Project A-ko 3: Cinderella Rhapsody

Original Title: プロジェクトA子3 シンデレララプソディ
Romanized: Project A-ko 3: Cinderella Rhapsody
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

As if A-ko, B-ko, C-ko, and D weren't enough, now Graviton City has to put up with K... er, Kei. A-ko is determined to have a good time on her spring vacation, and lo and behold while out dress shopping C-ko bumps into the superstud Kei. It's not long before A-ko and B-ko have found someone new (and male) to fight over. When Everybody gets "invited" to a special party with Kei, they'll give "party crashing" a whole new meaning.

Quick Review

Rating: 2.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-08-12

Another Project A-ko movie, another style--give these folks credit for never doing the same thing twice. Cinderella Rhapsody pokes fun at high school romance, but unfortunately mimics what it mocks a little too effectively. On the negative side, by going a little too straightforward with the "light romance" theme (even if all the details are just a little bit wrong on closer examination) it's too much like a standard high school romance to properly enjoy, and not even a memorable one. It also lacks the wild-and-wooly action of the rest of the series. On the positive side, fans might appreciate a bit of downtime and just a smidgen of depth, and C-ko is not only not as annoying, but you can almost even empathize with her--will wonders never cease. As with the rest of the sequels, it's visually solid, if unimpressive, and the entire voice cast (in Japanese and English) is back and doing their thing.

Cinderella Rhapsody is another creative take on the Project A-ko characters, but it overcompensates for the too-silly second movie and ends up being too straight for its own good. Still, it has a few good classic anime references, a couple of good jokes, and it's nice to see the characters (especially C-ko) filled out a bit. Unremarkable, but worth the time if you're a big Project A-ko fan.

US DVD Review

The DVD is a triple feature with the other two sequels, and is a basic but decent production; see the review of Project A-ko 2 for details on the disc. This particular movie unfortunately has the credits sequence changed; the original text was interspersed with shots from the opening sequence and a couple of additional pictures toward the end, which on this disc was replaced with the montage from the credits of the second movie. On the bright side, the VHS version included a bonus (and mostly live action) music video of the catchy end theme which is available in the special features section of the menu. That video, at the end, has a group picture that originally closed the credits of this movie.

Content Guide

Mostly clean, but one joke involving an adult-movie-within-a-movie toward the end makes this a no-no for the kids, and probably worse than the 13-up that USM gave it--being strict, I'd call it 16-up.

Violence: 1 - Not a whole lot of fighting, especially by Project A-ko standards.

Nudity: 3 - One relatively short but flesh-filled scene from an adult movie near the end.

Sex/Mature Themes: 2 - That same scene.

Language: 1 - Pretty clean.

Notes and Trivia

As with Eiko et al, Kei is a real Japanese name, in addition to being alphabetically appropriate. Other letters that could have made an appearance but don't in the series, are I (Aiko), U (Yuko), and O (there are a number of names that begin with an "oh" sound). Although, B-ko's three minions are each named with a vowel: Asa, Ine, and Ume.

The Graviton City Citizen Defense Force preparation sequence toward the end is loaded with classic mecha anime references, but I have to point out my personal favorite since it is rather obscure: If you check out the two guys sitting in the front row of the adult movie, you'll notice (other than a disturbingly frustrated guy--check the bottom of the screen) none other than Lt. Kilgore and Koji from MADOX-01. For that matter, the owner of the dress shop may be modeled after Kusumoto Ellie from the same series, but I'm not as sure about that one.

On a completely different note, a lot of anime fans might miss that the makeshift dress scene is a riff on a sequence in Gone With the Wind.

Speaking of which, A-ko's summer job at the "Mods Bonrga" burger joint is a play on "Mos Burger," a popular midrange fast-hamburger chain in Japan.

The original credits featured quick shots from the intro interspersed with the text, and a couple of pictures of A-ko in the same style toward the end, as well as a group shot of A, B, and C-ko that you can see at the end of the music video. These credits were used on USM's VHS release, but not on the Love and Robots DVD.

For those wondering "Are the three girls lesbians?", this installment conclusively answers the question: No. At the very least, A-ko and B-ko are interested in boys, though C-ko is less clear. Based on the final scene, however, they might well be bisexual. Further, if you look at the prototype story (Project A-ko was originally envisioned as an installment in the Cream Lemon hentai series, but was re-written as a mainstream action-comedy), the girls' relationship was unquestionably physical, so you could infer that in this non-erotic recasting the more-than-platonic interest has carried through, albeit in a never-explicitly-stated way.

Availability

Available in the US from US Manga Corps on hybrid DVD ("Love and Robots," which also includes the 2nd and 4th A-ko movies). Was originally available on subtitled and dubbed VHS.

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