aspect. I don't recommend this,, This is a Cut Girls Doing Cute Things show and the rivalry it's rather light. But if you like cute girls mellow anime. I can really recommend this



I dedicate this review to both Akane and Tsubasa. I can't be more content with them!!

Based on the original game, the anime itself is a promotion for the game. The theme of the anime is obviously friendship, baseball, and cute girls.

First of all, the comparison people make to Love Live is definitely way off mark here. If you expecting love live here, then this is not for you. if you are expecting hanebado, then this is not for you. This is actually much more like Girls un Panzer.

The premise isn't anything new, the over arching story is nothing outstanding, each episode vaguely focuses on one/group of characters that fleshes out their back story.

The anime is pretty grounded in reality,there is ... no special power or anything like saki/hanebado, but all of it is based on handwork of training. You can't just overcome obstacles with friendship, but as a team sport, trusts is definitely something that a team needs.

You can definitely tell the animation drop in quality at certain spots (usually dialogue heavy scenes), but the actual baseball scenes are above average in most cases.

To the people who said the story is bland, they probably just watched the anime on the side while doing other activities and didn't really watch watch. Because there are several subplots that actually is well written such as the main character and her best friend.

Not the best anime, but definitely have a "fresh" feel to it and overall enjoyable.

TL;DR - If you can imagine a show centered around baseball and "cute girls doing cute things" then you have effectively already watched Cinderella nine. There is no noteworthy plot to be found here. As a result, this isn't going to be a long review because frankly there really isn't much to talk about.

Cinderella nine is one of the more questionable game anime adaptations of 2019. Originally an odd fusion of baseball/galge for Android/iOS with the basic premise being "Cute girls being cute and playing baseball". The player acts as a sort of manager for the girls. That's it. And strangely, the anime ... actually gets rid of the player so all you have left is yet another extremely shallow zero-plot "moe~ moe~" anime to add to the titanic pile of shows like this that already exist. Sadly, Cinderella nine is not one of the better ones.

The problem is, while baseball and moe might make a decent baseball game - having such a basic story to it doesn't exactly translate well into an anime. They could have done so much more, such as having the main character introduced with an interesting backstory and well...actual plot. I can understand why the creators of this decided to make Cinderella nine so shallow, but it begs the question: did they really have to? The entire thing just reeks of wasted potential. A long time ago, people might say that you can't expect much from an anime based on a silly Mobage. However shows like Rage of Bahamut have come and gone to display that you actually can create a decent storyline despite the humble beginning of being a smartphone app. All it takes it some talent and good writing, both of which Cinderella nine completely lacks. Another big problem with this anime is it completely lacks humor, which I find essential to enjoying any ''cute girls doing cute things" show.

Occasionally the girls will go into their past and talk about their inner characters, but it always feels crafted to just make them seem even more moe~ and never anything sincere. There is an underlying plot about them trying to get a baseball club off the ground and constantly failing for random reasons, but it isn't well done enough to truly break out of its shell. It's an extremely shallow and very overdone story that was put in place simply because the producer felt like there needed to be at least "something" there. The story exists to check a box off a list and not as anything with any real meaning. The writing behind the main plot of this anime is abysmally bad as a result. The ending was so generic it deserves no mention.

In conclusion, Cinderella nine is what I like to call a "Background Anime". It's something you can toss up on a second monitor while working and occasionally smile at or watch in small doses as it plays in the background of whatever you are actually doing. Because the plot is so completely simplistic and predictable, there is no need to take anything the anime has seriously enough to give it your full undivided attention. I forced myself to finish it anyways and it never gets any better.

Final verdict: watch the first 15 minutes. Cinderella nine is so basic that you won't even need to see an entire episode to be able to tell if this anime is for you or not.

Once again, another by-product of TMS Entertainment's push to have more female-centric "activities" that are dominated by the male species. If you have no idea what I am referring to, go check out last Fall's abysmal "Sora to Umi no Aida" (Between the Sky and Sea). AND, OMG do I really NOT wanna talk about that anime.

As expected of a game adaptation, there isn't any resemblance of the story or plot, because YOU are the player. You help the game characters make out their motivations to keep going, because that is your party of characters whom you are growing together in playing and familiarizing with ... the mechanics, and aim to be the champion (of sorts). Then roll credits, and that's it. Take that away, and what you have is in-game characters doing YOUR half-assed job.

Before I start my review, a quick shout-out to @El-Random very cleverly dumbing down this female-girlish series and its recycled tropes. Great on you bud if you like it. However I just don't care for the demographics that the staff and the production team are inclinedly pushing us to watch. It just isn't any great.

So I'll mince his words: Sports, starting a new club in school, and the aforementioned CGDCT trope:
1) Sports, clearly male-centric, not because of skill nor prowess but of power. When turned into the female demographic, the so-called "friendship" game and the "serious" tone it gives, just doesn't impact as heavily as it would. And I don't need to fill in the blanks for the end result if all goes wrong.
And also, the sport: Baseball. To be fair, the Women's baseball scene in Japan has gotten a bit more traction than before (and YES, I did my research) with notables and such. But that is within the confines of Japan alone, not even the U.S. Women's baseball scene lasted that long (and feel free to DM me if my research is wrong).
2) <State your year>-year(s) starting a new club. This is very self-explanatory: Finding like-minded schoolmates, struggling with the school's Student Council for approval, find more schoolmates, explain the sport's rationale and "WikiHow"s of baseball, play ball, enter competition with the motivation of "I want to be the very best, like no one ever was". Honestly, if you ask me, I am seriously getting tired of all these "motivations" that only last as means of a plot device (especially in the 2nd half). So unless the story is any good, just move on.
3) The "Cute Girls Doing Cute (Competitive) Things" trope. Competitiveness is THE word in this anime. However, that feeling and emotion just isn't expressed very well, even if the emptily-action is intense.

And the characters, I get it that such a sport-centric team has to have many players, but the character development is SOOOO one-note and I would gladly just use my mouse cursor and drag them into the "sad-worries-then-happy-emotions" club. The only characters that are easy to follow are the leads which have experience:
Ariharu Tsubasa, the overly-spirited girl with the most optimism. And I swear the Tsubasa name is referenced (if you know which series I'm talking about), and Ryou Shinonome, as expected of a pro player: dealing with the rejects and bearing their amateur antics as a stepping stone.
Other than the standing-out duo, the others are a rag-tag team of misfits and I really applaud them of stepping out of their comfort zone, but that's the good thing about them. Nothing more, nein I say.

For TMS Entertainment and the staff working on this series, getting their asses down properly to deal this anime hasn't really been the best, and the major (but constant) factor is overshadowing of shows. Take the re-adaptation of Fruits Basket for example, and that series just outweighs this anime by ten, no, hundred times. So then, having one of the smaller teams work on this is never an issue for them, however, the small curveball of audience (yes, plus me) is still watching this, and it already seems that they have thrown the bucket even before it ended. And it is quite obvious by the decent art and absolutely horrendous animation to boot. Especially in a sports series, where there are plentiful action scenes, it just doesn't sync well and more often than not, there are more static than moving animations that irk me unsurprisingly.

Well, at least the music's decent, or rather, overused emotional-centric and generic BGM. At times I feel it, and at times I lose it. Props for giving the "best" effort. As for the theme songs, the OP is decent, and the ED being a cover from another person's work, they're just...OK sounding. Like it or not, generic as molasses.

In the end, I firmly agree that this show has its ups and downs, but it's not something I would vehemently, or rather, casually, ask people to try out this anime. Nothing is ever too great for the masses, and while being a criminally underrated show, it quickly loses its shine once you dive in too deep in that rabbit hole that is just as easy as getting out from there.

So, just don't watch this. There are better ones at every corner that you can reach.

this series is the cross between a sports anime (baseball in this case) and an idol series with a heavier emphasis on the idol side. That is not to say it's about singing and dancing but it has the same type of character tropes and situations you would expect from a series like Love Live or something. However it doesn't really make the best use of either genre.

As a sports anime, the drama and tension just isn't their, at least not when it comes to the sport itself. As an idol anime, though it doesn't have the singing and dancing like I said, the ... characters are a carbon copy. You have the eccentric happy go lucky girl who starts the group with her childhood friend as her support, they come across girls of varying types from the small cute one to the tall serious one and every trope in between. That isn't to say it's bad mind you, it's just predictable.

The story follows your general run of the mill group of girls trying to start a club and eventually, to win nationals. Like i said the only difference between this and an idol show is this group of girls is playing baseball. They recruit members, practice, take on another team that eventually becomes their benchmark and rivals, and eventually play in a tournament.

The art suffers at times with odd face syndrome. I didn't notice it early but there are times when background characters look a little worse for ware. You could tell it didn't have the best budget but they did what they could with what was given to them.

The sound was actually pretty good. I liked the fact they had different sounds for the girls catching balls early on. you could tell just from the pop of the ball which girls were catching the ball with the pocket of the glove and which were not. This even got mentioned at one point to help one of the girls improve which is a plus for me.

I won't really go into characters since I did already, If you have seen an idol anime you know what to expect. the whole range is here.

Overall the show did grow on me. I had more fun with the last half of the show when the realization of their situation came to a front and they started taking practices and stuff more seriously. This also, ended up bring some nice character development which the show needed.

Overall i did enjoy the show. It had it's ups and downs and would not be the first show i recommend for sports fan, or fans of cute girls doing cute things, but as a quick binge while gaming, I had a good time. I give it a solid 6. Did I mention this has a mobile Gatcha game? you know? like a idol series. I know i stressed the idol comparison to death but that is exactly the vibe i got from it.

Cute girls playing baseball isn't anything new but Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine takes it into mediocre strides....ohh and the animation isn't too good either...

Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine is your typical cute girls playing baseball, the catch?...well the one inspired to make a baseball team in her school played before and she wants to play baseball. The catch is still cliche in some respects but the real problems lies in it's animation but that a bit later.

Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine's characters are probably one of it's more stronger elements of the anime so let's start with it's characters.

Tsubasa Arihara voiced by Nozomi Nishida and our main ... narrative focus is your typical genki leader type character akin to Honoka from Love Live but baseball, she's your all rounder in a sense and one of the main reasons the rest of the cast gravitate towards her and baseball, Ryo Shinonome voiced by Reina Kondo is your typical kuudere but is one of the leading aces in the cast being similar to Arihara in term sof experience but fills in the missing expertise that Arihara lacks, Yuki Nozaki voiced by Saki Minami is your typical ojou-like character and like most of the cast is a newbie to baseball but quickly picks things up, sorta a voice of reason towards the group but is your typical calm, cool headed ojou. Akane Ukita voiced by Yumiri Hanamori is your typical shy girl and is a catcher for the team but gets sever inferiority complex later. Tomoe Kawakita voiced by Honoka Inoue is Arihara's best friend and ventures with Arihara in forming a baseball team, she gets a bit of development in terms of her and Arihara's friendship and Tomoe wanting to learn without Arihara and this gets into a little bit of drama with Arihara as a result. If there one real flaw towards it's main cast of character is what LA has been saying about every character, "typical"...or more harsher "cliche" but nonetheless Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine's characters is WAY better than it's weak typical plot.

The plot follows Arihara wanting to form a baseball team is the basic template but to add to that, we look into each of the characters, some who come later to actually form the "9" in the title and some of the characters developments and "episodes" are decent in certain respects, from Tomoe to Akane. Since the plot follows the character development switching formula it goes with the only upside is the formation of the team and learning of any new newcomer to the team but in terms of plot, it's ok once the entire group forms and the anime starts focusing on the character development of the members as well as honing the characters with baseball and later on a tournament in seeing the characters progress sports-wise as a clutch.

LA was suppose to praise this anime but with the next thing coming up, guess not...

Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine's animation done by TMS Entertainment is probably one of the inconsistent messes of Spring 2019 and shame since the character designs went not derping is one of the best things about the anime. Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine's animation to say with absolute honesty is a derp ridden facial distorted mess of an anime, it's no My SIster My Writer levels, but if there was one full length anime LA watched in Spring 2019 that was this inconsistent and filled with low quality animation derps then Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine was this. LA doesn't know was TMS Entertainment stretched in animating this and the remake Fruits Basket that Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine was this bad in the animation department?. Nonetheless as much as LA wanted to praise Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine for it's character designs, it slips quite easily due to it's derpy animation littered throughout the anime.

The voice acting was....decent...seriously was the least interested and "meh" element of the anime, expected from a typical cute girls playing sports anime.

With all the flaws seeping out of this anime, LA doesn't outright hate this anime but it wasn't exactly nice going through to this anime to the end to the state it was at from episode 1 and again, this anime wasn't My Sister My Writer terms of derps in terms of it's animation but Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine isn't helped by the fact that this anime was adapted from a mobile game and that's where all the flaws now makes MUCH MORE sense (sans animation).

Well LA won't push Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine even more as one of the better dynamics of the anime is the comparison towards Arihara's Satogahama team and the Seijo High's baseball team, budding rival teams that met in a practice game. As Arihara looks more towards having fun with the team and teamwork through her teammates strengths and weaknesses, while Seijo High's captain is more focused on winning and bearing everything on herself in order to win the tournament, it's just kinda too bad that this dynamic only arrives at the finale and is only touched upon.

Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine wasn't exactly the one of the worst animes LA watched in Spring 2019, yes it had a rather typical underdog sports plot, cliche characters with ONLY saving grace being some of it's character's developments and horrible animation filled with animation derps, nonetheless with all this being said and how much LA beaten this anime with all the criticism that LA levied on it...it was cliche yet harmless, cliche for a sports anime yet harmless what with it's character development of the cast and typical underdog plot.

Nine out of Ten?, pffftt it wishes...nah rather spin that nine 180 degrees.

I've watched my fair share of sports anime, especially recently where I've been on a girls sports anime kick, and I have to tell you Cinderella Nine is possibly the most boring one I've watched so far.

Story: Cliche as hell. Cliche is expected in sports anime but holy crap is this anime just by-the-numbers all the way through. The only "interesting" part is that the club isn't a club until Episode 8, before that is is an "association". Additionally the way the team is formed is, for the most part, hilariously terrible. Characters are introduced and join sometimes in the same scene, while characters like ... Nakano join because reasons.

Art: Holy crap is the art medicore, or even bad. Characters barely move outside them playing baseball (Asada spraying the team with the hose is a prime example of this), the lip syncing is not very good at points (Iwaki especially), goofy faces are a main stay, and I've even noticed a colour inconistancy as early as episode 2 (Suzuki's blue glove turns tan when Ukita takes over playing catch). It seems like there was little in terms of quality control and the characters' faces always look wonky. There's also a fair few scenes that are static scenario with the characters' faces flashing over it as a form of "reaction". It's really bad.

Sound: The OP is decent, and some of the music plays turning big emotional scenes is passable but over all not great. Nakano's voice drives me up a wall.

Characters: There are a lot of characters and nearly all of them get no meaningful screen time or development. The only decent character in my opinion is Kurashiki since she has a decent character design and a more interesting back story. Nakano is the worst, with her nyan speech pattern making her unbearable. Asada is fine I guess, if not very bland. Iwaki and Ukita are annoying. Suzuki has some interesting aspects to her in episode 2 but afterwards has the personality of wet paper. Arihara has the personality of a main protag but without the screen time or growth or interesting back story, and her friend Kawakita grows in episode 7 but otherwise is like a cinderblock. Nozaki has dumb hair but is fine, and Tsukumo is fine. Other characters are kind of just there. The teacher character is the generic supportive teacher archetype so eh.

Enjoyment: What a slog. Every episode felt like they were 60 minutes, rather than 24 minutes. I was able to easy binge other terrible shows like Hanebado! because at least they weren't boring. Hanebado! may have been a melodramatic pile of garbage but it was at least a melodramatic pile of garbage and not a boring pile of garbage.

Overall: Would not recommend to anyone. Cute girls doing cute things? The girls aren't that cute due to derp faces and weak character designs. Sports? baseball is a fairly boring sport in my opinion, and the anime doesn't even really go into that much detail.

3/10 bad anime is bad