Umamusume is an extremely funny series to introduce to someone because not only is the core premise absurd (gijinkas of famous Japanese racehorses who run races that mirror the careers of the horses they're based on while also being idols), but it feels like every other writing and worldbuilding decision is somehow even more absurd than the last
The series takes place at what is ostensibly a high school but the umas have careers that occur years if not decades apart. The umas do not age, no one appears to ever leave Tracen Academy if they don't want to and there is no satisfying explanation for how this works
Despite, again, all of then ostensibly being in high school, some umas act like grown adults who pay taxes and others act like they're no more than 8 years old
Canonically, no one gambles on the uma races.
The creators had to patch some of the story dialogue because they accidentally created a timeline where the modern day Republic of Ireland has a monarchy
Super Creek wants you to do age regression with her because she likes playing mommy
Admire Vega had a twin sister who was aborted in the womb and said dead fetus is now a literal ghost that actively haunts her
Matikanefukukitaru also has a dead sister and she isn't being haunted but she does have religious psychosis
The creators get permission from the owners of all the horses before putting them in the game. The owner of Daiwa Scarlet allegedly approved her inclusion in the game on the one condition that she be given bigger boobs than her main rival, Vodka
Vodka drinks tea from a flask
Agnes Digital writes erotic friend fiction of the other umas
Horseboys in fact do not exist, only Uma*musume* (musume means girl). There are some Umas that are very bishounen in appearance, but ultimately no boys.
Umamusume is an extremely funny series to introduce to someone because not only is the core premise absurd (gijinkas of famous Japanese racehorses who run races that mirror the careers of the horses they're based on while also being idols), but it feels like every other writing and worldbuilding decision is somehow even more absurd than the last
The series takes place at what is ostensibly a high school but the umas have careers that occur years if not decades apart. The umas do not age, no one appears to ever leave Tracen Academy if they don't want to and there is no satisfying explanation for how this works
Despite, again, all of then ostensibly being in high school, some umas act like grown adults who pay taxes and others act like they're no more than 8 years old
Canonically, no one gambles on the uma races.
The creators had to patch some of the story dialogue because they accidentally created a timeline where the modern day Republic of Ireland has a monarchy
Super Creek wants you to do age regression with her because she likes playing mommy
Admire Vega had a twin sister who was aborted in the womb and said dead fetus is now a literal ghost that actively haunts her
Matikanefukukitaru also has a dead sister and she isn't being haunted but she does have religious psychosis
The creators get permission from the owners of all the horses before putting them in the game. The owner of Daiwa Scarlet allegedly approved her inclusion in the game on the one condition that she be given bigger boobs than her main rival, Vodka
Vodka drinks tea from a flask
Agnes Digital writes erotic friend fiction of the other umas
no, a thought occured to me, and then suddenly i had this, so ig i'll just release it out into the wild
okay, actual au ideas because i can't help myself:
rudolf is more of an "emperor" with a haughty attitude, beginning of cingrey rudolf but worse
air groove is the best racer in her small town, and is called the empress
rudolf and air groove meets and rudolf laughs at her/tells her she won't ever amount to anything
ace wins the japan cup, giving rudolf her first loss, and rudolf throws a fit taking the attention away from ace
ace and cb poison her, turning her into a horse instead of messing up her legs like it was supposed to
ace, embarrassed that the poison didn't work, tells cb to kill her so there is no evidence of their failure
rudolf runs into air groove who agrees to help her since she wants to race rudolf and win to prove her wrong
teio is a squirrel
ace hears ppl talking about a strange creature no one has ever seen before and realizes rudolf is alive, sets off with cb to track her down
they run into teio and cb adopts her
rudolf and air groove also run into teio at some point (idk how) and rudolf adopts her
through their travels + becoming a mother to a squirrel, rudolf grows and changes as an uma/horse
live air groove reaction = "oh no, she's hot"
chase scene where air groove is winning at first but soon cb and ace are catching up and rudolf tells her to hop on
starts doubting she can compete with the umas from the big city and is letting down all the young umas who look up to her
teio jumps off of rudolf and lands on cb
teio is a flying squirrel
everybody stops
cb is surprised to see "squirrely" since she ran away
rudolf tries to call "teio" back
they realize that they have both adopted the same squirrel
rudolf and cb start debating how to co-parent, and eventually land on a plan that involves rudolf being human again
cb apologizes to ace for getting tricked by rudolf into agreeing to turn her human
ace reveals she doesn't know how to change rudolf back
air groove realizes she didn't have anything to worry about since they're all dumbasses
they keep heading back to the city to find a more experienced poison maker (poisons are very popular in the city)(air groove's plan)
cb and rudolf acting like divorced wives (they have never been together)
air groove being very intrigued by the uma who managed to best the emperor
rudolf and ace are still enemies, rudolf doesn't know about the murder attempt
they get to the city, no one can help rudolf because she has turned into an animal that doesn't exist, they only have potions that can change species that do exist into other species that do exist
air groove asks ace and cb what their poison was supposed to do
"then just try to make a potion that will fix her legs?"
ace refuses
rudolf: "what do you want? congratulations? want me to throw a big parade in your honor? want me to hold a feast?"
"yes! that's what the winner is supposed to get and i didn't because of you!"
"oh, right. i forgot about that. fine, i guess i can do that."
after all of that, there's a big fight when ace reveals that they tried to kill rudolf, everyone ends up going off on their own
rudolf eventually finds cb and they have a deep conversation about teio and how they've ruined her chances to ever have a normal squirrel life so they're going to have to make this marriage work
cb asks rudolf why she's really mad at ace because she knows rudolf thought the murder attempt was hot
rudolf admits she isn't sure she wants to be an uma, because as a horse ppl actually like her, and what if she turns back and she just goes back to being the same as she was before
cb convinces her to change back
polyamory ftw, baby
this was supposed to be a shitpost why do i actually want to write this crackfic now
Any Umamusume fans here??? tho now my fixation isn't as strong as it used to be but i still adore the characters and the anime is just peak (especially the movie and Cinderella Grey)
New Tracen survey reports 82% of male trainers responded to the statement "I probably wish I was born an Umamusume but I have a job so idrc about that rn" with "Strongly Agree."
The worldbuilding of Uma Musume is so fascinating because the developers absolutely don’t want to explore or think about the broader implications of this rare separate group of superhuman third-gendered horse girls, they are solely interested in telling the stories of race horses as anime girls. But that doesn’t mean the worldbuilding implications aren’t there.
They’re anatomically almost identical to regular humans, but they have absurd physical capabilities that is inexplicable considering how their legs are anatomically identical to human legs. Despite having been around for seemingly as long as human civilization has been, medical knowledge on Umamusume is quite limited, which might be because they are implied to be a small percentage of the population. Umas are given different opportunities from regular humans, and are largely encouraged to become racers, as being “born to run” is supposedly their life’s purpose. The anime shows us that Special Week grew up in a rural area where there were no other umas but her, and when she gets to Tracen Academy she has trouble keeping up with lessons because she’s never been in a class with anyone else before. This could imply that umas, even those in areas where there aren’t any other umas around, receive different education from regular humans (or simply that she was homeschooled). Umas are always depicted going to all-uma schools, but once again these depictions are racing focused so it could just be that these are the umas who are pursuing racing careers, and that other umas are at regular schools.
But not all umas become athletes, some of them live seemingly normal lives, but no uma media is interested in them so they’re all background characters. They age differently from humans, which is because they are gacha game characters based on horses spanning at least 5 decades of horse races racing history. But they can seemingly only race at the highest level for about as long as real life race horses can. The 3 seasons of the anime imply that after they retire from the twinkle series there’s a separate dream trophy league that they race in once they’re past their prime, but I don’t believe the game or the later animated uma material mention it.
One thing I find especially strange is the way umas of different ages are and aren’t depicted. Uma ages are intentionally nebulous for the playable characters. Young umas can be seen sometimes, especially in Road to the Top, training to race in a fashion I imagine is similar to ordinary kids playing sports, they are “born to run” after all. What’s rarer is the few places where clearly-adult umas are shown. They’re primarily shown to be moms of young umas, there aren’t a lot of them depicted outside of that context.
What I find most strange is that the positions of authority over racing umas are exclusively depicted to be non-uma humans. There are no retired umas who go on to become trainers of younger umas and none of the teachers in the schools the umas go to are umas. Symboli Rudolph is the highest figure of authority any uma is depicted as having, and she’s the (eternal) student council president of Tracen Academy. She is referred to as the emperor because of her extraordinarily dominant racing career, but even though everyone respects her and her position in uma matters, in Cinderella Gray when she’s trying to get the URA (Umamusume Racing Association) to change their rules to allow Oguri Cap to race in the classics, she has to meet with the head of the URA, a normal human woman. They seemingly don’t even have representation of uma interests at the very association that decides the rules their races follow. I would expect retired race umas to be involved in the URA, the training of younger umas, the organizing and running of racing events. Look at basically any sport and the commentators will usually be retired pros, but no umas are ever involved in that either. This is tied to the ambiguity of their ages, but it still seems strange, and paints a picture of the society in Uma Musume valuing them exclusively for their abilities to run and nothing else. In season 2 when you watch Tokai Teio struggle with her injuries and refuse to accept that she’ll never race again, I couldn’t help but think that it’s no wonder she’s so desperate not to give up racing, that’s seemingly the only thing that umas are valued for in society.
Again, none of this is what you’re supposed to think about. It’s supposed to be an entertaining sports game/show about famous race horses being anime girls. But with it being entirely the unintentional result of decisions made solely for the purpose telling the stories they want to tell with little interest in the broader implications their decisions, it ends up creating fascinating results, many of which paint a bit of a darker picture of the world of Uma Musume than what it wants to be.
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