The anime Uma Musume: Pretty Derby is a spin-off of a mobile game where horse-girls compete in races and also sing like idols. We don’t know the reason, but this game seems to be quite popular, so we decided to write about it.
This is both a musical and sports game filled with moe, elements that can also be seen in the anime, which aired in the Japanese spring season of 2018, and has a total of 13 episodes. This was a time when animal-girls, ship-girls, plane-girls, among others, were very successful.
This anime deals with much more than just the protagonist’s journey as an athlete, but also everything that is involved in it, showing the emotional side of the protagonist and how she had to learn to control it to achieve her goal, her dream of being a runner. I’m sure you will fall in love with this anime.
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Why Horse Girls?
This game and anime were not created without reason; its creators were smart to combine two things that the Japanese love, moe girls and horse racing. That’s right, horse racing is quite popular in Japan.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the authors also wanted to ride the wave of animes that mix girls with other creatures. And since the goal was to be a mobile game, this combination was perfect.
To give you an idea, a very popular game in Japan involving horse racing is Japan World Cup 3, often mentioned as a bizarre game in the West. It is a horse racing game with unusual characters.
The Dream of Being a Runner
The story of this anime features Special Week, a girl who dreams of being the best horse-girl runner in the country. To achieve this, she goes to a school where horse-girls receive training to run. At this school, she meets Silence Suzuka, who becomes her friend, and joins her team, Spica.
And thus begins Special Week‘s career in the race. The horse-girls who star in the franchise were based on real-world racehorses, having even the same names, as well as certain characteristics of them.
Although there are many comedic scenes and it is quite light most of the time, Uma Musume: Pretty Derby also has a serious tone, discussing the work done by the characters and even the interactions they have with each other before, during, and after the races.
Moreover, there is a lot of coherence regarding how the elements are treated throughout the series, the way themes are worked on, and how we can reflect on each of them.
The Tone of Verisimilitude in the Anime
If you don’t know the meaning of verisimilitude, it refers to coherence, the harmonious connection between the fantastical or imaginary elements that are essential for understanding the text. Where everything in the anime seems really true, making you forget that it is a fantastical world.
They got the verisimilitude right; in the anime, we find phones adapted for the horse ears of the girls; there are also foreign characters who do not speak Japanese; when some girls get hurt, the recovery time is similar to what it would be for horses in the real world; despite the protagonist being great at running, she is not invincible; and several times during the anime, her emotional imbalance hinders her during the races. The anime focuses on the details to make the audience feel as if there were indeed a world where horse-girls existed.
But even with such a solid foundation, it is still possible for the story to be poorly executed by relying on clichés, shallow characters, or fanservice. But that is not what happens in this anime, as many clichés were set aside to give more emphasis to the training and races, making the story much more interesting to watch, since we won’t have so many predictable elements.
But of course, cliché situations do occur during the anime, and most of the characters are not widely developed; however, the fact that they try to bring a certain variation of this and combine these sillier moments with more serious segments that work well with everything related to the practice of the sport makes this anime very interesting and demonstrates the creativity of the producers.
Using these elements in franchises of this type without forgetting to add charisma to the characters and creatively working on the situations that occur with them is a great move. Because even if the consumer does not like fun and cute girls, they will probably enjoy what happens to them during the work.
Realistic and Fictitious Elements
Another very good thing about Uma Musume: Pretty Derby is the winding way that Special Week‘s path takes her to the top. It is true that during the anime, most of the race results are inspired by real events, but everything that was done to reach those results depended exclusively on the production team.
This was good because they managed to convey the feeling that there was an evolution of the character with each result, and that even having great talent for running, she still had to take care of her emotional side to become the best of all, in addition to showcasing the creativity of the producers. We saw that it was not enough just effort and talent; emotional maturity was also necessary.
The Endings of the Anime
Another extremely interesting aspect of this work was the fact that it had a strong objective from the beginning – which was Special Week‘s dream of becoming the best horse-girl in Japan — which ultimately came true.
And, in addition, it also managed to add another objective in the middle of the journey — that of Special Week and Silence Suzuka running together – which was also completed in the end. This was another very good thing because it wrapped up everything that was important for a conclusion at the end of the anime.
In the end, Uma Musume: Pretty Derby proves to be a great anime, as it managed to go beyond the basics, but without losing the simplicity or the emotional appeal that the anime needs to gain the audience’s empathy.
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