Uma Musume: Pretty Derby Season 3

Umamusume is back and as per usual, the focus has shifted to two side characters turned season protagonists, this time on Kitasan Black and Satono Diamond. As much as I liked the first two seasons of this anime, it’s unfortunate for me to say that this season is weakest and that’s mainly due to how these two characters are handled. In previous seasons, the heart of the series would come from the dynamic between the two main characters, whether that be how they are as friends or as rivals. I’d say that there are around two instances each this season where both Kitasan Black and ... Satono Diamond do any of these things, and at first I thought that maybe this is done intentionally to flesh out the internal struggles for both characters, but that isn’t exactly the case here. Kitasan is the only one whose character arc is compelling, which isn’t a good thing when compared to past seasons where both protagonists as well as even the side characters are given a lot of depth that can at least make us care about the hardships they face. This season doesn’t have its equivalent Rice Shower arc, that being a subplot that shifts focus to a seemingly unimportant side character but ends up with a pretty sad plotline. Satono Diamond is given a very brief personal struggle that gets resolved almost immediately, that being her desire to race overseas. That subplot felt like a much watered down version of Silent Suzuka’s in Season 1 since they have very similar goals, however Suzuka’s actually had stakes involved, something not present here for Diamond or almost any other character besides Kitasan.

As for Kitasan’s storyline, hers just doesn’t hit as hard as other main characters from previous seasons. See, both Special Week’s and Tokai Teio’s arcs had a set starting motivation that naturally evolves into a more refined goal by the end of the season. Although Kitasan Black’s arc in this season might be similar like in other seasons, the issue here is that she never had a set goal in mind other than “be the best”. I guess that’s something, but we already had that in the last two seasons. Another aspect (or lack thereof) that I found disappointing is that in Season 2, both Kitasan and Diamond are set up as massive fans of both Tokai Teio and Mejiro McQueen respectively, and I was hoping that this season would build on top of that and have those two be major mentor figures for the main characters here, but we don’t get any of that. Yes, this season does have a few scenes where Teio gives Kitasan some pep talks, but those are not only sparse, but they don’t play on Teio’s own experiences from last season. I do think that the last few episodes of this season were good to send off Kitasan’s character, and I also think that this season as whole still hits all the emotional beats it was aiming for, but I feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities to build on top of what we got last season.

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby - 3 seasons' worth of Uma Musume content with a change of studio production in-between...what could go wrong? Well, this season.

It's been 5.5 years since Uma Musume: Pretty Derby graced the small screen, giving us our first impression of CyGames's biggest IP in Japan (next to Princess Connect! Re:Dive a.k.a PriConne) and the anime equivalent to the live-action horse races, showcasing the rich history of Japan's most iconic horses, covering their rise to fame and their eventual downfall away from the spotlight. Since then, we have already had 3 seasons of the anime (Spring 2018, Winter 2021, and this Fall), 2 ... short series (Summer 2020's Umayon and Fall 2022's Umayuru), last year's Road to the Top ONA series, and a buttload of new manga series based on different characters, to boot. But out of all of these different showings, there's got to be a Black Sheep in the series, and it's very unfortunate that I have to say that Season 3 here is the worst of the lot.

Despite Season 1 all those years ago with director Kei Oikawa's staff team and Studio Kai coming into Season 2 to help things out with the production, the story plot has literally stayed the same, which shouldn't really be a bad thing to fans of the mobage and the anime-onlies...right? Sure, you had Special Week and Silence Suzuka for Season 1, which served as a good jumping start to the anime, then Season 2 with Tokai Teio and Mejiro McQueen, which is Season 1 but 10 times better due to the character developments that get you invested very deeply in both main horse girls, which raises the bar for potential future seasons to come. And then Season 3 appeared after almost yet another 3-year gap...and its central characters are nowhere near the brilliance and remembrance that were its predecessor season, or even Season 1, for that matter.

For reference, up until then, all horse girls are based off their real-life horse counterparts to anchor the story, and from what I can tell, the main horse girls of Kitasan Black and Satono Diamond are exactly just that, though somehow, somewhere in the process, it felt like their story elements together were too short to even make up a 13-episode series, so the producers and scriptwriters (some of whom like Shingo Nagai and Tetsuya Kobari were brought back from the Road to the Top ONA) decided to wing this season to the best of their abilities. You have Kitasan Black, who wants to follow in Tokai Teio's footsteps, and Satono Diamond, of whom the Satono "curse" deemed that none of its family members were able to secure G1 wins. I understand the story in this season that can be crafted for the latter, but for the former, it seems like someone is getting lazy trying to rehash the "tried-and-true" formula that made Tokai Teio a standout character in Season 2. Not all horse girls (and their real-life counterparts) have the same history and treatment (though sometimes they do sound the same), and in this case, you can tell that Kitasan Black is supposed to be the next generation leap forward as compared to Tokai Teio's, but the scriptwriting of her character just doesn't echo it like so, and instead, in my opinion, is an exaggerating version of Tokai Teio that is a ticking time bomb, until she becomes a frail horse girl with no redemption whatsoever, despite all the cheers and encouragement from Team Spica and its members who have done the same before her. Also, the other rivals in both girls' generations, like Duramente and Cheval Grand, I really find the former's story very intriguing, and it actually reminded me similarly to Gold Ship's plight, but it started and ended like a typical script with little to no motivation at all. As for the latter, they really want to make Cheval Grand's "win and lose" story mould together alongside the two main horse girls, but I just don't care for her that much.

In context, when we look back at Season 2, both Tokai Teio and Mejiro McQueen's backstories were so great that it makes us the audience very focused and engrossed on their melodrama, and even the racing action on the racecourses feels like they have substantial weight to them as a sign of improvement in how far they'd come in their sacrificial journey to push beyond their limits and achieve their very best. That to think that this was all in the span of the same 13-episode series that, in my opinion at the time, I'm worried that the production committee needs an extra oomph of time to deliver what was then one of the most spectacular races in Uma Musume's anime, period, and by the grace of the anime gods, they delivered in a very tight deadline to fulfill and cement the (at the time) sequel's legacy as a great follow-up to its premiere season. Season 3 here, however, has none of that.

If the story doesn't do you any favours for what's about to come for Season 3, then both the production and music will help deteriorate your watching experience. Studio Kai has done magnificently for Season 2 that's 3 years prior, and with the same 3-year gap, you would think that they'll be able to keep their consistency after a break this long. I'm sad to say that this is not the case here, as the animation has slipped to a downgrade (with the obvious tinges focusing on the race action), and while it doesn't look as bad as Season 2, you can tell that it is visibly less refined in an effort to save up on production costs, which is otherwise a mitigating factor concerning the anime overall.

The music is by far the worst aspect of Season 3. I was actually okay that the producers left the Winning Stage idol portion for the finale episodes since character development is the absolute priority for Season 2, something that had existed since Season 1 (again, to give anime-onlies an idea of what the mobage is all about in anime form). And Season 3 is the sum of the marriage of the worst decisions ever made, with an OST that is just as upbeat as the series is. But if anything, remembrance is not the keyword here.

Some will say that Season 3 is just as good as Season 2, if not a touch downward, which I can agree to an extent. But as it stands, Season 3 is a mere carbon copy of Season 2 with new characters that doesn't fire up the horse grooves as much as it could have. Better luck next time if there is a Season 4 in the future, though I will not count on betting in a horse race for improvements across the racecourse.

Such a missed opportunity for any kind of potential. And such is the case in the world of Uma Musume: Pretty Derby (at least for the anime), where it's more an Ugly Duckling, than a beautiful Swan song.