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 Oh god, what is this? Cygames and P.A. Works team up to bring you an anime adaptation of a mobage, except it's actually kind of fun and interesting! Directed by Kei Oikawa (who’s also directing Hinamatsuri this season), Uma Musume is a story set in a world much like our own but where, at birth, some girls have inherited the souls of famous race horses from our world and become horse girls, complete with ears and tails and the speed and stamina of a real horse. They then compete against other horse girls in track races for fame and glory. ….Don’t ask, don’t worry about it, just roll with it. You’ll have a way better time, trust me. At any rate, what comes out of this odd combination is an amusing, fun, and heartwarming sports comedy about girls pushing themselves to their limits to win, and the friendship, camaraderie, and silly antics they have along the way. If you like stuff like Girls und Panzer, you might like this. There’s a ton of references to real horse racing (mostly of the Japanese variety) scattered liberally throughout the show. All of the characters are named after real race horses, and their personalities and events they are involved in often reflect the lives of their horse counterparts. It’s interesting trying to find the parallels and it’s kind of surprising how deep some of the references can go. As I mentioned in the spring season thread, there’s an eating contest in episode 6 which plays out in much the same way as a real horse race between the contestants. Since it’s based on a mobage, the cast is pretty huge and everyone’s got weird horse-names, so the show helpfully gives you nametag reminders fairly often to help keep everyone straight. Do they have 4 ears? No, just the 2 horse ears. What do you think this is, Kemono Friends?! I heard there was idol stuff… There’s a little bit. The top 3 winners of each race put on a short concert for their fans after the race called the Winning Concert. I’m pretty sure this is intended to be a reference to the Winner’s Circle in real horse racing, and also probably a good way to sell character songs. It’s pretty much an afterthought in the actual show though so far, aside from one or two longer initial songs, it’s mostly relegated to 5-second cuts or sometimes skipped altogether. Overall though, this is way more of a sports show than an idol show. They DO run around in fancy outfits, though. There isn’t much outright fanservice either, outside of the occasional somewhat eye-rolly running joke about Team Spica’s trainer admiring the legs of potential recruits and getting booted in the face for it. The Cast  Ah gently caress, I can’t believe you’ve done this. No but really, we’ll just focus on the main crew and some other notable characters. Click on the names for a link to the wikipedia page for the real horse! Team Spica:   Special Week VA: Azumi Waki Our protagonist. A country horse in the city. Moved from Hokkaido, where she had never seen another horse girl before, to Tokyo to attend Tracen Academy, a special boarding school for horse girls. Her biological mother died after her birth and she was adopted by her mother’s friend, who has helped set her on the path to becoming a racer. Bright and cheerful, but gets nervous easily. Has a nearly insatiable appetite. REALLY loves carrots. On a way less adorable note, the real Special Week passed away last Friday, April 27th.    Silence Suzuka VA: Marika Kouno A quiet, reserved, but extremely talented horse girl who left her former team, Rigil, to join Team Spica and try and find a better environment to train in. Becomes friends and roommates with Special Week and they support each other in their training. Special Week is incredibly fond of her, probably because her orange hair and green ear coverings make her look like a carrot.   Gold Ship VA: Hitomi Ueda An enigma wrapped inside a riddle bundled up in a strange, eccentric horse girl. Gold Ship is all over the place, has no filter, and enjoys accidentally cramming things into her eyes that really shouldn’t be in there. She likes making money, and will take any opportunity she can to hawk some yakisoba, probably because the real Gold Ship’s jockey was apparently known for making yakisoba during post-race parties, or something like that. The real Gold Ship was a temperamental and wildly inconsistent performer and that reflects strongly in this weird horse girl. She’s also a virtual youtuber?!   Daiwa Scarlet VA: Chisa Kimura A beautiful and cheerful horse girl who takes pride in her appearance. Despite that, she’s fiercely competitive and hates losing. Frequently butts heads with Vodka, who is her rival and almost polar opposite. Master of the legendary TRIPLE PONYTAIL (because she has an actual pony tail in addition to the two on her head).   Vodka VA: Ayaka Ohashi The mischievous and cheeky tomboy of the group. She’s a bit of a troublemaker and can often be found competing with Daiwa Scarlet in one way or another.   Tokai Teio VA: Machico (you may remember her from the Konosuba OPs) Winning Concert pro and accomplished dancer. Joins up with Team Spica and teaches the other girls how to be less lovely idols. A huge fan of the school president, Symboli Rudolf. Only has two ponytails.   Mejiro McQueen VA: Saori Oonishi Somewhat of a latecomer to Team Spica. Daughter of the esteemed Mejiro family. She’s refined and elegant, and would prefer to be left alone to read in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, Gold Ship becomes fond of her (as the real McQueen is Gold Ship's grandpa), and that’s the end of her quiet days.  Team Spica’s Trainer VA: Kouji Okino A sloppy and carefree (and heretofore nameless) trainer, but he cares deeply about his team and while he can be strict about their training, for the actual races he generally trusts them to run the way they feel like. A little too obsessed with horse girl legs, which gets him in trouble. Other notable characters:   El Condor Pasa VA: Minami Takahashi A loud and excitable horse girl from America. Talks like you’d expect from a character like that. Member of Team Rigil. Incredibly talented, fiercely competitive, with nearly undefeatable speed. Loves racing and constantly looks to compete with her friends. Has a mask that she almost never takes off.   Haru Urara VA: Yukina Shuto A bubbly and ceaselessly optimistic horse girl. Everyone loves her, and she brightens everyone’s day with her cheerfulness wherever she goes. She’s going to do her best to become a great racer and take first place! ”Haru Urara has not yet been officially retired, but has not raced since September 2004. She currently maintains a record of 0 wins and 113 losses.”   Oguri Cap VA: Tomoyo Takayanagi A bottomless pit for food to go in. The only horse girl who can compete with Special Week in appetite. Can frequently be seen in the background eating absurd amounts of food.  Hana Toujou VA: Megumi Toyoguchi Team Rigil’s trainer. A strict and no-nonsense trainer, she has created a team of incredible talent in Rigil. Generally has no time for Team Spica’s Trainer’s poo poo, but will sometimes go out of her way to give him a bit of help or advice. There’s many more but you’ll have plenty of time to get to know them during the show! Where to find it: Crunchyroll seems to have the exclusive rights to it, so you can find it streaming there. Anyway, that's all I got, lets have some fun talking about horse girls running really fast! cathead fucked around with this message at 03:03 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 02:36
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 13:11 |
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Dire Lemming posted:Why horses? I can sort of get the appeal of battleship girls or whatever other "X but anime girls thing" because they can at least do ridiculous things. What's the appeal of "women's track and field but faster, but not so much faster that it actually changes anything?" I don't know that Japan really needs an excuse to anthropomorphize a thing as cute girls at this point, and horse racing is really popular over there to begin with, so that sort of explains why the original concept came about. I think adapting it as a somewhat legit sports anime rather than going for something way more ridiculous actually worked out better since if you go too far over the top you start to lose the appeal of the original thing you're representing. One of the things I like about this show is it FEELS like how a regular track and field anime would play out, just with the sort of whimsical extra additions of all the horse and racing-related references. It's grounded enough in reality that it helps to make the action believable, but not so much that it winds up just a regular-rear end track race. I actually really dig how the races themselves are done, they're pretty exciting in how they're portrayed, and all the interaction between the characters outside of the races gives you some investment in finding out who's going to win. Considering how the Kancolle anime actually turned out, I think Uma Musume made the right decision in grounding the setting in reality a bit more than usual. astr0man posted:So do Japanese horse tracks actually have hills? I was curious about this too but I couldn't find any actual evidence one way or another. I think it might be an extra addition to add some variety to the races themselves.
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May 1, 2018 10:50
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Grouchio posted:Didn't the author just pass away? It's an adaptation of a mobile game so there's no author, but the real Special Week passed away last Friday. gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i am very confused both by the premise and by the fact that there is such a dedicated fan base for individual race horses, many of which apparently died decades ago Like most fancy animal-based competitions there's a huge emphasis on pedigree, so an accomplished horse that then births future champions has that become part of their legacy as well. That's why on those wikipedia pages you'll see these lists of pedigree going back a couple generations. Also I imagine it's nice when a horse wins you lots of money so people probably get worked up about that too. cathead fucked around with this message at 20:29 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 20:19
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I can't believe Silence Suzuka is loving dead
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May 6, 2018 21:15
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I thought it was a really good episode despite knowing what was coming. Comparing it to the vid of the real Suzuka's injury, they really captured the huge lead into gradual slowdown and the rest of the pack passing by as everyone's like "what the hell?". The solemn award ceremony with El Condor Pasa, and Special Week running out onto the track to get to Suzuka were both nicely done as well. Also Gold Ship/McQueen as Horse God was great.
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May 7, 2018 01:49
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 13:11 |
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I think the most likely outcome is Suzuka is able run again but nowhere near as fast as she could before, so she can no longer complete like she used to, and won't be winning any more races. That way it doesn't deviate from the real Suzuka's record, but also doesn't require anime Suzuka to get taken out behind the barn/to the glue factory. That (combined with Special Week's realizations in this week's episode) will probably spur Spe-chan to really start getting serious about aiming for the top. Anyway yeah, this week's episode was a little weird but I thought it also was kind of a good way to highlight how Spe-chan is a LITTLE too obsessed with Suzuka. I actually thought it would be Suzuka herself who would confront her, but the way things played out with Grass Wonder was a good way of getting her to that realization too.
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May 14, 2018 23:14
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