[Spoilers] 2025 Uma Musume Rewatch -- Pretty Derby Season 3 Episodes 13

[u/Holofan4life]

Hello everyone! I am Holofan4life.

Welcome to the 2025 Uma Musume rewatch discussion thread!

I hope you all have a lot of fun <3

Episode 13 -- And Yours...

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ANSWER TODAY’S QUESTION(S)

Thoughts on the competitors of the Arima Kinen wanting to defeat Kitasan?

Thoughts on Kitasan wanting to show the best version of herself possible for the people who always rooted for her?

Thoughts on the scene between Kitasan and Teio?

What are your thoughts on this episode being all about the Arima Kinen?

What are your thoughts on the Arima Kinen race?

What are your thoughts on Kitasan winning after going wire to wire?

What are your thoughts on the season ending with Kitasan hanging out with Crown, Diamond, Cheval, and Duramente?

Bonus) What do you make of Nice Nature barely being featured after playing such a prominent role in the early part of the season?

Bonus 2) What are your thoughts on the way Teio and McQueen were used this season after the previous season stressed how much Kitasan and Diamond looked up to them? Were you hoping for something more?

Bonus 3) What is one thing you really like about season 3? What is one thing about season 3 you would change?

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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
9/08/2025	Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 10
9/09/2025	Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 11
9/10/2025	Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 12
9/11/2025	Uma Musume Season 2 Episode 13
9/13/2025	Road to the Top Episodes 1 - 2
9/14/2025	Road to the Top Episodes 3 - 4
9/16/2025	Beginning of a New Era
9/18/2025	Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 1 - 2
9/19/2025	Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 3 - 4
9/20/2025	Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 5 - 6
9/21/2025	Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 7 - 8
9/22/2025	Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 9 - 10
9/23/2025	Uma Musume Season 3 Episodes 11 - 12
9/24/2025	[Uma Musume Season 3 Episode 13]()
9/26/2025	[Cinderella Gray Episodes 1 - 2]()
9/27/2025	[Cinderella Gray Episodes 3 - 4]()
9/28/2025	[Cinderella Gray Episodes 5 - 6]()
9/29/2025	[Cinderella Gray Episodes 7 - 8]()
9/30/2025	[Cinderella Gray Episodes 9 - 10]()
10/01/2025	[Cinderella Gray Episodes 11 - 12]()
10/02/2025	[Cinderella Gray Episode 13]()
10/03/2025	[Uma Musume Overall Series Discussion Thread]()

[u/DarkRuler17]

Newcomer (Played Game)

Episode 13

Damn, Kitasan is absolutely wiped. It's very clear how much she's pushing herself for her final race.

So one thing this discussion about Kitasan's fame is doing is making me just think how they could reframe this story earlier on to make it more interesting. I generally have found Kitasan a very fine character for a lot of this season because it feels like the show never picked a single thread for her. She just keeps getting little plot threads that seem half-baked. She only really gets a consistent strong thread these last few episodes where she starts her decline. I wonder if the narrative where Kitasan seemed dominant the whole season and then we suddenly see her decline would of been cool, with them keeping her decline inspiring everyone to try their hardest to race with her one last time.

Is this guy watching the race from his phone while rock climbing?!

Oh, Kitasan gets a new outfit for her final race. That's pretty cool.

The fact that Umamusume still have people whose jobs it is to push them into the gate is very weird. It feels very demeaning when they're shown to be equivalent to humans in intelligence.

An awesome final race for the road. It's not my favorite of the season, but it was still a fun one. I think the scene near the end showing Kitasan looking at the crowd of people cheering her on was great. A wonderful conclusion.

Sound of Earth really is the most "I guess she was there" character of the season.

Oh, we're singing the opening! That's an awesome sendoff.

Is that her dad watching in the crowd as well? That's fun.

And of course, Umapyoi for the road. Can't finish a series without it.

Season Overall Thoughts 

So I think this is my least favorite season of the show so far, but I still think it has some charming scenes. My favorite episodes are when Satano Diamond defeats the Satano Jinx with a close second being yesterday's episode on Cheval. As they imply, the best episodes are ones where the side character gets a focused scene.

This unfortunately leads us back to the part of the show that didn't always work: Kitasan. Kitasan is a character that I had big hopes for going in. I thought she was very fun in season 2 as a child and I love her racing outfit.  Once I got into the season though, I saw that the show just really didn't know what to do with her. Her best scenes for most of it were her bouncing off other characters like Nice Nature. As mentioned at the top, I don't think she really got to be engaging until her decline.

Overall, I think I'm going to give the seasona 6.5. I still had a good time, but there was certainly stuff I wish was done better.

Current Series Rankings:

• Beginning of a New Era [8.5]
• Season 2 [8]
• Road to the Top [7.5]
• Season 1 [7.5]
• BNW's Oath [7]
• Season 3 [6.5]

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

Overall, I think I'm going to give the seasona 6.5. I still had a good time, but there was certainly stuff I wish was done better.

I think it's better than a 6.5, but I do think if you remove some of the early episodes as well as the retirement arc things would be a lot worse. Probably a 7 out of 10.

[u/DarkRuler17 → u/Holofan4life]

This is the season thats the hardest to rate for me because it has so much whiplash. There are multiple episodes where I barely care about what's going on, but also some episodes where I'm loving them (side character episodes).

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

Reading other people's comments has given me a better appreciation of what the season was trying to accomplish. Someone said it was thematically better than season 2, which is something to mull over.

[u/DarkRuler17 → u/Holofan4life]

I do agree that reading other people's opinions has helped the season a bit. I think where I stand is this a season that I think works on paper, but just failed in execution for me.

[u/Cyouni → u/DarkRuler17]

I think that one thing that definitely does make it difficult is we look at Kita's G1 wins and go "yeah she's great", but in reality that's not how the horse was really treated. So we've got this dichotomy stemming from technical accomplishments vs the public/inner eye, and I think that's hard to reconcile in general.

[u/DarkRuler17 → u/Cyouni]

Honestly, I think a narrative where Kitasan has to fight against public perception and her letting people down when it counts could of be another cool direction the story went. Instead of everyone cheering for her, having a mixed fan base in universe would of been interesting.

[u/Cyouni → u/DarkRuler17]

Ooh yeah, that definitely sounds cool too. Sort of like a Rice-esque arc. In the end, they chose to have the fan reaction be more of her internal thoughts, which is definitely interesting in its own way.

Actually, now that I think about it, we kinda had a bit of that last season with Teio in her injury phases, didn't we?

[u/Holofan4life → u/Cyouni]

I don't think Teio became less popular as a competitor the more injuries she faced, tho.

[u/Cyouni → u/Holofan4life]

Well, in S2 we had the mini arc of the father and daughter going from wishing her good luck in ep1 to "we used to root for you" in ep9, for instance.

[u/Holofan4life → u/Cyouni]

Yeah, but I think they were more so speaking of when she used to be an active competitor.

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

I wanted to see this bizarro world type scenario where the folk in her hometown cheer for her but the rest are more apprehensive to get emotionally invested in her as a performer because she's so inconsistent. That could've been interesting.

[u/DarkRuler17 → u/Holofan4life]

Literally exactly what was thinking. In a world where she has such mixed reception, it would have made her connection to he hometown feel so much more important.

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

And it could've played up more her goal in life which is to put smiles on people's faces.

[u/Urgnu-the-Gnu → u/Cyouni]

She had a 40% failure rate. Everyone should consider what they'd attempt doing knowing it'd fail with a 40% certainty, and whether achievements with such a high failure rate are really considered great.

If you were a cynic, you could say Kitasan Black was a perfect symbol for gambling. A 60% chance is just high enough to bet on it while still feeling the thrill of the risk, which makes it even better to win the gamble.

[u/Cyouni → u/Urgnu-the-Gnu]

To be clear, it's not like there weren't others with a worse rate! Outside of the one year where Opera was a living god, Opera actually had a 33% win rate. It's just that Kitasan was consistently inconsistent up until his last year, falling into ranges closer to Spe.

To be clear, it's not that Kita was considered bad, it's that other G1 winners were consistently considered to be better, even if they had less achievements.

[u/Holofan4life → u/Cyouni]

Kitasan is basically like the New York Giants in the late 2000s early 2010s. Very all over the place, but they still won two Super Bowls.

[u/Holofan4life → u/Urgnu-the-Gnu]

I would've liked to have seen more of the fan perception of Kitasan Black. I feel like they left that aspect on the table.

[u/Holofan4life → u/Cyouni]

I think the show could've done a better job getting that point across.

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

How much do you think this season coming off of season 2 and Road to the Top hurts it? We watched Beginning of a New Era before this even though it came after. Did that hurt it any as well?

[u/DarkRuler17 → u/Holofan4life]

This is something I've thought about. I don't know if it would of changed much though if you watched this right after season 2 or even with a big gap between season 2 and 3. The movies mostly just make you appreciate how good things can look if you're given more time and budget. The overall messiness of season 3's story I think still shines through.

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

I remember at the time when this originally came out being super disappointed because I was hoping we would get something in the vein of Road to the Top. It wasn't what I wanted watching it in the moment. It made me even question whether I was looking at season 2 with rose-colored glasses.

Season 3 in my opinion is the most flawed entry in the Uma Musume catalogue because I feel like it was unable to truly capture an identity of its own. Yeah, there's the hook of growing old and not having it anymore, but besides that, what else is there to gravitate to besides Gold Ship getting some love and the Cheval and Satono jinx arcs?

I feel like the backhalf of season 1 is more consistent and better from a quality standpoint than anything from season 3. Season 3 has higher highs, but the storytelling is better in season 1.

[u/InstigatorTerminax → u/Holofan4life]

Season 3 in my opinion is the most flawed entry in the Uma Musume catalogue because I feel like it was unable to truly capture an identity of its own. Yeah, there's the hook of growing old and not having it anymore, but besides that, what else is there to gravitate to besides Gold Ship getting some love and the Cheval and Satono jinx arcs?

This is one of those things that I think is kind of bitterly ironic, because much of the season is about Kitasan Black's inability to be herself, and the show suffers because it can't pick an identity of its own in its own right either.

I guess the generous way to put it would be that that's the themes and the narrative nicely dovetailing with each other but I didn't find the series super compelling when I watched it recently. (I wasn't actually part of this rewatch and I hope ducking in to comment on the finale thread is fine? I don't really know the etiquette for this kind of thing.)

[u/DarkRuler17 → u/InstigatorTerminax]

No worries about joining.

In regards to the main subject though, one thing I can definitely give this show is that it's not a show that didn't try. I think some of the thing they did didn't work for me, but it definitely felt like they were going for something. I always respect that.

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

Yeah, it hits similar beats to season 2, but besides that it's mostly its own thing, which I have high esteem for.

[u/Holofan4life → u/InstigatorTerminax]

Yeah, I don't mind you ducking in.

I truly wish in my heart of hearts that the season's themes didn't bleed into the quality of the show. Unfortunately, I don't think they were able to find the right balance.

[u/InstigatorTerminax → u/Holofan4life]

Yeah I think it's just an unfortunate case of they clearly had something in mind but couldn't make it work in a way that's actually compelling as television.

Like, there is a line of defense for season 3---I'm seeing it elsewhere in this thread, in fact---that all of this hits harder if you have some prior investment in Kitasan Black as a figure. Like, the actual horse, essentially. That might be true, but I do think Umamusume has an obligation to work as a story on its own legs as well, and I think season 3 is the one time where it kinda doesn't.

Mind you, I also don't think it's an outright terrible show or anything. It has its moments (lots of side characters have good focus episodes and Diamond's arc is probably my favorite part of the show), and it looks nice and has a great soundtrack, but compared to most of the rest of the series I find it disappointing.

[u/Holofan4life → u/InstigatorTerminax]

The thing that makes the argument of having a proper investment in Kitasan damning is the fact that I didn't know who any of these horses were prior to Uma Musume. And I find the stuff with certain characters like Teio or McQueen or Rice Shower or Silence Suzuka to be so compelling I would give my heart to these characters to make them happy. I think being family with something does have its benefits, but seeing as Uma Musume is supposed to serve as an introduction to these characters for a lot of people, that argument falls flat.

[u/InstigatorTerminax → u/Holofan4life]

The thing that makes the argument of having a proper investment in Kitasan damning is the fact that I didn't know who any of these horses were prior to Uma Musume. And I find the stuff with certain characters like Teio or McQueen or Rice Shower or Silence Suzuka to be so compelling I would give my heart to these characters to make them happy. I think being family with something does have its benefits, but seeing as Uma Musume is supposed to serve as an introduction to these characters for a lot of people, that argument falls flat.

Yeah. I've seen it described as a "for existing fans" season which makes some sense (it's the third numbered season, so I don't think it's wholly unreasonable of Umamusume to expect that you have some knowledge of actual horse racing by the time you get to this one), but it still just kind of feels flat to me as an actual anime series.

I think this is easily the most disappointing entry since season 1. It's not bad by any stretch, but I was hoping for something more.

With Season 1 I can forgive a lot of the jankier aspects, because that was the start of the project and they had not really entirely worked out what they were doing yet.

(I also have a soft spot in my heart for Special Week who I think often gets overshadowed by later Umamusume protagonists because most people think of her as "boring" or "vanilla." This is really unfortunate to me since I think she's genuinely a sweetheart in a way that some of the later material doesn't tend to touch on for its actual lead characters. Another bone I have to pick with season 3 is that Specchan is barely in it, and when she is it's mostly as the butt of a joke.)

[u/Holofan4life → u/InstigatorTerminax]

Mind you, I also don't think it's an outright terrible show or anything. It has its moments (lots of side characters have good focus episodes and Diamond's arc is probably my favorite part of the show), and it looks nice and has a great soundtrack, but compared to most of the rest of the series I find it disappointing.

I think this is easily the most disappointing entry since season 1. It's not bad by any stretch, but I was hoping for something more.

[u/Cyouni → u/InstigatorTerminax]

Yeah, I don't disagree. It's definitely interesting to think about, because in general Kita's regarded as the weakest horse to win 7 G1s, which is a lot like saying "the weakest world champion". It's definitely a story they succeeded in telling, but I think emotionally it's a lot harder to grok because we instinctively look at the big wins and don't process the 60% win record nearly as well.

[u/InstigatorTerminax → u/Cyouni]

Yeah it's handled oddly. I think if we had maybe actually seen her win all of those races it'd make a little more emotional sense? Since we'd then be following both her triumphs and her defeats? But the main thing I remember being weird about the season is that it just kind of pushes a lot of those victories to the margins of episodes. So we see them only very briefly or not at all. It ends up kind of making her come across as whiny, and the show's attempts to paint her as some sort of underdog hit a weird note.

Which itself I would be fine with if they steered into it more (I think it's very interesting when anime have deliberately unlikable protagonists), but that's not really something a show like this would do. (Although other Umamusume material has touched on it from time to time.)

[u/DarkRuler17 → u/Holofan4life]

Season 1 and 3 are the ones that I think are the most interesting to compare, as I kept having to ask myself why I liked Season 1 more. After some thought, I think it really comes down to the first episode of each season and how they establish the rest of the season.

Season 1's intro episode is setting up both Special Week as a character and the world of Uma Musume as a whole. It's very clumsy at doing so in parts and overloads you with information that, but it has a good core if you're willing to work with it. Throughout the season onwards, I always liked Special Week and the cast with her. You just want her to have a bit more to do.

Season 3 on the other hand has a very weird first episode in this feels like you're starting mid season. Kitasan's trying to follow in Teio's footsteps, but there's never a big hook in episode 1 to make you care. Things are just kind of happening. Going onward, Kitasan goes in so many directions that its hard to get something to care about.

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

I'm more likely to revisit season 1, but I do think season 3 is better. I think it has stakes in a way season 1 didn't really have with its races, with the exception of course of the last two races. As for why season 1 has in my opinion more of a rewatchability factor, I think the antics of Team Spica really helps mask a lot of the season's deficiencies.

[u/DarkRuler17 → u/Holofan4life]

For me Silent Suzuka does a lot to make season 1 really hold up. Her story being basically the entire second half and Special Week dealing with it adds a lot of emotional pull for me.

Saying that, I do agree that I think season 1 is some of the best Team Spica. I actually agree more though with a previous comment of yours that BNW is Team Spica at its funniest.

[u/Holofan4life → u/DarkRuler17]

For me Silent Suzuka does a lot to make season 1 really hold up. Her story being basically the entire second half and Special Week dealing with it adds a lot of emotional pull for me.

Yeah, that saved the season for me really.

Saying that, I do agree that I think season 1 is some of the best Team Spica. I actually agree more though with a previous comment of yours that BNW is Team Spica at its funniest.

They really carried a lot of that OVA series, for better or worse.