I’ve been an anime fan for most of my life. I’ve seen some weird stuff. Hell, some of my favorite series are objectively the weirdest stuff most folks have ever seen. But when Uma Musume: Pretty Derby came out in 2021, I was convinced that this was too weird even for me. I had filed it away with “Oh, this is a gooner game” much like how I feel about Marvel: Rivals. No judgement, but I’ve seen that Punisher Summer skin and no one can convince me you’re playing this game for “the love of the game and characters”.
I admit, I wrote the game off for a while, seeing it bubble up in popularity over the years here in the States. It seemed like another fandom that was miles away, centralized in Japan and with auxiliary branches here in the US. But as time passed, the game continued to grow popular and eventually, it crossed my TikTok feed and I was hooked. It helped that my best friend was also playing the game and in a previous life, I was once a girl who loved horses and horseback riding.
Let’s talk about Uma Musume.
Uma Musume combines all the things I love about Japan into one game. A fun, vibrant aesthetic, fantastic character design and characterization and taking something incredibly niche and turning it into a phenomenon (not a Fenomona, she’s already in the game), and a very specific generation of Japanese racehorses and horse racing. Most of the races featured and racehorses turned into cute anime girls are from The Golden Age during the 1980s-1990s.
Now, horse racing is a notably ruthless sport. Injuries often mean death, the horses are at times not treated the best (Japan does have a record of treating particularly prized race horses well but one could argue that the entire horse racing industry is not designed with the animal’s health and welfare in mind) and many horses run fast, die young and fade into the background hum of the universe.
But Uma Musume does something interesting, by giving these horses a second life as a kemonomimi anime girl, their stories live on in ways previously unimaginable. Horses that died young and tragically like Rice Shower and Silence Suzuka get a new virtual eternity where they are healthy, still racing and as happy as ever. The game’s community is shockingly wholesome. Some of the remaining horses that have gained new fame due to the game have seen skyrocketing donations made to their current facilities. The most famous is the recently deceased Haru Urara, The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere, known for her dual life as a race horse that never stopped trying despite numerous losses and as a pink cute anime girl who is doing her heckin’ best. So much grass was donated to Haru Urara and Grass Wonder (neighbors and friends in real life and in the game) that the website for grass donations crashed. When Haru Urara passed away earlier this month from complications from colic, love and support poured out from the online community who found not just the anime girl but the horse behind her an inspiration and reminder to keep trying no matter what the odds are.
The fandom is doing something I love, taking their love of fictional counterparts to learn about the real life horses, trainers and jockeys that made their character famous enough to be immortalized in an anime video game.
The game itself is a blast! Career Mode is an interesting battle of good choices ensuring that your horse girl does the very best in her high school race career by training, keeping her mood up and injury free. Really, I could explain it to you but here’s Gold Ship (my favorite of the actual race horses) in anime girl form to explain it to you!
There’s something interesting about this game, I haven’t felt…maternal for a fictional character in a good while but I want to see my grass daughter succeed and when she fails, I want nothing more than to keep trying until all of her goals are achieved. Every 1st Place Prize is a triumph, every loss feels soul-crushing defeat but also an opportunity to grow, learn and try again.
I have my favorites: Oguri Cap, Gold Ship, Sakura Bakushin O, T.M. Opera O and King Halo (which surprises no one) and I’ve had a lot of fun with the game and its intricate stories and surprisingly catchy music.
In an increasingly complicated world, it’s been nice to dive into a world of students doing what they love: running and managing the simple worries of a young life.
