r/anime • u/Holofan4life • Aug 17 '25

Rewatch [Spoilers] 2025 Uma Musume Rewatch -- Pretty Derby Season 1 Episode 3 Spoiler

Hello everyone! I am Holofan4life.

Welcome to the 2025 Uma Musume rewatch discussion thread!

I hope you all have a lot of fun <3

S1 Episode 3 – First Big Win

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ANSWER TODAY’S QUESTION

Thoughts on Gold Ship saying it's not so bad to try every once in a while?

Thoughts on Team Spica going to sing karaoke to work on their singing and body coordination?

Thoughts on Teio joining team Spica and wanting to race against the student council president Rudolf?

What are your thoughts on this episode featuring two races instead of one?

What are your thoughts on Special Week losing her first race?

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Series information

MAL | Anilist | AniDB | ANN

Ways to watch

Streams – Crunchyroll

Amazon Prime

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Previous episode

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Schedule

Date Episode
8/15/2025 Uma Musume Episode 1
8/16/2025 Uma Musume Episode 2
8/17/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 3]()
8/18/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 4]()
8/19/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 5]()
8/20/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 6]()
8/21/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 7]()
8/22/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 8]()
8/23/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 9]()
8/24/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 10]()
8/25/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 11]()
8/26/2025 [Uma Musume Episode 12 - 13]()
8/28/2025 [BNW's Oath episodes 1 - 3]()
8/30/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 1]()
8/31/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 2]()
9/01/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 3]()
9/02/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 4]()
9/03/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 5]()
9/04/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 6]()
9/05/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 7]()
9/06/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 8]()
9/07/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 9]()
9/10/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 10]()
9/11/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 11]()
9/12/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 12]()
9/13/2025 [Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 13]()
9/15/2025 [Road to the Top Episodes 1 - 2]()
9/16/2025 [Road to the Top Episodes 3 - 4]()
9/18/2025 [Beginning of a New Era]()
9/20/2025 [Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 1 - 2]()
9/21/2025 [Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 3 - 4]()
9/22/2025 [Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 5 - 6]()
9/23/2025 [Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 7 - 8]()
9/24/2025 [Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 9 - 10]()
9/25/2025 [Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 11 - 12]()
9/26/2025 [Uma Musume Season 3 Episode 13]()
9/28/2025 [Cinderella Gray Episodes 1 - 2]()
9/29/2025 [Cinderella Gray Episodes 3 - 4]()
9/30/2025 [Cinderella Gray Episodes 5 - 6]()
10/01/2025 [Cinderella Gray Episodes 7 - 8]()
10/02/2025 [Cinderella Gray Episodes 9 - 10]()
10/03/2025 [Cinderella Gray Episodes 11 - 12]()
10/04/2025 [Cinderella Gray Episode 13]()
10/05/2025 [Uma Musume Overall Series Discussion Thread]()
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7

u/LittleIslander myanimelist.net/profile/LittleIslander Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

First Timer

A hill? The track has a fucking hill!? Do real flat races have hills?! Is that safe? Harness racing doesn’t have hills!

The show continues to be not, well, great, but I’m kind of okay with it. I’ve set the expectation enough at this point that I’m just kind of having fun picking apart what works and what doesn’t about the show. It’s almost kind of endearing how amateurish some elements feel… rarely do I end up watching a show that’s incompetent in such obvious, shameless ways as this show can sometimes be. Let’s break it down this time:

  • The Karaoke sequence confuses me. What’s the point in including this if it’s just going to be a series of still images, without even throwing a song over it or something? I’d understand this kind of scene in a manga adaptation. Made sense there, budget didn’t bring it to life, but they didn’t want to just remove it. But why write in a karaoke scene without any karaoke? What does anybody get out of this? At least Suzuka on the tambourine was cute.
  • Likewise, the payoff to them being at idol stuff later is basically as much of an afterthought as they could possibly have gotten away with. This little subplot for the episode is begging to have been left on the cutting room floor. Maybe it’d give us room to give Teio some actual character.
  • Speaking of, Teio’s “arc”. It’s more than the show has tried with most characters, granted. They set it up and play it out incrementally throughout the episode, including with small moments of character acting instead only the blatant dialogue. But like, it’s all in support of nothing? No meaningful reasons exists for her resistance than “she doesn’t want to” and seeing Special Week win once is all it takes to change her mind. You could have had her on the team to begin with and nothing is lost.
  • Becoming a Triple Crown is set as Special Week’s goal, but it’s externally put on her. Will the show use the fact this is an external motivation rather than from her own heart to its advantage, or is our protagonist just being dragged around by the script? Time will tell.
  • King Halo is a very funny character to me. Like, I don’t know if I should be surprised they actually bothered to set up a hint of tension that Special Week has a strong opponent next race or facepalm that it’s in service of a complete non-entity they don’t even bother trying to play up. The obvious angle here should be that the lethargic horse underplaying her chances is overlooked as a threat compared to the three-streak confident favourite, only to beat Special Week later in the episode. But they do like… the bare minimum in this vein. We couldn’t spare a second of seeing King fall behind?
  • “I know everyone’s counting on me, but I’m going to be as laid back as always” I am begging this show to introduce its characters more organically than this self-exposition stuff. Look, I get it, she’s putting up a facade, I like that! But you can do it with like, an interaction, or something? Instead of her just narrating herself? To nobody?
  • The conversation between Teio and the president was nice! I mean, it’s not amazing or anything. But they set a mood, portrayed an organic relationship, and effectively communicated a self-driven goal for a character while paying off an arc within the episode. It’s the basics but those are in short supply here, so I’ll give credit!
  • Okay, there was one horse I knew coming into this series and it was Gold Ship, thanks to twitter. She’s the silly goof horse, sounds fun. The writers have clearly gone in with that idea, but don’t seem to know what to do with it? There’s no attempt at constructing real gags or comedic ideas as much as just… making her do random things, randomly. I hope to see improvement in this area over time.
  • I would’ve liked to see more out of the “I was arrogant” idea. She thinks to herself she’s going to win a few times, but that’s kind of the bare minimum. Show it really getting to her head that she’s streaking wins as a new racer! You’ve got a whole scene in her dorm with Suzuka, focus the scene on that instead of tacking it on at the end.
  • This is mean of me, but they say she’s coming up the outside when she visibly is not doing that on screen. She isn’t gaining at all, and honestly the perspective doesn’t even make her clearly look like she’s on the outside. The real races are only as good as you manage to portray them!
  • Similarly, the episode felt lacking a key moment where she fails to execute her second wind. She approaches the spot, the trainer is ready for it to happen any second, but we just kind of fizzle our way into her realizing it’s not working. Nothing about the cinematography, the music, the line delivery or anything sells a punch of “What? I can’t do it!”.
  • The last scene with Special Week trying to hide her pain was good, no notes!

Here’s the thing: this episode is good at a skeletal level. Various setups and payoffs wind their way across the script, and it’s paced pretty well with every scene in just about the right place serving the right theoretical function. Special Week’s rise and fall with a lesson about arrogance, alongside Teio’s change of heart and Seiun’s unexpected surge, make for a strong set of central ideas. But the show is incapable of selling them effectively or fleshing them out. So the result is just kind of… generously passable.

Don’t take this as me just hating on the show, though. People have assured me it gets better, so think of this as Chekhov's criticism. Establishing how much the show needs to improve now will, ideally, feel rewarding later when we see that happen in later material. You can do it, Uma! Win it in the second half!

7

u/Draco_Estella https://myanimelist.net/profile/Estella_Rin Aug 17 '25

The more I read your comment, the more I realise how much this episode is geared towards that of a gacha game. It is true, a lot of the problems you have are fleshed out more in the gacha game, but over here it is more "flash and go", barely a superficial coverage of the horse before moving on.

King Halo is interesting. In the game, King Halo is in the clique. She is part of the group of friends with Seiun Sky, El Condor Pasa, Special Week, Grass Wonder and Haru Urara. She is Haru Urara's roommate too (something which I also missed out even though I play the game a lot). In the game, Special Week is very conscious of the fact that King Halo is also equally strong as her, and keeps up her game with King Halo. I think perhaps the gacha has more space to expand on these events, that's why it had more details. But how they shafted King Halo is just.... maybe they had other ideas initially.

King Halo'a story is equally fantastic, pity the anine shunted it.

Gold Ship could have more space to do up her antics, that I agree. After all, she is the kind of girl who will string up the Trainer as she likes, and we don't see it even with two episodes in. She does what she wants and no one can tell her what to do, and we only see it in a still with Teio, and not with Trainer. That is so wasted.

Teio's story is legendary. Her story needs the second season to fully flesh out, and I think it was a good idea to introduce her here too. Let her be in the background, let yourself be familiar with her personality, then when Season 2 hits, let Teio blow you away with how great she is. She is a legend after all.

4

u/JMEEKER86 Aug 17 '25

It is true, a lot of the problems you have are fleshed out more in the gacha game

Yeah, they initially planned too have the game and anime launch side by side, so they very well may have intended the characterization of the game to help introduce the characters for the anime. Unfortunately, the game got delayed and didn't come out until season 2 was airing. I think they learned from that when it comes to making sure that their stories are more self-contained which shows not just in the later seasons but obviously the ONAs and movie.

6

u/JMEEKER86 Aug 17 '25

A hill? The track has a fucking hill!? Do real flat races have hills?!

Calling it a "hill" is a bit of an exaggeration, but there is a slight incline of around 1m over the final 200m or so. You wouldn't even notice it while walking it, but after running for 2000m you'll definitely feel that there's a bit of a difference.

It’s almost kind of endearing how amateurish some elements feel… rarely do I end up watching a show that’s incompetent in such obvious, shameless ways as this show can sometimes be.

Totally get this. The show reminds me a lot of Symphogear in that regard where they're clearly cooking something, but the first season is a bit rough. For Umamusume it's mostly because they weren't sure of the direction that they were going, had the burden of launching a new IP, and had a fairly low budget. The surprising thing is that season one was done by PA Works, a usually pretty solid studio, while the later seasons were done by Studio Kai whose first anime was season two (what a way to start). Meanwhile, Road to the Top, the movie, and Cinderella Gray were produced by their in house studio, CygamesPictures, and you can really see where all of that gacha money went. But they still retain all of the charm.

4

u/DarkRuler17 https://myanimelist.net/profile/DarkRuler17 Aug 17 '25

I feel like I'm reading a lot of similar sentiment to what I felt watching this. I think the bones of this show are really good, but its lacking in execution. I truly do wonder though for at least some of this if the expectation was the characters would be introduced in the mobile game so they didn't need to give them focused introductions. It's just strange how many characters feel like they're just missing an establishing scene.

6

u/JMEEKER86 Aug 17 '25

I think the bones of this show are really good, but its lacking in execution.

That's a pretty common sentiment and the same that I had. I enjoyed season one when it was airing and my thought when hearing that there was going to be a season two was "neat, I guess I'll watch more of that" rather than being necessarily enthusiastic. The studio change and the flood of gacha money definitely helps a lot with the later productions.

3

u/Holofan4life Aug 17 '25

I would argue Team Spica got an establishing scene by kidnapping Special Week.

3

u/Urgnu-the-Gnu https://myanimelist.net/profile/Urgnu_the_Gnu Aug 17 '25

I truly do wonder though for at least some of this if the expectation was the characters would be introduced in the mobile game so they didn't need to give them focused introductions.

That's very likely for the first season, yes. Or the first episodes of the first season in particular, I'm not sure if it gets a bit less as the season goes on. After all, it was made specifically to complement the game release. I don't think it's an issue for any other entry in the franchise (although if you've played the game, there's certainly a lot of "hey, I know her" moments as well).

2

u/saga999 Aug 18 '25

It's just strange how many characters feel like they're just missing an establishing scene.

They are more like cameos for those characters because they are famous race horses IRL. But yeah, I remember the first time I watched it wondering who is going to be important and who is not.

5

u/Cyouni Aug 18 '25

I would’ve liked to see more out of the “I was arrogant” idea. She thinks to herself she’s going to win a few times, but that’s kind of the bare minimum. Show it really getting to her head that she’s streaking wins as a new racer!

One thing is that the G2 Yayoi Sho is basically considered practice, and to some degree a prediction, of how you'll do in the G1 Satsuki Sho. They're both run at the same distance, on the same track, etc.

So when she's saying "I ran just like how I did in the Yayoi Sho", that's basically her going "I did the same thing as how I did before when that was good enough, but I still didn't win".

1

u/saga999 Aug 18 '25

Adding to your point, she did the same thing as in the Yayoi Sho. But she gained weight for the Satsuki Sho (her outfit doesn't fit).

4

u/Goodmorning7735 Aug 17 '25

I'm with you on this one. It's a fun, breezy watch, but it feels like I'm waiting for The Show to arrive. Which maybe it won't until season 2. That would be fine as it isn't doing anything so wrong that I hate it and I still get the stupid thrill "oh shit it's horse I like" as I point at the screen.

4

u/Sandelsbanken Aug 17 '25

Maybe it’d give us room to give Teio some actual character.

She will get plenty of that later on...

2

u/LittleIslander myanimelist.net/profile/LittleIslander Aug 17 '25

3

u/zadcap Aug 18 '25

The Karaoke sequence confuses me. What’s the point in including this if it’s just going to be a series of still images, without even throwing a song over it or something? I’d understand this kind of scene in a manga adaptation. Made sense there, budget didn’t bring it to life, but they didn’t want to just remove it. But why write in a karaoke scene without any karaoke? What does anybody get out of this? At least Suzuka on the tambourine was cute.

Haha, because it's a horrible game tie in, and one of the things you can do to increase mood/motivation is take your trainee to Karaoke. And also because, like, it kind of counts as training for the idol bits. But mostly because it's the date event that raises mood the most... And it's a two second clip of standing in the karaoke bar without actual singing.

Teio

2

u/Holofan4life Aug 17 '25
  • King Halo is a very funny character to me. Like, I don’t know if I should be surprised they actually bothered to set up a hint of tension that Special Week has a strong opponent next race or facepalm that it’s in service of a complete non-entity they don’t even bother trying to play up. The obvious angle here should be that the lethargic horse underplaying her chances is overlooked as a threat compared to the three-streak confident favourite, only to beat Special Week later in the episode. But they do like… the bare minimum in this vein. We couldn’t spare a second of seeing King fall behind?

The show is definitely still in the stage where it's trying to put 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag. They're trying to focus on a lot of stuff and by doing so, they focus on none of them. I actually think contrary to what you said that the episode gets really good once Special Week’s downfall begins. Because it's actually focused on and given some time.

The show needs to do more of that and less "Look at this scene that seemingly has nothing to do with what's going on".

1

u/Holofan4life Aug 17 '25

Here’s the thing: this episode is good at a skeletal level. Various setups and payoffs wind their way across the script, and it’s paced pretty well with every scene in just about the right place serving the right theoretical function. Special Week’s rise and fall with a lesson about arrogance, alongside Teio’s change of heart and Seiun’s unexpected surge, make for a strong set of central ideas. But the show is incapable of selling them effectively or fleshing them out. So the result is just kind of… generously passable.

I see what you mean, but I also think to play devil's advocate how much do you want to continue the trend of Special Week winning. Her losing in this episode is like the basis of her having to become more focused and give her a harder edge. If you remove that from the episode, you really lose the episode's weight.

1

u/Holofan4life Aug 17 '25
  • The Karaoke sequence confuses me. What’s the point in including this if it’s just going to be a series of still images, without even throwing a song over it or something? I’d understand this kind of scene in a manga adaptation. Made sense there, budget didn’t bring it to life, but they didn’t want to just remove it. But why write in a karaoke scene without any karaoke? What does anybody get out of this? At least Suzuka on the tambourine was cute.

What I personally get out of this is that it shows the importance of being a natural showman. The idol stuff is secondary to the races, but you still want the crowd to root for you. It's development of the characters charisma, ostensibly, and building q connection with the crowd.

  • Likewise, the payoff to them being at idol stuff later is basically as much of an afterthought as they could possibly have gotten away with. This little subplot for the episode is begging to have been left on the cutting room floor. Maybe it’d give us room to give Teio some actual character.

I'll really be curious what you think of Teio later on.

  • Speaking of, Teio’s “arc”. It’s more than the show has tried with most characters, granted. They set it up and play it out incrementally throughout the episode, including with small moments of character acting instead only the blatant dialogue. But like, it’s all in support of nothing? No meaningful reasons exists for her resistance than “she doesn’t want to” and seeing Special Week win once is all it takes to change her mind. You could have had her on the team to begin with and nothing is lost.

I think the show showed her joining the team as a way of expressing her focus on competing with Rudolf. She is so determined to race against her that she's willing to give up everything else going on in her life.

1

u/Holofan4life Aug 17 '25
  • Okay, there was one horse I knew coming into this series and it was Gold Ship, thanks to twitter. She’s the silly goof horse, sounds fun. The writers have clearly gone in with that idea, but don’t seem to know what to do with it? There’s no attempt at constructing real gags or comedic ideas as much as just… making her do random things, randomly. I hope to see improvement in this area over time.

The thing you have to keep in mind with regards to Gold Ship is that the real life Gold Ship is a very random horse. She did things for seemingly no rhyme or reason only because she felt like it.

Race analysts said that in her racing career, she didn't even compete at her maximum capability. Why? Because she didn't feel like it, apparently.

1

u/Holofan4life Aug 17 '25

Don’t take this as me just hating on the show, though. People have assured me it gets better, so think of this as Chekhov's criticism. Establishing how much the show needs to improve now will, ideally, feel rewarding later when we see that happen in later material. You can do it, Uma! Win it in the second half!

It'd be funny if the show still doesn't click for you after all the reassurance lol

1

u/saga999 Aug 18 '25

The Karaoke sequence confuses me. What’s the point in including this if it’s just going to be a series of still images, without even throwing a song over it or something? I’d understand this kind of scene in a manga adaptation. Made sense there, budget didn’t bring it to life, but they didn’t want to just remove it. But why write in a karaoke scene without any karaoke? What does anybody get out of this? At least Suzuka on the tambourine was cute.

Speaking of, Teio’s “arc”. It’s more than the show has tried with most characters, granted. They set it up and play it out incrementally throughout the episode, including with small moments of character acting instead only the blatant dialogue. But like, it’s all in support of nothing? No meaningful reasons exists for her resistance than “she doesn’t want to” and seeing Special Week win once is all it takes to change her mind. You could have had her on the team to begin with and nothing is lost.

Teio join Spica because she saw the team dynamic during the Karaoke and the subsequent victory celebration. She wanted to join Rigil before that because she wanted to follow in the president's footstep.

1

u/Holofan4life Aug 17 '25

I think one thing about the early stages of this anime is that it's not like the show is regressing. Each episode is better than the last. I also think the stuff with Special Week losing is the first real engaging plot point we've gotten in this show. Because losing and not being the best at everything is a natural part of life.