“If you think it’s rock, then it is!”
Impression
Weekly reminder that Shiburin is best girl.
I’m glad this one had a happy ending! A lot of this second cour has been episodic, with no overarching plot in the run-up to Cinderella’s Ball, but but the focus on Riina this episode actually stemmed from something that’s been simmering for a while now – her relationship with Natsuki and what her goal is as a rock idol. All her arguments with Miku have become a running gag by now, but underneath it all is the worry that Asterisk isn’t what she’s after in becoming an idol, because she doesn’t do much of the ‘actual’ rock she loves. And things got all the more awkward this episode when Mishiro decided to form a new rock unit around Natsuki, which Riina clearly had thoughts about joining.
In the end though, it’s good that she stuck to Asterisk and her responsibilities to Miku – although it looked like she was really struggling at first. After all, joining Natsuki means abandoning Miku. And on a greater scale, change in line with Mishiro’s reforms goes against the whole point of Cinderella’s Ball. On the other hand, Riina looked like she really came to like rock for real this episode – I mean, she must have had some sort of interest in it before, but it always felt limited towards the image of rock instead of rock music itself, which became really clear when Natsuki started asking her about her preferences and she could only give half-assed answers. She really made the effort after that talk though, which was nice – and it made her only all the more conflicted when she realized that what she had with Miku wasn’t the same as what she loved.
At any rate, the new rock unit ended up being pretty sour – all Mishiro wanted them to do was turn up and play, essentially. If all their music and outfits were to be prepared for them, then they’d have no freedom over anything – it can’t really be called ‘their’ band at all. So it’s good Natsuki followed Kaede and did what I wanted Mika to do, which was basically to give Mishiro the finger and reject her reforms. I wonder if what she said actually pulled through, though – was she really invited to join Miku and Riina alongside Usamin? It’d be really cool if they ended up doing better than Mishiro’s new unit, especially as they’re an existence she probably doesn’t condone.
I’m so scared of her next move though. What does she plan to do with Shiburin and New Generations?
It has been a while since the last Cinderella Girls coverage, did you dropped the series?