This week on Cinderella Project, the girls were asked to prepare a PR Video, allowing us to once again be reintroduced to the members. However, just as I feared, many of the characters fell flat and failed to charm me. The biggest problem right now is how the majority of the members are like background characters that aren’t supposed to have any presence. This episode with the PR video was an golden opportunity to appeal to the audience and help us identify what makes them unique and ultimately, make them memorable. Over the past three episodes, the only ones that stood out to me was the main trio, Anastasia (Anya) and Ranko. Today, there were only three girls had managed to make want to learn more about them. They were Kanako, a sweetheart who loves baking, and much to my surprise, Minami Nitta, a university student who plays lacrosse and Miku our nyaa-girl. However out of the three, Miku is the one who has me intrigued the most because I can sense she has a back-story that is waiting to be told. Right off the bat, the moment Miku walked in without her “nyaa-character”, we briefly saw a different side of her. She was given a few moments throughout the episode of thinking “oh I should’ve done that” and also showed us a more mature side of her watching over her fellow juniors, and calling them out if she feels they are doing things that aren’t age appropriate. It’s the small things that stood out to me and makes me want to know more about her. That is why when the Producer announced creating a unit with Rin, Mio, Uzuki, Anya and Nitta for a debut single, I was sorely disappointed that Miku wasn’t included.
That being said, there were some other characters stood out, but didn’t necessarily grow on me. Riina for example, her image is all about being cool, loving rock. However I actually ended up doubting her after she was put on the spot about recommending a Rock Song and became flustered. I couldn’t help but think, “Ah…Could it be that Riina is not actually listening to rock, but just saying that to pull off the cool image?” I mean, surely if she is a true fan she would have named a song or two. Or it could be that she is shy about it, but honestly I found her expression saying otherwise. So for now I am neutral about her character, but I am curious to see whether or not she is putting up a Rock Lover Mask.
Finally, we have Anzu. It is unfortunate to say this girl hasn’t left any sort of a good impression on me. My problem with Anzu is that I don’t even know why she is there. She doesn’t want to work, she doesn’t want to do anything, just sleep the entire day. But most of all, I want to know how the heck she became a part of the Cinderella Project in the first place, and why is she still there if she doesn’t want to do shit. Anzu is going to have to undergo some serious character development to appeal to me, and I do have faith in writers to pull it off.
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This reminded me of the first episode of the original iM@S adaptation, where they went around shooting PR for each of the girls and revealed that Producer was behind the camera the entire time at the end. I agree with you about this set of characters though, and to me the chances are that, if any of the supporting cast are memorable they’re for the wrong reasons. I’m sure there are Ranko and Anzu fans, but I’m not one of them. There’s not much depth to most of them, and I’m glad the girls who are having the CD debut are who they are, because they’re the better ones of the bunch. I would have liked Rika to be one of them though ;_; And Riina as well – she subverts the whole ‘generic character trait’ thing in the sense that it feels like she’s lying, and that makes it more interesting. Sounds like there’s a backstory behind that.