Guys, it’s Monday and I just finished watching Cinderella 9 because I literally forgot about this show again! This is getting worrisome. I have Cinderella Nine senility. Anyways, how are you, Matt?
I’m good! I have the opposite problem though because it’s the only show I review nowadays I overthink about it–and trust me, for a show like this, that’s not good!
The first thing that struck me this episode (pun intended) was the Golden Bat homage! I don’t know if you ever saw Paranoia Agent (you should, great show) but he had an almost identical bent bat. I know the chances of this being on purpose are pretty much nil but I’m still choosing to believe that the scene was put there as a tribute to Satoshi Kon. I mean, it served no other purpose. I’ve owned a semi-rare copy of Paranoia Agent on DVD for ages and still haven’t watched it (I’m a bad anime fan) but I did recognise it from the box-art!
We got a couple of new girls again. I’m pretty ignorant about baseball, are we still missing anyone? If I’m judging the OP’s visuals I think that’s everyone now, yay it only took 7 episodes but everyone’s finally here!
This week we were introduced to Maiko (I learned someone’s name!) who they made the very smart decision to make a redhead. I’m going to recognize this one! In many ways, this has to be the most relatable character for me. I must say, her initial introduction as the weird blonde one is talking her ear off and trying to get her to join her weird club, and Maiko is just visibly bored and annoyed but too polite to actually blow her off, that’s exactly me in that situation. This’ll probably sound like an insult to this show but she almost felt like she was from a different show and she just wandered in by mistake, but yeah I like her, she’s interesting!
Don’t you hate it when someone “recognizes” you and you have to make awkward small talk for half an hour but you really have nothing to say? People generally don’t recognise me, it’s a blessing and a curse.
The other girl is the stoic prince type who is so kuudere she has to practice smiling in a mirror. I like these types but Matt usually doesn’t. Am I right? Hey! I like all types of anime girls! But if we’re going off strictly percentages of favourite types of girls I’d say I’m more partial to a genki girl over a kuudere. Way to avoid the question, Matt!
In any case, her character design reminded me vaguely of Kashima from Nozaki-kun so now she’s my favourite. For some reason I was reminded of Takato from ‘Dakaichi’, there’s two shows I’d never thought I’d see mentioned in the same sentence…
The story got a bit more dramatic than I expected from this show. I didn’t exactly mind but I also felt like it was somewhat useless. I have a feeling we’re never going to hear about Maiko’s strained home life again and it was just odd filler. Like a new more archetype – broken home girl? Am I being unfair, do you think it’s going to serve a narrative purpose? Yeah it kind of came out of nowhere both narratively and tonally which I mean is appreciated at least in terms of ‘waking me up’ a bit but I think it was probably deliberately heavy-handed to sell two new characters late in the game to an already packed cast of characters. And I guess it worked in that respect?
Also what is up with her mom. Yes, she’s having trouble in her marriage, I get that, but in the scene where they are both (mother and daughter) at school, the mother looked drugged or something. There was a bunny in my yard and I got a bit distracted. Did I miss something? Is the mother actually sick? I think it was just to visually illustrate she was a bitter and miserable woman in an unhappy marriage.
For those of you that need a bit of context. The weird blonde girl met an old acquaintance with red hair and tried to get her to join the club. Turns out redhead is a good pitcher so everyone is happy. Meanwhile, the club is being evaluated by the student council to get their official status. Also, redheads parents are fighting so she goes out at night and causes trouble as a way to deal with the situation. She does it one more time and gets caught so she’s in trouble with the school but the student council girl gives a speech in her favour. Now redhead is an official member of the baseball club, they have their official status and the student council girl is sticking around because reasons. Wow, a lot happened this week. And so little baseball… Oh yeah, this show has something to do with baseball
Anyways, In those later rooftop scenes, I thought I saw a little spark between those two. Ok, maybe I just think student council girl is kinda hot and should be hooking up with someone but don’t you think just a little bit of Yuri could work here? It’s a girl’s baseball team, it writes itself! I mean the people doing the English subtitles were feeling something too putting the deliberate pause between “I want you” and “to smile more” was massive yuri-bait. But yes more yuri pls.
Ok, I’m done being super stereotypical. The episode was fun. The tonal shift was somewhat odd but I genuinely like these two. My main problem is that we are still introducing characters in episode 7 of 12 and I don’t remember half the ones that are already on the team. At this rate, I really don’t see how they can rap it up in a satisfying way. What do you think Matt? I mean, define “satisfying”, it won’t be satisfying for me until they have a beach episode… Sorry not sorry!
If you just pick the right images, the show looks pretty good, see:
There is nothing wrong with “more yuri’
I mean come on now.
No one said there was – this probably is not the right show for it mind you
My comment was more a joke, sorry if it came off otherwise!
No worries
Broken home girl? Pretty well put. It’s her gimmick, and I don’t expect to see much of it anymore, either. Joining a club and doing club things heals the soul, don’t you know.
I, too, liked both the new characters. Had a good dynamic going, too, which made for a good episode, but it was almost self-contained as a result. The prior cast was very nearly irrelevant other than to provide a setting.
And that goat mask was scary. Make it their new uniform, I say. It’ll psyche out their opponents.
That’s brilliant! I will very favorably reconsider this show if they do that