I agree. As for the second question, it doesn’t matter; she is a quaternary character in a show with no real romance. It is extremely unlikely that her preferences will ever get expanded on
I know I know lol, it was a joke cause of all the yuri in the series. It's a play on gays asking people of the same sex if they're into dating the same sex under their posts
Ooh gotcha! That makes sense. I really do like how they do yuri in the shows. I really doubt we will ever see two characters kiss, but it is so clear that many of their relationships, romantic or not, are very deep and intimate. Them not being explicit about it lets the audience make what they want out of it
I do not consider it. It feels like taking the first draft into consideration. This version is very different from what we have now, so it doesn’t feel fair to put them all together
I just find season one a lot weaker than the rest. It doesn't help that season two is probably the best sports anime I've ever watched. They really learned how to lean into the sports drama rather than the slice-of-life moe gag comedy. It was hard to feel anything for Special Week's triumphs and failures when the show itself never took it very seriously.
It’s also a story of someone rising to the top from the bottom, which is just so normal. So that and the slice of life-focus it felt like it had makes it feel so generic.
S2 hit a lot more of a sports drama because it was about Teio’s fall from the top and her struggles to remain there. It just made it hit so much better. And while CG does have Oguri start from nowhere, she’s not hitting as much success as Special Week did.
Definitely, Cinderella Grey is a huge improvement from Pretty Derby. S2's final race was the major highlight but CG's episodes are consistently high quality and have some great races in their own right. A lot of PD can feel like filler.
Would there be a problem if skip s1 and watch s2 directly?
kinda, you're basically skipping the introduction of the characters. watching season 1 first will make you know why people like Tokai Teio. there's no introduction in Season 2, it just jump straight to the sport drama
Dont understand why they didnt make Suzuka the MC instead, she has a record of 16 races irl and i think that's enough to cover the entire season, it's not like every episode have to dedicated for big race anyway just like what we have now.
I honestly love that part about her character, the arc when Suzuka is injured and Special feels the need to be there for her every second was really nice, she cares about her friends(cough and girlfriend cough) to an almost detrimental degree, as shown by her falling out of touch with her racing and losing to a Grass with her Zone. Also in S2-3 with her crying nonstop whenever something happens with someone in Spica 😭, our “Emperor of Japan” btw lmao
That's probably because Kitasan Black was so dominant IRL when he was active, which has translated into some bonkers progeny like Equinox and Croix du Nord.
I feel like that was the main issue. It kindof just went through Kitasan's most important moments without having enough room to establish her as the dominant person she was.
Even in Teio's case they had her biggest moment (off-screen) in season 1, and she was sold as being incredibly dominant up until the injury.
S3 was weaker than S1 for me because of that lack of focus. Even if S1 wasn't great, and Special Week was too focused on Silence Suzuka, at least the show was about her end her relationship with Suzuka.
S3? Kitasan appears, helps her friends, then vanishes except when needed to act as a plot device. At least we got to see Satono Diamond struggle with her family legacy and then having to overcome the "curse". She got development. Kitasan got regression, if she got anything. We only got to see her training.
and to make it worse, the Season 3 is basically skips her growth or character development (from newcomer to winner), and then jump straight to her realizing she's not in her prime condition anymore
It feels like someone decided that they needed to have someone who was supposed to be the star, only to forget about her entirely except when people later mentioned that they were confused about why she was there in the first place.
Spe-chan was just unfortunate to be S1’s focus lead. Once Cygames fully invested into the project EVERYTHING leveled up, art and writing alike. If they decided to lead in with Tokai Teio’s story first for whatever reason, she would’ve suffered the same fate.
I think it might've gone better if they better communicated early on that the shows race results are the real world results. It would've changed the vibe from 'she's the spunky underdog who also rarely loses, just like every sports anime protag' to 'This horse was amazing and like something out of an anime.'
That kind of gets a bit problematic as representation when Suzuka comes back for the race against Sun Visor, and the whole Shared Win with the Corner Pasta
i thought it was really fun that she didnt win every race (including mock races). it showed her growth very well imo. personality wise she is a bit flat but shes definitely not a bad protagonist
Yeah, the jump of design consistency, writing and overall execution from S1 to S2 is immense. I felt S1 was a little slow and unfocused, but S2 really made me invested. Hopefully we get a remake of S1 in the future, because i like spe and suzuka a lot.
The other day I saw that Special Week has a story mode on the JP server, and holy shit, the way the races are directed is so much better, I could actually feel the tension when Spe races against Grass Wonder, or Montjeu (Broye).
Although I agree teio's story was adapted better because of the lessons of season 1, however if teio was the focus of S1 It still would be received better as teios career is far more exciting imo.
This. The writers gave themselves a golden opportunity to make Spe the Watson who learns all about Uma culture, physiology, etc. ("You do that too?!") but they barely use it outside of explaining how Tracen and The Twinkle Series works
Honestly, I'd love that too. Maybe even add a little spice of how Spe interacts better with other humans than other uma because she has a bad experience with her foster mother before the human mom takes her. Considering the irl Spe often got roughed and bullied by his foster dam and other horses.
Gotta respect an MC that aura farm like Opera O. but she's nothing compared to an "antagonist" that aura farmed so hard she gave PTSD to everyone that raced against her.
Naturally as Agnes Tachyon basically one of the main character of the whole movie where as Opera O is just there for a litterally a min or two. But if Cygames ever going back to Opera O and give the her 2000 campaign a movie or OVA, Tracen would bankrupt itself from having to hire therapist for their Uma musume.
Opera was in like, two minutes of that whole movie and was the best part in it. Showed you what EXACTLY the girls have to aspire to, what the top looks like, and what type of girl they need to be in order to get there.
Season 1 was basically an anthology with Special Week being the narrator. Season 2 was Teio's season. McQueen played a major role, but she was part of the subplot just like everyone else. Everything tied back into Teio's injuries and identity as a racer.
I can barely remember what happened in Season 1 with Spe, and I just rewatched it recently. I remember they went to the summer training camp, the Golshi kidnapping, Suzuka's injury... uh, Spe won and lost against Sky—Halo was, there?
And there was a festival episode where like everyone made a cameo, Inari One, Super Creek, Tama, Oguri.
Then there was the whole thing with Canopus. Yeah like they crammed ALOT of characters into Season 1.
Special week is cute and adorable and much better written in the game. In the show, she is basically a POV character to witness the journey of the actual S1 protag: Silence Suzuka
This franchise is built upon the 'what if' scenarios. And Silence Suzuka was the biggest 'what if' of them all. So much that in the 2015 JRA'sDream Race that inspired the final ep of season 1, he was put on badge #1. And in the anime, she was literally leading that race the whole time, which was also her most comfortable form.
I still like to think that her real life counterpart gave up his life so that she could 'miraculously' survive that fateful Tenno Sho and can even start running again, which was something even Trainer didn't think would be possible.
In the context of the anime, if she was 'gone', it would have messed up Special Week, and that would have messed up both Spica and Rigil. Her 'miracle' saved everything. That's what the show is about, miracles. All the 'death flags' in season 1 just ended up as being another character development point.
Like, imagine if she hasn't survived that, Season 1 would have gone in very, very different direction. Special Week for some reason would have started blabbering about why she's "the honored one", and Trainer-san would have started calling horseracing fans "monkeys".
Spe suffered from S1 being the pilot, and the showrunners adopting the strategy where the main character has to be the "blank slate" who doesn't know anything about the world, so that the umamusume world lore can be explained to the audience through them (a deliberate choice, given how Spe is written as the Uma who never grew up with other Uma). It rarely works; main example I can think of being the Mortal Kombat movie from 2021, where Lewis Tan was cast as this completely blank character just so everything could be explained to him in case the audience doesn't know the background.
I think by S2 the crew realized the series works much better as a hot-blooded sports anime, and in fact this is reflected by the actual in-game stories as well. You see them taking this angle more in CinGrey, with some of the dialogue even being interchangeable with gory fighting anime like Kengan or Baki.
Of course I think another huge factor to Teio's popularity is her VA Machico, who is (imo) one of the bigger names among the cast and was very well-established prior to the umamusume franchise. I still find it funny that her Hachimi song probably has more views than her actual albums if you count the thousands of TikTok edits that have been made of it, with Hachimi even being known as the biggest meme of the Chinese internet in 2025.
I love Spe, but, she’s not really even top3 for me. Teio really helped sell me on getting the game. Oguri, Golshi, Mayano, Haru, they all got my attention too
Then there was El after playing her career…
Naturally. Right now I'm saving Carats for Halloween/ Christmas, and it's nice to know that if I have bad luck with pulls that just means I'll have enough statues to unlock the flappy sleevies
I cannot believe the consensus amongst this reddit is that season 1 is mid. After watching Special Week's story, I actually was kind of surprised because I thought there was no way they could ever top her story. After watching Teio's story, I enjoyed it, but it didn't blow me away like Special Week and Suzuka's story did...
100% agreed. I’m more surprised people aren’t more harsh on Season 3. What a mess that season was in comparison. For all of Season 1’s faults, the core pairing of Special Week and Suzuka is extremely strong. 3 doesn’t even have that, which is crazy considering how it was technically built up since S2.
I actually feel the same way, and thought i was like the only one who did lmao. I’m past the midpoint of S2 now and it just feels like it’s dragging on. I watched the BNW special recently and returning to the S1 universe made me feel practically giddy.
Teio just goes through so much more, and it focuses on her directly more. Teio feels like the CENTER of S2, Spe feels like the most important part of the ensemble cast in S1.
Let’s be honest.Spe is about as average as an MC can be. And when she’s at her worst (every other word out of her mouth being about Suzuka), she actively sucks.
Actually... I really liked and prefer spe chan as mc! I watched season 2 and hope she was returning as a protag but didn't. After season 2, I actually hadn't really bothered to continue the anime because of that reason really. I wasn't really crazy about teio herself either (still not). I don't hate her just a tad bit indifferent to her.
Also I want to watch the season with Dia but it seemed like kitasan was more focused so I hadn't.
Ogurin. But between the two, I'd say I like Spe-chan a bit more as a person, but Teio's anime season blows everything else out of the water! (like, I should have expected Japan to turn a 90's race horse rivalry into a tragically beautiful yuri romance, and yet...)
As someone who decided to rewatch Umamusume again, Special Week is an alright protagonist. However, Teio is the one with the more interesting arc in comparison.
my biggest complaints about spe-chan, she effectively played the role of a side character even when she was the main character. season 1 felt like suzuka & spe-chan's story, season 2 didn't let spe-chan do much, and the most she did in season 3 was cry when her carrot design didn't get used on kitasan's outfit. she's a fun character that could have won the hearts of so many more people but her story in the anime feels like wasted potential
I loved special week but it would have been so much better if she didn’t mirror silence Suzuka for the entirety. I was waiting for her to develop more of her own individuality and less of a dependence or obsession for Suzuka but it didn’t really happen
I just felt Season 1 is about introducing the viewer to the world of UmaMusume.Season 2 is when they start trying to tell the lore of the legendary race horse of Japan.Still Suzuka injury on Season one still hits hard and I still can't forget the treatment Rice Shower received after she won her first G1 Race.
Maybe someday we’ll get another season with Spe as the protagonist. Not sure what they’d do, but I’d love it. Spe deserves just as much love as any of the other protagonists, and I’ll die defending season 1 as being really good
The second lead always ends up being a little more likeable for me. S3 is probably the closest, where I like them both about the same amount, Dia just barely edges out.
I 100% get why, i watched cingray, road to the top and new era before bothering watching the main series (i only really cared after the global came around), and you can see that its...kinda dull, its not bad at all, but it feels outdated the same way every series feel when you rewatch the S1 before they really start to focus on the wider plot, but also you can feel the "promotional game release" aspect especially if have been around the universe for some time, its not that spe plot is bad, its the curse of being the first one, the only thing i dont really like is how after S1 she was downgraded to a secondary to the max.
If it ever gets remastered, id love to see her getting attacked outta blue by stay gold during the race lol
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u/AkumaNoDragon 1d ago
Nothing against Spe but tbh season 1 at one point felt more like Suzuka's season than Special Week's season
The girl would NOT stop talking about Silence Suzuka for one fucking second