Uma Musume Pretty Derby - is that world pretty?

YOU SHOULD, you should.

Just their speed and being a Little Bit Beastly One-Gender Race.

It seems that the girl at the end of the episode is probably Kitasan Black, last year's Horse of the Year. He's a relative of Silence Suzuka and Special Week, and was also ridden by Yukata Take.

edited 17th Jun '18 3:49:56 PM by harostar

Oh, cool! So the next generation, pretty literally as well as symbolically.

And yeah, haro's got it right. There are some implications that their reproduction might be a bit weird (as in 'potentially not requiring a male partner' weird), but nothing that's ever elaborated on.

They also have superhuman strength and stamina, remember the giant truck tire and the thumb handstand.

Quite possible. There's also a TON of other characters listed for the video game that never showed up in the anime. More than enough to fill a second season.

Ah, good point. That tire was pretty enormous, though I'm not sure their stamina is super-human since top athletes can do some incredible things. I mean, marathons are no joke.

Is it weird that I genuinely liked this show for entirely non-waifu reasons? The team-building and drama of sports anime and the cute Little Bit Beastly characters of Kemono Friends were a surprisingly good combination. The only things I didn't like were the Running Gag of Trainer "examining" their legs and how tacked-on the idol angle was.

I agree with you completely. I loved the team building, the racing sequences, and the focus on the relationships between everyone. Friendship! Rivalry! Friendly Rival~ It was so good.

The running gag with Trainer was a little ?? in terms of the series otherwise not being fanservicey. I understand that it's a joke about how examining a horse's legs is a normal thing trainers do, but mixed with the comical violence of a girl freaking out. It wasn't nearly as funny as Gold Ship's running gags.

There may be a 14th bonus episode for the home video release but until then, we can officially call this show wrapped. I enjoyed how the coach became just as much a main character as Spe even if most of the focus was on her. This last episode was all about seeing his dream come true of all his girls competing in the same race, along with other horsegirls that had a lot of focus in the narrative. Also I laughed at the here-we-go-again ending of coach inspecting yet another prospective racer's legs.

I think the end of the race could be seen ambiguously. Did they all tie? Did one of them actually win and the show just didn't tell us who that was? BOTH are correct!

As for people on the fence about watching this anime, I'd say you should at least as something to wind down with or to get you in a good mood. Really, there's nothing innovative in this anime that other ones haven't already done, and only the premise is mildly unique. But they do focus a lot on team-building, growing yourself as a person as well as forming the best version of yourself to reach for a dream, and there are some real stakes involved like the chance of injury, failure, and broken friendships. Every opponent is friendly to each other. There is almost no fanservice to speak of unless you're just searching for it, and the idol-singer element is nearly non-existent to the story! This really makes me want to at least check out how the game looks and how the gameplay mechanics are like, since being in the USA with an iPhone I most likely won't be able to play it myself.

edited 17th Jun '18 8:46:00 PM by kyun

So apparently, the creators have asked people to stop doing Horse Girl porn. Like, please guys stop it with the Horse Girl futa it reflects badly on the reputations of the horses' actual owners.

They knew what they unleashed, but they were not prepared for the Internet to be the internet.

I understand where they're coming from, and I agree to an extent, but they must have known there would be smut made. I guess if they want to ask people not to tag it with the characters'/horses' proper names or something so it's not the first result to come up, that's one thing, but.

.... it's the internet.

So, how has the Uma Musume franchise been doing so far? I have no idea how successful it's been recently, and have been wondering if Cygames will do their typical thing and repurpose the character designs for any future projects?

Might be a necro, but just passing here to mention that the second season was a thing, and it was pretty good.

I kind of lost track of how many years it covered, counting all the big events. And then there was a time skip at the, the kid horse girls grew up but Tokai Teio and Mc Queen are still in the school. Do horse girls stay in horse school until they are forced to retire due to injury?

Also, there was that epic side story of the hair stylist and her one client. That last turnabout and betrayal makes the last Naruto Vs Sasuke fight look like a school spat.

Hey, I was looking for this thread earlier and couldn't find it! Good to have it back.

Overall, I really liked the second season, about as much as I liked the first. While it was a bit less impactful, just by virtue of being the second season of functionally the same setup, it was really fun seeing Teio and McQueen get more spotlight. It also handled situations with a bit more weight to them, from Rice's mini-arc (which was probably the best of the season) to Teio and McQueen both grappling with their injuries. Teio winning her Arima Kinen might not be a surprise, but it was still very impactful, and I was glad to see the both of them getting back on the track in the epilogue.

Honestly, by the end of season 2 at least three years have passed since Suzuka went to America, and season 1 didn't span only one year, either.

I wasn't too interested in this series, but I got introduced to this franchise through - you've guessed it - the sheer Fountain of Memes that is Gold Ship. I can't be the only one.

Edited by dRoy on Apr 5th 2021 at 7:45:02 PM

Aaah, I hope the franchise continues. I figure maybe a third volume focusing either on Vodka and Scarlet, or shifting focus to another team? Maybe the kids will be the protagonists next time around, since the season ended with them attending Tracen?

Either way, there's certainly fertile ground for stories. Decades of racing drama to draw inspiration from and a ton of characters.

For what it's worth, I've read that Kita Black is one of the star horses of his generation. I don't know if there's anything quite as dramatic as Teio's Arima Kinen comeback, but they could do worse than Kita if they're looking for a third "protagonist" horse girl.

Passing by again to mention that the Oguri Cap manga, Cinderella Gray, is being translated at the usual places. It's pretty good, so far.

The focus given to the community around the sport, plus glimpses of the logistics and bureaucracy involved, is particularly interesting, me thinks.

Whoa, it's been almost a year and a half since the last post!

Season 3 has been announced for a premiere is 2023. As expected, the trailer and visuals show that we'll be focusing on Kitasan Black and Satono Diamond this time around.

Like I said, it might be hard to beat the Cinderella story of Tokai Teio's comeback, but I'm definitely here for more yuri sports anime.