Uma Musume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top

Road to the Top focuses primarily on both Narita Top Road’s and Admire Vega’s ambitions to win the three Classic competitions (similar to the American triple crown). This being a side story the other parts of the franchise are not necessary prerequisites to watch this, but would help in the sense of knowing the cast members and concept of Uma Musume a little deeper.

With only four episodes of runtime the story is largely concise and stays focused on developing the main pair. Many aspects familiar from the television series are there (comedy, character cameos, etc), but toned down in order to not stray too ... far from the core plot line of training and competing. Narita Top Road takes the role of primary main character, and her portrayal is fairly straightforward in comparison to her primary rival, Admire Vega, who has a somewhat emotional backstory giving her drive. Frankly I found that T.M. Opera seemed more like a supporting character, as she lacked much development and often fell to the background in favor of the racing rivalry between the two previously mentioned girls. I would say this is the primary negative along with Admire’s story becoming a little too single-mindedly fixated on her sister, but frankly the fact that the story’s focus wasn’t spread too thinly worked out due to the limited amount of episodes to work with. With more runtime this could rival the impactful story of the second season, but what emotional scenes are present are used appropriately and don’t feel too overly dramatic. Having not played the original game or know the source content with much depth I can’t say how accurately this is adapted, but from what I can tell the historical aspects connecting each girl with their real world namesake’s achievements is done well, and the flow of the story rarely feels too choppy or rushed.

In terms of audio & visuals - excellent. There are a wide range of instances where they go the extra step in portrayals of scenes. Small hand/facial movements at times show emotions without needing the scene to be voiced, while during races sound effects of everything from jangling of metallic adornments on clothing to the running of the girls themselves enhance what’s being shown. Off of this the shift in how the races are directed compared to the TV seasons is the most notable. The racing feels more powerful and almost intimate with the main cast due to the camera angles being used as well as the largely hand drawn focus allowing more creative freedom in how their speed is expressed. Instead of the viewer largely watching the race like a spectator, this actively imbeds you inside the race itself. There are numerous instances where it wouldn’t have been out of place to rely on CGI, but they chose not to. The music and OST I would say is safely on par with the television seasons in quality, and appropriately capture the tone of each scene.

This overall matched if not exceeded my expectations on how well this would turn out, and while they are done by different studios this has only bolstered how much I’m looking forward to the third season. It would be really nice if Cygames continued to produce quality side stories like this in-between full length seasonal anime in the future.
I would definitely recommend this as either a small sample of the franchise for someone new to Uma Musume, or to a returning seasonal viewer who wants some more quality horse racing action.

I've been an Uma Musume fans from the game release back in February 2021 (in turn, fan of the real Japanese horse racing as well) and consumed all of its media since then. So I was very delighted when they announced the production of this anime and season 3. While I enjoyed the overall content of this anime, there are some points that I'd like to address.

PLOT: 7/10
I would give a lower score if this is a full season anime, but since it's just a 4-episode ONA I give it a loose pass.

The pros:
+ Reference and accuracy with real-life events. Somewhat comparable with faithfulness to ... the manga/light novel source, almost every bit of details in this anime has a real-life reference, from the characters names and traits, conversations and events, and even the races from tracks, gate numbers, progressions, and finishing orders and gaps. This is something you would expect if you're into Uma Musume prior to this reading.
+ Thrilling and quite unpredictable outcome of races. For those who unfamiliar with Uma Musume or the history of Japanese horse racing, the story have been dramatised so much that it would be difficult to guess who will win the races (bar a certain race). They treat the three main characters as if they're all the heroine of the story.

The cons:
- Pacing. It's a bit too fast for each episode, as there might be watchers who are new to Uma Musume franchise and have no clue of what's going on.
- Plotholes. Again, because it's just a 4-episode, expect a lot of unfilled plotholes by the end of the anime.
- Missing jigsaws of real-life events. While the references are accurate, there are some important events that's not even included on the screen, which potentially can be used to fill the plotholes and complete the anime as a whole. My personal dissatisfaction on this point majorly laid on the last episode, especially the aftermath of Kikka-shō. Instead of a short storytelling about what happened to the trio in the future, the production decided to waste the last minutes by throwing the winning live (yes, that idol concert).

GRAPHIC/ANIMATION: 9/10
The graphics are gorgeous and a major upgrade from season 2, thanks to Cygames Pictures. What preventing them from getting the perfect score is a bit of choppy animations that can be spotted on several occasions, mostly the action scenes from the races.

SOUND: 11/10
Oh boy. This is where the anime gets very exciting, the limit of 10 score is just not enough. While I'm not the big fan of the opening, but the BGMs and their utilisation are godly. They're so beautiful, so touching, and massively enhance the atmosphere and emotions happening on the screen. Simply perfect.

CHARACTER: 10/10
This is a biased score, since they put some of my favourite Umas on the screen, that is Oguri Cap, Manhattan Cafe, and Admire Vega (the others are Neo Universe, Mihono Bourbon, and Nakayama Festa).

OVERALL ENJOYMENT: 9/10
While I'm not entirely impressed with the plot, but the rest of the aspects really patch that up to make this anime still very enjoyable for me, as an avid Uma Musume fan. I can't really say if this would be enjoyable for a non-Uma Musume fan, but if you like instrumental BGMs, you're in for a treat.

I was wondering if Uma Musume's formula was starting to wear off on me while watching this. I mean, admittedly it probably is since it still follows the same beats, moods, writing, and racing "twists" as the first two seasons despite the new main characters. And while season 2 had this same problem after watching season 1, the difference there is the high highs that ultimately made parts of it very emotional and memorable. While Road to the Top certainly has emotional moments, they didn't reach me.

The MAIN main character, Narita Top Road, is the strongest of the main three thanks to her emotional struggle ... being written well-enough. However, while the foundations are there, it ended up feeling weak since her supporting cast isn't fleshed out. It still had its moments where you can tell what the writers were going for, at least.

Admire Vega's whole situation felt asinine to me and made her not enjoyable throughout. This wasn't wasn't helped by it being very obvious how it was going to end up for her. I will admit that I still like how it happened...but even then it should've happened in time for her to flex it. Plus that would've stopped her from repeating herself up to the end. Actually seeing it would've definitely helped me like her more.

Opera O is unsurprisingly a joy and the best foil to put next to these two, but she definitely felt more like a secondary character than an equal. But maybe that's for the best. I think the point of her (and a great aspect of her) is that, unlike most other horse girls, she doesn't have anything to flesh out. I think that gave the writers a hard time making her impactful enough to fit as a main character as advertised, though.

Another issue is that the supporting cast is basically non-existent — besides Top Road's trainer (who is good). The rest of small supporting cast that actually is there felt very one-dimensional and not impactful to the main trio. And they're all you have. I ended up missing when the first two seasons gave small one-line roles or mentions to the other unimportant racers, because they get literally nothing here. It made the world feel surprisingly empty. Of course this is probably because this was only a four-episode ONA and all they wanted to do was highlight the main three, but that doesn't stop the experience from being weaker as a result.

For what it's worth, I think this anime still works as far as highlighting what makes Top Road, Admire Vega, and Opera O notable and likeable characters (at least if you haven't met them in the mobile game already like me). It just does it in a way that isn't interesting, especially after watching the previous seasons. At best I'm left to imagine the best versions of these character (which, hey, I'll take).