Somewhat unexpectedly, my (formerly) favourite blog came back to life with a post explaining just why it was... Everything needed to be blogged about Idolmaster Cinderella Girls 01 is there, expertly written. I have nothing to add on the substance.

But even some of the small callouts of Cinderella Girls content are pretty well-considered as well. You don’t need to know a damn thing about Suzuho to find her costumes hilariously odd, but the fact that jokes plays on the patent ridiculousness of some of Cinderella Girls greatest excesses in a remarkably subtle and naturalistic way is pretty great, and well directed, in itself.

Explanations follow on the background of Noriko Takao that prepared her for accomplishing all that, and more.

The real, and rather unexpected, star of the show has to be Producer, though. [...] He’s blunt, persistent, and perhaps rather socially oblivious. [...] the deadpan, overly-serious but weirdly sweet way he handles himself is quite dryly funny, and it’s quite possible that Producer-san will end the series as the uncontested most moe character in the show.

Artists latched on the presence of the new Mr.P immediately. Literally, it took them 6 hours to knock out this (I suspect cheating):

So, we have a Cute and Cool producers now, just need a Passion one to round the set.

As far as the actual heroines introduced in this episode go, I’m not sure I have much to say other than that I generally like them. Uzuki is the kind of cute and upbeat girl that you expect to be the emotional core in this kind of show, and Rin comes across as cool without falling into that stereotypical tsundere pigeonhole.

DiGi gave exact words to my feelings about that, but there was more, if we look back at iM@S TV. When I watched the first episode of the TV, the overwhelming sensation was that of comfort. I saw Haruka riding her bicycle, and I knew that everything is going to be allright. I think that anime started with a bit of more emotive and even artsy direction, although we didn't see it behind the flurry of character introductions. The iM@S CG is different. It's more of a classic anime feeling. It is supremely competent in that regard [1], but it retreats to the center of the envelope in the same way the K-ON 2 did.

[1] In particular the comedy is perfect, while comedy in iM@S TV 01 was forced at times, especially around the escape of Hamzou. See Chris Rock on how hard comedy is (h/t Omo).