The premise hooks you immediately: these aren't pre-packaged idols. They're found on the street, skeptical, sometimes completely broke, and the show actually lets them stay real people instead of smoothing them into archetypes. Season 2 drops the ball hard. The animation dips, the drama turns clumsy where it needs to land, and it feels like the show stopped believing in its own concept halfway through. But when it works, the friendship moments between the girls hit genuine, there's a looseness to how they bicker and support each other that most idol shows manufacture instead of earn.

346 Production's Cinderella Project continues in this 12-episode follow-up to the earlier Cinderella Girls series. The talent agency has a long history and a large roster of idols, and its newer program picks girls out of everyday life and sets them on the path to becoming idols, showing them a world they have never seen before. Their fairy-tale climb toward the palace goes on, told through a blend of music, comedy and slice-of-life moments.