Of Furries and Bronies – Uma Musume Pretty Derby Ep 3 (with Cactus Matt)

Cactus Matt and I are continuing our joint watch of Uma Musume Pretty Derby and bickering about it. I’m having a lot more fun discussing the show than watching it! In case there’s any doubt Matt is in Bold! 

And I made it to ep3. Yay! (Not that you had much of a choice, you’re stuck here with me and this silly little show until it ends, or you do, whichever comes first!)

So far, I still can’t see this show as a sports anime. We’ve now seen the girls karaoke practicing their idol routines as much as we’ve seen them practice running, possibly a little more. With the addition of the expected idol costumes, complete with frilly petticoats, corsets, garter belts and high heel pumps for races, it is becoming less likely that the author wanted to share his deep love of running with the world and more likely that someone is trying to tap into the brony Otaku or furry Otaku demographic (or both).

The funny thing is, I’m most definitely neither of those, I’ve made fun of both of those types of people in the past (not that I’m one to talk) but I really see the appeal of these ‘horse girls’, to me it’s just more of an extension of ‘cat girls’ in anime, it’s not really about the horse aspect, it’s just girls that have something different about them that makes them interesting to look at! Although… the fact that they race and there’s a lot of horse-racing centric lore and activities around them means there is an in-universe reason for them being horse girls aside from just making a loose animal human hybrid.

Aren’t cat girls also for light fuzzy fetichists? You know, anyone who thinks the addition of some type of animal feature makes a character design more cute or interesting?

Maybe, though I’m always fond of the animal traits being something less about their appearance and more about their nature. Like in the first episode when Special Week kicks the pervy trainer like a horse would kick someone. Hmm, I feel like we’re getting off track here, no pun intended.

The weird part is, as I was watching the friendship scenes between Spe (yup that’s how the show abbreviated special day, sounds a bit like a bacteria _ I like it) and Silent Suzuka, I was really reminded of another show, more precisely Uta no Prince Sama. In fact there are a lot of similarities. The worst part of most otome adaptation reverse harems is the MC. They are usually bland insipid characters meant to be perfect blank slate audience surrogates. The are so boring. Sometimes they are given a superfluous best friend in an effort to make them seem more fleshed out. At times this show feels like watching a series full of Otome heroines. I don’t think Spe-chan is boring at all, but Silence Suzuka definitely is. I kind of wish like any other of the horse girl side characters were her roommate, but I guess that’d make those quiet scenes in the room together too loud?

She is guys, Spe-chan is super boring….

I was disappointed that a random extra with a leg injury was introduced (that was quick), it seems  they are not in fact shot and made into lube when they can’t run, but I’m still holding out hope. I like that they’re gradually expanding the universe of the show with these little details, like I’m sure it was mentioned for a reason, it might not come up again and maybe it was there to show the sport does cause injuries or maybe Spe-Chan will get an injury before a big race! (Because something like that is bound to happen, either that or she’ll get a dreaded ‘cold’!)

I also see the over eating made a comeback, complete with hilarious distended tummy. It’s less prevalent and much more justified than in the camping show but we’ve now had as many binging scenes as racing ones. I think you may be right Matt, this feels like a fetish. I’m just glad none of the other characters drew attention to it as a negative (even though it’s probably not the best for an athlete to do so – or maybe it is I don’t know anything about sport). But yeah, #bodypositivity?

Wait are you talking about the scene where she looks like a snowman but snaps back into shape a minute later or the fact her skirt didn’t quite fit and kept getting open at the rear end?

Sometimes you eat a lot and your stomach bloats out, but it was more for illustrative purposes than being realistic. I don’t know, I just thought it was good that she likes to eat and no one’s making a big deal out of it (until they do, which the probably will).

I don’t think they will. I think it was a throw away gag and just a busukawaii moment. I really would be surprised if it was plot relevant.

It’s so hard to tell what’s plot relevant in this show! Like so much of it could be foreshadowing things, and some of its obvious like how they keep mentioning the importance of the ‘Eclipse’ saying on the school President’s wall, but so much of it could just be throwaway things that don’t ever come up again. I’d like to pretend like this show had a reason for many of its moments, but I guess it’s too early on to see if it’s a show that wants small moments like the aforementioned ‘eating a lot’ and ‘not quite fitting into her racing costume’ to become plot relevant or just a running gag.

Thank you Dawnstrom for explaining that saying to me! I would NOT have looked it up on my own. I think the costume and the bloating are two seperate things. I can just see the staff room with – we need a cute joke here – let’s make her little tummy all round – guffaws!

I thought the costume being too tight was going to directly affect the race, like her skirt was going to fall off and that would cause her to get embarrassed and run even faster toward the goal, but I guess that’s just me…

I thought it would also come back and have a visible impact of some sort but I guess not yet? Ohhh maybe they’ll go all Degrassi on us and Spe’s pregnant! Man how Canadian can I get?

I’m thinking eventually that other big team is going to get mad about losing all their members to derpy team but everyone is unfailingly sweet and nice so far. Except her eye-patch wearing nemesis! Don’t forget about the nemesis! (Who was nowhere to be seen in this episode, but still).

Nemesis will have a break the haughty moment and become nice too….

There was a nice bonding moment between the coach and Spe after her 3rd place loss, but since it involved a depicted groper alone at night with one of his underrage victims, it was hard to consider it truly heartwarming.

Yeah, I still don’t like him either.

Though speaking of that scene, he says he wishes he trained her harder, I do wonder if that’s going to push this series more in the direction of a sports anime or if we’ll just end up at a training camp that’s conveniently near a beach or a hot springs.

Ohhh I can see that. I guess I’m ok with a training camp but it seems a little early in the season for it.

All in all, I’m either getting numbed or the show is *growing* on me, but I find it increasingly palatable. Don’t get me wrong – literally parading high school girls like show ponies is still a very creepy notion to me and in fact shho ponies are a sad and distasteful notion to me to begin with but the show itself is mostly harmless. It’s a lot less frustrating than Yuru Camp which had some brilliant moments and was obviously put together by very talented people but got bogged down and became difficult to stay awake through if little anime girls aren’t enough to maintain your interest. I figure it’s like watching that shiba inu channel if you don’t care about dogs – must be brain numbing. I can watch it for days….

“Must love cute anime girls” But yeah, the ‘parading high school girls like show ponies’ part, feels the most unnecessary part of the whole transplanting horse-racing tropes to horse girl racing. Also if we’re continuing with comparing real life horse events to the one’s the horse girls partake in, does that mean the Idol shows they perform are like dressage events?

I have never seen dressage… It sounds like one of the signs that humanity has declined though.

It’s like tap-dancing for horses, except a hundred times less interesting.

This show is fluffy superficial fare that errs more on the side of brainless fun that anything particularly unique so its failings seem easier to excuse. No one tell Matt, but I don’t hate it…

Well there’s still 9 episodes left, so plenty of time for that!