Common Name: Uma Musume: Pretty Derby
Alternative Names: Umamusume: Pretty Derby
Score: 5/10, 5/5
Length: 13 Episodes
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Sports, Idol, Slice of Life, Shoujo, Isekai
Summary: In a world where the spirits of noble horses of another universe are reborn as "horse girls", a new breed of sport has been born in honor of these young girls who are destined for great things. Following the standard of a traditional horse race, they are given the chance to compete with their fellow horse girls and earn their moment in the spotlight for the world to see. Special Week is one such horse girl, one who is new to the sport but dreams of being "The Best Horse Girl in Japan." Lofty and difficult as that might sound, she isn't alone in her ambitions. Every horse girl, including Spe's friends on Team Spica, all have goals that only be reached with the help of friends, their own unwavering determination, and a lot of carrots.
Review: Watching this show, a realization struck me. This show is stupid on a level I still haven't totally come to terms with. The concept of a show about the noble souls of horses being reborn in a near identical world to ours as exclusively female "horse girls" just sounds like the most bass ackwards nonsense I have ever heard. Yet, in spite of how weird that idea sounds, it's not even original in this day and age. KanColle, Granblue Fantasy, and Touken Ranbu are all anime that are nearly identical to this show due to the fact that they are all born from character-focused gatcha games. In other words, they were born as promotional material for a game genre that is almost universally devoid of any actual creativity. There's no real story. There's little to no thought put into the actual building of a world or the characters that live in it. Even the characters that are the focus of this genre are little more than cardboard cutouts that have some easily recognizable personality or physical trait that make them slightly different from everyone else. Here's the thing, though, he stupidity of this show and the game genre it was born from wasn't the realization that struck me. The realization that struck me was simply the acknowledgment that I don't hate this show.
I'm certainly not anywhere near being a fan of the show, but I think I see the appeal.
As much as I hate the general concept of Umamusume, there's a distinct reason why I can't bring myself to actually dislike the show itself. The reason in question being that it just kinda falls into a niche of anime that I don't particularly like but one that I don't dislike either. To be more precise, it falls into the niche of anime that feature "friendship overcoming impossible odds" as a central theme that I've just always been able to consistently tolerate in spite of how bad the show may or may not be. Kancolle, Strike Witches, and even High School DxD, to a certain degree, are all immediately notable example of this kind of niche winning me over in spite of my better judgment. In all these cases, these shows can be downright offensive and I still can't bring myself to hate them like I hate every other show that pushes my buttons. As trite, half-assed, and simplistic as this central theme might be, it holds a weird kind of appeal for me that, were I to guess why, likely stems from the fact that I grew up on that theme. In other words, every show that plays with that hyper-basic theme and does so at least semi-competently basically serves as a callback to all the Saturday Morning shows I watched and loved as a kid, inducing a Pavlovian response from me. Unlike those childhood "classics," however, I won't be inclined to give this show a second thought in the coming seasons and years. It does not even remotely deserve that level of love and attention from me, but at least that rationale solidly explains why I even bothered this with mess of a show in the first place.
So, now that my posterior is sufficiently shielded from targeted ridicule,
let's get into why I'm so quick to call this show "a mess."
At its core, Umamusume is a tale of friendship (and possibly love) between competitors and rivals. Every horse girl in this show has a goal, dream, or aspiration that they want to see realized, most of which hinges on them competing against and beating their fellow horse girls. The show's primary example of this "frenemy" dynamic is glimpsed through the interactions of the show's main character, Special Week (Spe, for short), as she competes with her classmates and teammates to earn the honor of being called "the best horse girl in Japan." In other words, pretty much every horse girl in this show is automatically a rival for her given that such a title would automatically demean her fellows. Those that most notably stand in Spe's way, however, are the easygoing Seiun Sky; the excitable foreigner, El Condor Pasa; and Spe's teammate, best friend, and idol, Silence Suzuka. Throughout the show's entire run, Spe comes head to head with these three and goes through the paces of either losing and trying again or winning and working to minimize her chances of losing in her race next race. While all this goes on, however, there's often an added aspect of Spe, and thus the cast, leaning on or supporting those same competitors, effectively fostering friendships in spite of their competitive spirits. To be clear, however, Spe and her frenemies are not the only instances of this dynamic in the show. Most, if not all, of the horse girls have at least one other horse girl that they are regularly competing against if for no other reason than to prove who is the best that particular day.
Let there be no doubt, however, that the main push of the show is mainly centered
around Spe's love for and desire to compete with Suzuka.
As nice as it is that the show acknowledges the struggles and rivalries between the other horse girls, this spreading of attention works as both a necessary boon and unfortunate bane for this show. On the one hand, introducing the audience to a fairly large collection of horse girls and giving them all just enough attention to get the gist of who they are makes selling the gatcha game all the more effective as players pay for draw after draw just to get their horse girl waifu. On the other hand, however, there are just too many horse girls to remember all of them. For example, Team Spica ends up with no fewer than seven horse girls (including Spe and Suzuka) that draw attention away from the main characters, and that's only one of the teams featured in the show. That means that there are easily dozens of other horse girls that the audience is expected to recognize and understand their associations with the other horse girls, which is not exactly an easy feat. For the most part, though, Umamusume does a decent job of staying focused on only those who directly support or compete against Spe and Suzuka as they work to make their dreams come true.
Just to give you an idea of what I mean, there are so many horse girls that I don't even remember
who this one is even though she got a whole subarc dedicated to her being upset
that Suzuka was dominating Spe's attention.
As great as this focus on characters and establishing who they are through their interactions with their friends and competitors is, both conceptually and strategically, it also creates a huge glaring flaw that becomes blatantly apparent when any amount of criticism is applied to this show. To put it as plainly as I can, this big issue in question is the simple fact that the races don't actually matter. Episode after episode, the bulk of this show's drama hinges on the build-up to and results of the races the horse girls compete in. Yet it becomes clear toward the end of the show that nothing actually mattered since nothing was ever really at stake. Regardless of their match-ups, struggles, and skills, there was never any doubt that Spe would see her goal come to fruition in some form. There was no doubt that she and Suzuka would eventually go head to head as equals. There was never any doubt that, no matter how many times she tasted victory or suffered defeat, Spe would pick herself back up and race her heart out. So, in the end, we're left with one of the show's focal points becoming a pointless and contrived mess where the winner of each race was already decided in advance because that was simply what the plot demanded in that moment.
Granted, that realization does potentially open this show up to being a criticism of the shady
gambling underworld that goes hand-in-hand with live horse races.
To the show's credit, though, they all but admit that none of this race nonsense actually mattered since they never bothered to reveal the results of the show's final race which basically amounted to a showcase of all the horse girls and their rivalries as they duked it out one last time. Luckily for me, those are pretty much the only problems with this show. So, if you're willing to look past the fact that this show suffers from a severe lack of focus and purpose, then there's nothing left to criticize, assuming they've managed to fix the show's terrible audio mixing issues. In all seriousness, though, there's little to complain about beyond those points. The show's pacing is great right out the starting gate. The animation and art quality is fantastic and exactly what I've come to expect from Cy Games' production studio. Not to mention that, even though many of show's characters are little more than walking, talking quirks, they were funny, cute, and engaging enough to at least hold what little interest I had in this show. So, while I won't go so far as to recommend this show or call it particularly interesting, it is serviceable enough to not deserve the "Kill it with Fire" tag. Considering how terrible this show's premise is, that fact alone means a great deal and is probably the greatest amount of praise Umamusume will ever get from me.