There have been a whole host of strange trends in anime, with concepts like cat girls and other such hybrids abounding. Perhaps nothing in the anime menagerie is as odd or as purebred, however, as Uma Musume Pretty Derby. Featuring “horse girls,” this multimedia franchise is sure to have even the most ardent otaku scratching their manes in confusion.
Meant to begin life as a video game, Uma Musume instead dashed out of the stable first in manga form. It hasn’t slowed its mustang down ever since, galloping into several different mediums. Here’s more of what the franchise’s inane story is all about, and how viewers and readers can saddle up to enjoy it.
The Plot of Uma Musume
Uma Musume's world is one where race horses are reborn as horse girls, including the protagonists Special Week and Tokai Teio. Though they have the ears and tails of horses, these ladies are otherwise all girl -- besides their particular vocation, of course. Horse girls train to become the fastest mares in the land, while also setting trends as pop culture idols. This makes it something of a sports/music hybrid, one which also happens to star human/horse hybrids.
Along the way to stardom, these pretty little ponies suffer challenges and tragedies as they race to reach their dreams. This is what many of Uma Musume's incredibly wild episodes deal with. There’s also plenty of cute moe antics, taking the idea of “cute girls doing cute things” to a new, barnyard level. These relatively tame shenanigans keep the mostly female cast of characters and their content pretty far from risque, however.
Where to Read the Uma Musume Manga
Though the Uma Musume video game was announced back in 2016, it didn't see a release until 2021. First filling in that gap was the manga, titled Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Haru Urara Ganbaru! by ZECO. This was a short web comic released on the website for Cygames, the developer behind the franchise. It was followed by Starting Gate!: Uma Musume Pretty Derby and Uma Musume Cinderella Gray, the latter of which was released through Weekly Young Jump. Starting Gate! was later collected into four tankobon volumes, while Cinderella Gray so far has three volumes. Cygames’ CyComics site also publishes Umayon by Jet Kuma, which is a four-panel comedy-oriented series.
Unfortunately, for those ready to giddy up to read the Uma Musume manga, they’d better know Japanese. There’s yet to be an official English release for any of the manga, with those on the CyGames website all untranslated. This sadly leaves Western manga readers without much in the way of horsepower.
Where to Watch the Uma Musume Anime
Before the game finally pranced into a release in 2021, Uma Musume was best known for its 2018 anime. This series from P.A. Works ran for 13 episodes, with Studio Kai handling the second season of the same length. There have also been three OVA specials, with more likely on the way given the game’s growing popularity.
The Umayon manga got a short 12-episode anime adaptation, and there’s also the Pakatube! YouTube channel that features the character Golden Ship. Umayon can be enjoyed on Crunchyroll and VRV, with Crunchyroll also hosting both seasons of the Uma Musume series. As of this writing there is no official Western physical release of the series on Blu-ray, so anyone wanting to stampede into a binge watch can do so through streaming media.
