Genres: Slice of Life, Sports

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Ever heard of the Japanizing beam? You know, that meme where Ultraman hits random objects with his beam and they magically turn into anime characters. Well this is one example of the said beam, and this time it struck horses, yes you read that right, horses are hit by the Japanizing beam and are turned into cute anime girls. Now hold your horses, and don’t be quick to judge this show and put it in the cute girls doing cute things category, this is actually a decent sports anime with a lot of exciting races and rivalries that will keep you invested in it.

And to clear things right off the bat, this is not an ecchi, harem, or yuri show despite majority of the characters being girls and I respect the show for not putting in those tags because it is great just the way it is.

Plot

The show begins with the protagonist, Special week arriving at Tokyo to train at the famous school for horse girls – Tracen Academy, a step that will take her closer to her dream of becoming the best horse girl in japan. On her way she decided to take a small detour and watch an ongoing race where she was captivated by Silence Suzuka’s way of running and instantly developed a feeling of admiration for her.

As what one can draw from the plot, Uma Musume is following the standard formula i.e. an underdog (or an underhorse in this case?) appears, met someone that will become a friend/ rival and reach the ultimate goal. Pretty common right? Well I can't deny that but even a generic set up can turn into something great when done right, and Uma Musume is an example of that.

One of the notable things about the show is that they race every episode, if you are worried that this would make the show repetitive, that is not really the case and that is what made me enjoy the show to its utmost as they managed to make each one as exciting as the other. How? Unlike the usual story where the protagonist don’t lose or they are allowed to only lose once or twice, Uma Musume felt more realistic because the odds of winning is at 50/50 (maybe not all the time but even if you can predict the outcome at times, the way the show delivers it still manages to be entertaining and will keep you in the edge of your seat).

And I almost forgot, they are no ordinary racing horse girls they also sing and dance after winning a race, simply put they are idol horse girls. This could be good or bad depending on the individual watching the show but I am not really a fan of the culture so I am a bit skeptical at first but as the series progresses it seems like this aspect of the show was sidelined and eventually forgotten and was only brought back in the end to nicely wrap things up.

Characters

There are a whole lot of horse girls in the series, maybe around 30 or more but of course with that big cast there would never be enough time for everyone to have decent screen time let alone develop them and so the focus was brought to the protagonist, Special Week and Silence Suzuka, a little bit on the members of Team Spica and their trainer.

Special Week is the countryside horse girl that dreams to become the best in Japan. That totally sounds like an MC right? Well, clichés aside she does her role well and it is easy to sympathize with her because of her passion and drive to win and add her backstory to that and you’d end up rooting for her in every race.

Next up is the inspiration/ best friend / rival of Special Week, Silence Suzuka. She is a soft spoken horse girl that dominates every race she participates in, but despite of all the accomplishments she’s made she remains humble and is committed to giving people inspiration, a horse girl that can make people dream.

Then we have Trainer-san, pretty weird to be called that throughout the series but because Uma Musume is actually just a promotion of some sorts for an upcoming game with the same title, it makes sense, he is basically the player in the game’s point of view. But despite the guy being the player in the game, he is actually pretty useful in the series. He served as the core of the team, the emotional support and the one who is always there during the team’s most difficult time.

There are a lot more but the most notable would be the members of Team Spica that includes, Gold Ship, Vodka, Daiwa Scarlet, Tokai Teio and Mejiro McQueen, and the foreigner classmate of our MC, El Condor Pasa.

Animation

The animation is done by P.A. Works so it is quite good though there are times when the quality drops but not that significant enough to affect the viewer’s satisfaction. The real meat of the series, the races are well done ,with the fluid movements, commentary, loud cheering of the crowds and the sound of horseshoes, the vibes of a tournament is perfectly captured in those 3-4 minutes of race each episode.

As for the character designs, they are of course pretty cute as every other anime girl is anyway. But what’s unique with them is that as horse girls they are actually given horse ears without the extra normal human ear which is the common practice when animals are turned to anime girls. Another interesting aspect is their outfits during races, though it can easily be argued that most of the outfits are not fit for a race which I cannot deny, but looking at it as a promotion for the game I can also understand the need for them to be more fancy because no one likes to have their horse girls wearing the same thing now, right? And this is anime so kick logic to the curb and do the impossible!

Conclusion

Uma Musume was a pleasant surprise that Spring 2018 season has blessed us. The show did well in delivering the sports genre, from training hard to strengthen both the body and mind, the intensity of standing your ground against the best competitors, giving everything you have for a shot at victory, the glory of winning, the bitterness of losing and of course the ever sweet redemption of one’s self after hitting a wall in your pursuit of your dreams.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, this is a promotion for an upcoming game being developed by Cygames and as such it needs to highlight the features of the game. I mean with the concept of racing horse girls as idols, it is definitely targeted at a specific demographic. That explains why there are only horse girls and no horse guys in the show, also the unconventional racing attires. This could also be the reason why they introduced a whole lot of characters that didn’t even get a minute of screen time in the entirety of the show, they are just promo materials for the franchise that is about to get released. But despite all of this, it is good to see that they didn’t resort to fan service to attract viewers which is rampant in the industry, in fact the staff are discouraging doujin makers from publishing NSFW doujinshi using the characters of the series. Respect.

All in all, I would personally recommend the show, it was a fun ride, an entertaining show that dared to mix anthropomorphic girls, idols and competitive sport, a wild and kind of a weird idea that caught me by surprise. This may not go into the top shows of the year but still a remarkable one that deserves the attention and praise it has received.

PS. The name of the characters are based on actual race horses, the same goes for the name of the races and the results almost every time, adheres to the actual results too so if you want to get spoiled then read some horse-tory.