Thread with 37 posts
jump to expanded postwe still need to lay low and remain calm and chill a lot to sail this all out, but this is easier to do when we do things we generally like doing, so, here's something we're doing purely on our own whim:
it's time to pick up THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls again (the TV anime)
we reasonably suspect nobody really cares much about this show these days, but we care about it… not a show that's “important to us”, but definitely a show that stuck in our mind as a reference point, and has a little bit of sparkle to it that makes us fond of it. comfort media!
we picked this up more than ten years ago when it was first airing and only watched the first cour — and for whatever reason we never got around to watching the second cour. and it's very… idols. it's just a normal idol anime with high production value, nothing more.
we think our brain will enjoy getting deeper into understanding the shape of "what makes an idol anime an idol anime"; this was was something (including this specific show) that we were discussing with friends two weeks ago, before all this mess.
and we like the sparkle…
we note with interest that the fact we have this kind of fond memory of the show, something we watched an actual entire decade ago, definitely points to the fact the “everything started in 2016” narrative was dangerous!
ah yes, this is exactly the kind of “sparkly but in the way that's currently healthy for us to engage with” thing we needed, yay, i love not thinking
現在企画中です。
i can't believe i can say this but somehow, the high-production-value idol industry apologia fairytale metaphor anime we last watched ten years ago, is currently soul food for us, very relaxing, will probably finish a season or two by the end of the week!
producer-san, isn't he weird
oh, so 「笑顔」 is not just “face” but “smiling face” specifically, that's an important learning
this is what we mean by it being soul food rn, this little moment from the first episode, this is lovely right now
nobody who's ever known us in an even vaguely realised shape has been able to miss we are extremely fond of the word “dream” and of the natural world, and so you must see, this is soul food to us, even if it's from the idol industry apologia fairytale metaphor anime
perhaps, dare we say, it is soul food because it is from such a cynical project, we're not going to trick ourselves into fully believing it, we're just going with the flow and enjoying what this show has to tell us, and that's how you know we're very happy right now
“… and so i know my dreams will come true, i'm sure of it!” 🌸
rationally, i know this is the most normal thing in the world for an anime to do, there's a reason sakura is a trope, there's a reason all stories have some similarities, but what it tells me now is “this body needs to sleep and finally recognises it can”, and that's only good
we have been reminded we should stop posting, so we will, but we may as well post the OP here anyway since we already prepared it
see you all
oh yeah we may as well post this one since we already clipped it earlier to send to a friend; this is from the third episode of The iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls, and what we want you to listen to is the audio, they've really thought about making it sound like they're on stage!
it's fascinating that the high-production-value cynical idol-industry-apologia anime gets this right and the “girls, in a band, crying” anime doesn't, the contrast is unbelievable
“living happily” means allowing yourself to enjoy that there's a girl in this series whose bit is wearing cat ears and who inserts “nya” into every sentence even when you're processing a lot of existential grief (like you have been many times a day for weeks)
wait is that actually the gibson bass that looks kinda like an sg? shrug, not important rn
they need to put riina in girls band cry, and they also need to put whoever is in charge of the sound direction for the concert segments in this series in charge of the same for girls band cry, it's the only way the universe can be just, free riina, free riina, free riina
ceterum autem censeo, free riina
(“this is not cute hikaris only post like this when they are at risk of becoming a witch” etc, but it is also cute, the point is to perform a little cuteness to take our mind off it!)
we must note in passing, deliberately in the wrong thread, that if anything has made us feel like we might spiral back out of the recovery, it has been what we realised today, and that is why the anime-watching and “little a livetweeting as a treat” is Very Deliberate
we are fine, so long as we think “free riina” is a normal thing to tweet and want to tweet it we are fine in some sense [heh, a character we've known before we even picked the name hikari, huh…], hikari_no_yume has not died and refuses to die, she will survive this, but Oh My God