Recently the Uma Musume mobile game finally came out in the west and it is getting A LOT of attention from Nerdom. What with its horse girl waifus, mechanics and so forth. But it had been out elsewhere for a good number of years, and had several anime series. Today we’re looking at what became my surprise hit of the last season, its spin off, Cinderella Gray.
To explain what Uma Musume is… would take too much time and fortunately this anime doesn’t linger on it, it’s not really about that. Short version you’re in a world where famous race horses are waifus now. They like to race and if they come first they get to do a concert. There’s probably a more elaborate explanation going into depth but that’s all I really noticed or was gone into in the spin off.
Cinderella Gray is the story of Oguri Cap (yes named after a real racing horse just like all the major girls in this show) with her journey from the Kasamatsu Tracen Academy to eventually the nationals and why she got the nickname “the Beast” as well as her friend Berno Light. Essentially it’s a sports anime about horse racing, just the racers are horse girls rather than jockeys on horses. It’s generally very easy to follow, you may scratch your head about some details like why in the high end races does everyone wear pretty dresses? Why does the winner of a race do an Idol concert? But the flow of the character story is very easy to follow.
The first half of the anime follows Oguri’s time at Kasamatsu and gives us bits about her childhood. Such as the detail on how as a little girl her knees were so weak she couldn’t walk, as well as glimpses of her mother (baby horse girls are adorable). To her, just being able to race is a thrill, so fortunately she turns out to be really good at it thanks to how strong she has become because of working to overcome those earlier weaknesses. Her trainer is Jo Kitahara who is based on the story of the real horse’s original trainer being the first to notice Oguri’s strength while the others are all focused on Fujimasa March the ace of the academy who is Oguri’s rival for the first half.
It’s not a “Oguri wins always” story either, set backs occur and she feels the sting of defeat while also being a massive eater (yes she has that joke going for her). It’s hard to get the right words out on why I enjoyed this. Perhaps like the people who “thought” they were bullying Oguri at the start, she won me over and I want you to experience it like I did, a major reason I’m not talking about the second half of the series since I’m leaving that for you to experience. It’s one of those series that you’re bound to start gravitating towards one of the characters as a favourite. It did sweep a lot of the “best characters of the season” polls after all.
So fear not anyone worried about horse girls singing in pretty dresses. This isn’t an anime about that. This is an anime about someone coming from the regionals to the nationals, overcoming perceptions and presumptions based on appearances. So sit back and experience the thrill of the race… and try to resist buying Oguri Merch.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
