DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME DramaUma Musume: Pretty Derby
ONA DramaUma Musume: Pretty Derby - ROAD TO THE TOP
MOVIE DramaUma Musume: Pretty Derby - ROAD TO THE TOP Movie

REVIEWS

• 

  CosmicCuune

  85/100
  Your gateway drug to the Umamusume Cinematic Universe

  I recommend you watch this as an introduction to the other shows because this movie simply looks unbelievable, one of the horse girls is named after Tachyon a hypothetical particle that travels faster than light. It's one of the best names in the Umamusume Cinematic Universe because not only does the insane sakuga look like she's actually running faster than light, she's also one of the coolest horse girl character concepts, by that I mean I desperately want to get Tachyon action figures or something to play with.

  

  Other characters are also extremely cool, protagonist Jungle Pocket is like an ammeter underground runner turning professional, drastically different from MCs in other series in both origin and personality. Fuji Kiseki is the inspirational horse girl looked up to by the MC like in other shows, again with her own interesting twists. Trainer Tanabe is not very intersting as a character but I love his backstory. You see he's a "legendary" trainer and Fuji Kiseki trusts his skills very much, yet he's never had a derby win. This puts into perspective just how difficult it is to have a derby win, never mind multiple derby wins, which is very important because the TV series is called "Pretty Derby".

  

  BTW I also had to look this up myself, but a "derby" is age-restricted horse race, you have to be exactly 3 years old so there are no do-overs, everyone gets only year to win against all the other best horses in the sport.

  There is unfortunately no deep story or meaning, just your generic "never give up" kind of thing but presented well with a minor twist. However that doesn't matter because you can find plenty of deeper meanings from the rest of UCU shows.

  If you're still not convinced, I too back in 2018 thought horse girls is a desperate attempt to grab a slice of the ship girls gatcha game craze, so I didn't watch it. I couldn't be more wrong, horse girls is a great idea compared to just realistic track&field athlete for many reasons.

  The outfits, it may sound stupid but I love the fancy race outfits. They're totally impractical of course, so they will never work on a realistic setting but they do on horse girls, because Umamusume does not take itself too seriously. These outfits are simply cool to look at and they accentuate the personalities of the characters to excellent effect, even the ones you've never seen until the race, because the outfit tells you a mini story visually.

  The world building is just light hearted fun, for example horse girl traffic lanes!

  

  Horse girls also get various carrot based special dishes which look questionable to me but hey maybe they love it because they're horse girls!

  Even just the physique itself, if you look for a real world 1000m foot race you'll quickly discover they're just jogging most of the time, I'm sure they jog much faster than I can sprint but it's just not very exciting. Horse girls on the other hand are sprinting at superhuman speeds right out of the gate and as mentioned before, go faster than light at the final stretch, just looks way more dramatic.

  

  bonus point for extreme quality of presentation

  
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• 

  kirb5s

  88/100
  uma musume beginning of a new era review in short: damn this is awesome

  what can i even say about this movie. tbh not much, its got amazing animation, good story, solid characters, unique presentation, and the soundtrack is fucking hype. i cannot believe of this level of work that cygames put into this, its geniunely astounding how good this movie. i hope its not going to be too long, but ill try not gush too hard about it. (im totally gonna gush hard about it)

  first up animation, i mean come on. this show is legitimately a 2d animated masterpiece. i cant even describe the levels of work that was put into this. the way they animated the smear frames of the running and impact frames was out of this world. the way characters distort around the outlines is a really neat touch and shows the frenziness and electrifying intensity of the races. nothing short of animated bliss. again this might be too much of a glaze but this is probably top 10 best animated media I’ve seen in the last 15 years. (im not joking)

  alright, time for the plot. they chose some interesting characters yet again to focus on. anges tachyon (sick name), crazed mad scientist looking to unlock potential an umamusume is capable of, manhattan cafe (also a sick name), a gloomy shadowy figure chasing an mysterious invisible uma, dantsu flame, peer friendly girl who often folds at the whims of peer pressure, and then we got our protagonist, jungle pocket, a hungry fighter looking to be the strongest racer ever to touch the track. how they portrayed the feeling reaching unbreakable limits with such powerful direction and writing. especially the conversations with trainer tanabe and fuji kiseki. the entrusting the dreams of someone to another is probably one of my favorite troupe themes in anime and they do it in well crafted, well executed fashion. tachyon is definitely star of this movie without doubt as it creates the driving force of narrative and just being character that exudes this otherworldly charisma (albeit a bit strange). jungle pocket is also an amazing protagonist, maybe a bit too classic of shounen formula personality tree but still great to watch her on screen. her proactiveness to engage with characters and her relationship with the supporting cast makes her a joy to watch and grow as you follow her journey. manhanttan cafe (still a really sick name for a horse) has this kinda presence that i felt maybe could have utilized better, same with danstsu flame (although she kinda feels bland in general so idk what they could of done).

  anyways if you somehow not watched this legendary piece of art, what are you doing stop reading my dumbass review and watch it. and if you already did WATCH IT AGAIN. and if you did that THEN WATCH 10 MORE TIMES. as much as i praise this flim, i do acutally have this slighty lower than season 2 of the main series just because i personally was attached to the conflict of the narrative happening with teio which actually almost made my grown ass cry. so yeah. but im still down to rewatch this throughout my lifetime tbh.

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• 

  sweetamitie

  90/100
  The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal.

  Preamble:

  • I am a new UmaMusu fan. I have friends who have been interested in the series for a while and have osmosis'd some knowledge, and I pre-registered for the English release of Pretty Derby, though I haven't actually opened the app yet.
  • I have also never been to an anime convention before. Anime Expo, where this movie was shown, was my first.

  Praises:

  • English subtitles by Jasmine Li of Cygames America and three editors. I really, really enjoyed them, as a translator myself. They had an incredible amount of spark and passion.
  • Animation was top notch, expected for a theatrical release. Though it really impressed me as a new fan who's never seen UmaMusu animated before.
  • Cinematography was phenomenal, the dramatic parts reminded me a lot of what I enjoyed about Revue Starlight without as much baggage.
    • PARTICULARLY the imagery of prismatic light, through the use of Pokke's necklace and the window decoration in Tachyon's dorm. The metaphor conveyed is really powerful: Fuji acting as a catalyst for Pokke's talent, and then Pokke acting as a catalyst for Tachyon to return to racing, and then back to Fuji too. A prism that reflects and enhances the light shone through it. So good.
  • I appreciate characters like Pokke, Opera O, and Tachyon getting focus the way they do. When it comes to all-female casts, the tropes that those three play into tend to get snubbed by the work. Orekkos, princely bokukkos, and mad scientist freaks in my experience tend to be more "niche" favorites in properties like these. Like yeah, it makes sense for ME to squeal over Opera being cool or Tachyon being unsettling, but it was kind of bizarre to hear EVERYONE ELSE in the audience squealing over them too. It's nice but also incredibly bizarre having an oshi that's actually a popular favorite.
  • Relationships between the girls were really well done. One moment in particular I appreciate is Dantsu getting a moment to shine and show that she IS a worthy rival to Pokke even without Tachyon there. Fuji and Pokke's mentor-pupil relationship with Tanabe was also incredibly wholesome and heartwarming.
    • To that end: YURI NUKE!!!!!!!!!!!! I need these horses to kiss. The chemistry they have in the movie is so (chef's kiss) mwah.
  • Official UmaMusu guidelines prohibiting romance between the horses and trainers, as well as any sexually suggestive content, is a good thing, actually. Shoutsout.

  Theater Experience & Miscellaneous:

  • Thoroughly enjoyable experience. Exceptional movie. I'd watch it a million more times.
  • My friend Lily was also in the theater with me, although unfortunately we couldn't sit together. But she's a bit more invested in new releases and consuming lots of anime properties than I am, and she said that this was possibly one of the best anime movies she's ever seen.
  • The movie screening was held in panel room 403AB. There was a MASSIVE line to get in, easily around or above 500 from what I could glean, and even before the movie started the staff were asking people not to leave until they filled the theater completely. And within the first 10-20 minutes, there were staff opening the doors intermittedly and saying "we have XX seats available" which caused a lot of commotion near the back. 403AB is one of the bigger panel rooms from what I could tell, so it wasn't an awful choice, but I still felt like it would've been better suited for a different venue. Like the third floor ballroom of the JW Marriott that was reserved for the Detective Conan movie screening and was over half empty the entire time lol
  • Lots of clearly longtime fans with merch and plushies and light sticks. Every time there was a cameo of the other non-focus horses the crowd went fucking crazy.
  • Audience was almost too well-behaved, climactic moments I expected to get the crowd going wild had less reaction than I anticipated. It felt like I often had to be one of the first people to cheer and woop before everyone else got the hint.

  Final Thoughts:

  • Will finally be entering the horse girl pit after that movie.
  • This wasn't enough of a complaint to warrant a whole "complaints" section, but I didn't quite gel with the pacing of the races in this movie. This speaks less about UmaMusu race pacing or the movie pacing and more about how I'm relatively unversed in this property. I'll get used to it probably
  • I LOVE YOU TACHYON I LOVE YOU TACHYON I LOVE YOU TACHYON``````
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