Uma Musume: Pretty Derby

Famous racehorses that have left behind worthy legacies, unique as they can be, are reincarnated as horse girls in a parallel world. In this life, they start their journey anew as they continue to race and perhaps relive the success they once lived through.

Aspiring to become the best racehorse in Japan, a horse girl named Special Week moves to Tokyo to enroll in the Tracen Academy—an institution that nurtures horse girls like her to become better racers. There, Special Week witnesses the sophisticated running style of Silence Suzuka and is inspired to become a racer like her. Shortly after, Special Week finds herself recruited into Silence Suzuka's team, Spica. From there, she begins her path to the top—one lap at a time.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Special Week Main

Waki, Azumi Japanese

Silence Suzuka Main

Kouno, Marika Japanese

Toukai Teiou Supporting

Machico Japanese

Mejiro McQueen Supporting

Oonishi, Saori Japanese

Gold Ship Supporting

Ueda, Hitomi Japanese

Oguri Cap Supporting

Takayanagi, Tomoyo Japanese

Nice Nature Supporting

Maeda, Kaori Japanese

Daiwa Scarlet Supporting

Kimura, Chisa Japanese

Seiun Sky Supporting

Kitou, Akari Japanese

Symboli Rudolf Supporting

Tadokoro, Azusa Japanese

Tsuji, Mitsuhito Producer

Hashimoto, Masahide Producer

Akita, Minoru Producer

Sekine, Youichi Producer

Reviews

Nov 6, 2024

TheScarletCutter

Recommended

One of the better Gacha adaptations in my opinion is Uma Musume. Technically, it’s not a Gacha adaptation since the anime came first before the game but I supposed the anime is used as a potential buildup for said game. Uma Musume is very interesting for surprisingly a lot of reasons. From the looks of how the series designs its characters; it’s another animal girl show in the modern years. Like, you have girls that have horse parts, mainly the ears and the tail. But don’t be fooled about that part, it has an interesting history where it’s based on real times. With that in ... our heads, how does the show tackle its ideas? Well, only one way to find out.

The premise behind this series is intriguing. It’s about horse girls who work as both students and idols and race during horse race events, as well as win in order to appear as icons. The school they study in is called Tracen Academy which is located in Tokyo. The main horse girl we’re following here is Special Week. Her goal is to be a top horse girl in order to spread her popularity and promise her mother. Something interesting to note here is that this is based on the history of Japanese horse racing from 1998 to 1999. The horse girls are based on Japanese horses, looking at both their silhouette and their color schemes, and certain of them based on this season’s choices appear as they’re also based on their IRL counterparts’ histories. This is interesting because of how this show presents its own take on horse-racing history. The horse girls are students on certain things they’re assigned to and they’re idols while they’re still based on their IRL horses and therefore, racing each other in order to reach their spotlights. How well does this show tackle these things?

To that, I answer, very well surprisingly. Sure, it’s quirky and comedic but the first season of Uma is both competent and relatively philosophical with its own ideas. Uma Musume shows the tension of racing. The horse girls will try their damn best to keep on getting stronger until the day they enter a competition. There are two different types of racing events. One is normal racing which, while it still results in who will appear on top of the leaderboards, is still a testament to how strong a horse girl can get. The other is grand racing which will serve as something like an assessment of how skilled and competent you are in a race. You need to work hard if you want to appear on top. If you lose, you need to wait for weeks or even months until another grand race will happen. These races are executed well because not only are they fun but they also show both the fighting spirit and knowledge of each horse girl. Not only that but it also wants you to prove how worthy you are at racing. Even if you lose, you can still work harder.

Another aspect that has been done well is the worldbuilding. The direction of this season is consistent. It shows us the buildups of events and what a character will do in there. The touring in Tracen Academy is very endearing, to say the least. We actually see what the academy looks like and how each location serves its purpose. We have the main building, cafeteria, library, training rooms, you name it. While they seem basic from initial looks, we actually see certain character buildups before they perform the big stuff like racing each other, allowing for consistent character writing which we’ll get into later. The years in the school are kind of confusing but then again, every character doesn’t really have a confirmed age (and we’re not counting the ages of IRL horses here) so that’s kind of a whatever. The racing places look sick and I don’t think I would touch on that more since I already tackled the racing aspect. Not just those but we also tour around other places where we see our favorite horse girls do what they like to do in their casual times.

There’s one major flaw to this, however, and that is how this show uses comedy. That isn’t to say that comedy in this series is bad or even run-of-the-mill. The comedy here is actually very good. There are jokes that are handled well. My personal favorite of the bunch is Rudolf cracking up dad puns for a living. It’s just that Uma uses it a little too much for how philosophical its storytelling is. It’s not overwhelming per se but somewhat half of the time, comedy is this show’s secondary tool whenever the story sometimes runs out of ideas. While it doesn’t hold the series back, it’s still a relatively big problem we need to address. Another problem is, surprisingly, the racing. Going back to that aspect, there’s something a little wrong. Again, the racing in this series is handled well. It’s just that there isn’t a lot of strategy to be found. There is almost little involved which is still okay since a lot of the horse girls can have the same type of strategy depending on their individual pros and cons. So while the racing is still engaging and directed nicely, it can be a little repetitive at times.

Also, the idol aspect is a somewhat important addition to the series and sadly, it’s not utilized to its full potential. There are some idol performances and they’re great but for the most part, it’s treated as fanservice. Then again, though, Uma Musume as a whole is about showing the ideals and messages of how complex and enticing racing can be so I guess this aspect doesn’t matter as much.

Let’s talk about characters which might be the weakest aspect of this season but that doesn’t matter since it’s still solid. We’ll start with our main horse girl, Special Week, who’s determined and wishes to appear on top of the leaderboards. Spe is a good protagonist and better written than people would like to admit. She shows how dedicated she is to her journey, she has good chemistry with certain characters, and she’s a great introduction to how competent the series is with its cast. She also does the "protag who knows nothing about the world" trope done right. Just one problem, though. Her obsession with Suzuka is kinda annoying and this is shown in most of the middle portions of the show. Speaking of, Silence Suzuka, Spe’s racing mate, is also a good main character for similar reasons, although she’s a little better written than Spe could ever be.

The side characters are decent. You have Teio, you have Rudolf, you have McQueen, and so on. They fulfill their characteristics well but the best side character here is Gold Ship. In fact, she’s arguably the best part of the show. She’s quirky, she’s wacky, and yet, she’s very dedicated. Even if she’s written as a side character, she’s more developed than any other character in this season because of how much fun this season had with her. Shoutouts to the duo of Vodka and Daiwa too. Those two characters are also very endearing with a very good chemistry with one another.

Now then, what about the animation? The animation for the most part is well done. It’s not groundbreaking but it’s straight to the point with how it conveys the action of racing. The character designs, even for this series’ standards, are criminally overlooked. The aesthetics lean towards a great blend of simplicity, style, and how they fit well with each character. The music is also underrated. Each track nicely matches with each sequence. And who can forget about the voice acting? Most of the voice acting is great, with the best one being Gold Ship’s energy.

And those are my thoughts on Uma Musume season 1. I’m sure there are more aspects I can talk about but I elected to discuss the ones that are the most important. The first season is overlooked. It has more things about its story that aren’t just cute horse girls thingy. It shows the complexity of racing, it has great worldbuilding, and it shows respect for its characters. The only problems are that it can tone down comedy just a bit, it would have opened more variety of how the horse girls race, mainly picking up more strategies, and it could use more on the idol aspect. But alas, the first season is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ll talk about season 2 at another time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 6, 2024

Teramol

Mixed Feelings

Cute horse girls racing for their dreams. That is Uma Musume in a nutshell. A very easy-going show with hardly any drama that just focuses on the journey of a group of girls.

Now despite the show having an ensemble cast because it's a gacha game adaptation, the show mostly focuses on two of the girls, Special Week and Silence Suzuka. I think they work fine as the main duo, I even liked their relationship even if it's nothing deep.

However, most of the other girls sadly miss out on good development because of this direction choice. Now, maybe people that play the game already know enough ... of the other girls but as someone who is anime only I seriously struggled to even remember the names of half of the other girls. Also I wish they at least gave Trainer-kun a name, even if he is meant to be the player self-insert.

Oh and Uma Musume isn't just a sports show. For some reason they also have the girls do idol performances after the races..? I suppose Japan really loves their idols but to me it would have been better to focus on one or the other rather than trying to mix them up. Granted in this show, the idol stuff was hardly present so it's only a minor gripe at best.

The pacing of the show is a bit too fast to my liking. Granted most of the races that get glossed over with just mentions don't seem to be very critical to the plot at least. Although the progress of Special Week felt rushed to me. It's a bit hard to fathom all of the stuff that happened actually happened in just a one cour runtime.

Now to mention something good for once; The show doesn't just randomly name the girls, they are actually based off of real life counterpart race horses that have existed and reading through discussion threads of people that are into this sport, it was cool to see that even a lot of the races were parallel to real history. Albeit some smaller and bigger liberties were taken to make the story more engaging and I'm okay with that.

I had seem some people say visually the first season doesn't hold up well and even if the latter seasons improve on it, I have to say I think the show looked fine. Sure, some of the CGI wasn't all that pretty but the races were mostly hand drawn anyway. Sound department was solid too, the gallop during the races made things more tense.

This show to me is the exact same how I felt about Girls Und Panzer too. Cute and wholesome girls duking it out in some kind of weird fantasy sport setting. It's all face value and no depth and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just not a mix that I can personally get that into.

PS Gold Ship was probably my favorite.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 10, 2022

BlondeFox

Not Recommended

Funny

Even though I enjoy the game and franchise as a whole, the first season isn't particularly compelling.

Some of the aspects of their world that are normal but to us are horsey are fun, but underutilized.

The sound was frequently mixed weird with glitches and bad balancing.

The art felt manufactured and soul-less which unfortunately made it visually unappealing and didn't play into the fun designs the horse girls have.

As a sports anime, it missed that sparkle that good sports anime have. The outcomes were pretty predictable and I never felt the stakes. The idol aspect of winning the races feels like a weird afterthought in ... nearly every case.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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