(CR) Umamusume: Pretty Derby Season 3

[Stark700]

Umamusume: Pretty Derby Season 3 announced (this is not the same as the streaming web anime)

Official teaser:

[Nachtwandler]

Predictable but still a pity it's Studio KAI again. Their animation quality is way worse than P.A. Works.

[FlareKnight]

I am going to look forward to it. But with this series kind of shifting protagonists between the first two seasons, I kind of expect the same for the third. So it's a bit harder to get hyped since I don't know if I'll like the new main characters. Will wait and see.

[Stark700]

Coming this year

[Kazu-kun]

Uma Musume ROAD TO THE TOP is coming this year too, and I'm actually more excited about this than season 3

[Stark700]

Airs October 4th this Fall

https://twitter.com/uma_musu_anime/s...78109492732043

[Master_Yoma]

Well new season new girls Kitasan Black starting out helping people like a grandma get home and pulling a truck with a flat tire

And the dark horse is Duramente with an intimidating black aura around her

[Kazu-kun]

Duramente had such a dramatic racing career. He would have made a far better MC than Kita-chan.

[FlareKnight]

Well let's hope the main character swap turns out well once again for this series.

Interesting choice starting out with her losing a big race. But let's see where this goes. Certainly going all out to make her a nice and likeable girl. Very helpful. And hey she's got good tastes being obsessed with Teio.

But yeah, that's about how the episode seemed to be going. You don't start with the Derby if the main character is going to win. Though I have to say I expected her to finish slightly better than she did. I guess it's fair to say she got swept up in the moment and lost her ability to pace herself.

Though honestly it seemed like a hopeless race from the start. Duramente's late push was overwhelming in the last race and all she had to do was basically repeat that again. Kitasan Black seems like a good girl, but sadly being a good person doesn't mean you'll be rewarded. She's got solid speed and pace, but when the race gets to the peak moment she doesn't seem to have an extra gear to tap into.

[FlareKnight]

Spoiler for Ep2:

Well, they really leaned into Kitasan being a different type than the previous leads. Get to experience the whole "destined horse girl injury" from this side of it. In most seasons Duramente really would be the protagonist. But in this case we'll see how Kitasan handles things.

I think it's pretty understandable for her to have the mix of feelings she did over that injury. Obviously the crowd is pulled in by the injury and not thinking about any of Duramente's opponents at all. So she's feeling forgotten. Then there's the dark, but human feeling of "oh I've got a chance now." And the immediate shame of even thinking such a thing. Glad she found the right person to talk to that could relate and help support her in that moment.

And in the end she did win. Health is a part of competition and it doesn't matter how much more talented someone is if they aren't healthy enough to be there. Everyone earned their way to that race and had a chance.

Wasn't pretty or easy. Could see Kitasan just struggling and grinding out that win. But in the end she did it. She wanted it and she went for it. Good for her.

[Master_Yoma]

Well Kitasan down in the dumps and cant get the motivation for running and got even worse when Duramente got injured

So Nature got some nice bitter tea

[grecefar]

so I decided to watch uma musume. The first two seasons were amazing and the BNW chapters were fun too.

I was disappointed with road to the top. While I don't dislike using new uma musumes, these 3 sucked badly. I hated opera O, vega too was just a drama queen and narita was just the typical hard working girl with nothing special.

Really, after 2 amazing seasons to throw this... well not everything will be great. I'll start watching season 3.

[Kazu-kun]

I understand how Kitasan feels and all but Duramente is the one who got injured and we didn't even get a tiny scene about her to see how she feels. I thought that was a pretty shit storytelling decision from the staff.

I understand Duramente is not the main character but even Rice Shower got more focus than this in the second season and she wasn't a main character either.

[grecefar]

Duramente was a second coming rudolf, design and aura she was going to win the triple crown.

Now it's focusing on how kita is going to beat her, she is the last boss after all.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

I understand how Kitasan feels and all but Duramente is the one who got injured and we didn't even get a tiny scene about her to see how she feels. I thought that was a pretty shit storytelling decision from the staff.

I understand Duramente is not the main character but even Rice Shower got more focus than this in the second season and she wasn't a main character either.

The triple crown is already used and it's only chapter 2, they were suppose to be the grand slam in horse race. They should've milked it a little more.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by grecefar

They should've milked it a little more.

They should have given us some insight into her thoughts. For her it must have been awful to lose her chance at the triple crown, yet we didn't get to see any of it. Like I said before, even Rice Shower got better treatment.

I don't care if she's the last boss or whatnot. If she doesn't get proper characterization there's no point having her in the show at all. I don't know how they can do so well with Rice Shower yet screw up so badly with Duramente. It makes no sense to me.

[FlareKnight]

I don't feel a huge issue with the lack of Duramente perspective. Certainly could have done it and pushed this race to episode 3. But honestly I think it's just a consequence of where the show is starting. It started right with the Triple Crown. If we started a bit further back there'd be more time to delve into Duramente or even really introduce her as a character. But with the timing of the start they really had to focus more on the main character.

If focused on the main character this works. Duramente isn't Kitasan's rival so much as she's this force of nature that came through to crush her dreams and toss them into a garbage bin. She's the Sauron of this story so far. Focusing on her perspective on the injury is kind of pointless since that's not important for the main story. And frankly we've had two seasons of star girls suffering catastrophic injuries. We can guess at Duramente's mindset.

Plus in the end, we're 2 episodes in here. There's plenty of time to focus on Duramente. Now that the main character is more settled there can be more room to do that.

I can see not agreeing with their choice here. Not like I'm 100% behind it. But I think it can work just fine.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

Focusing on her perspective on the injury is kind of pointless since that's not important for the main story.

It's important for her character, just like focusing on Rice Shower for a while in the second season was important for her but had little to do with Teio and Mcqueen (the "main story"). For Duramente, losing her chance to the triple crown after winning two could be her lowest point in life. Yet we didn't get to see any of it. Not just that but she broke both her legs, and we didn't get to see even a tiny moment of her rehabilitation either since the show time-skipped like 6 months ahead.

To me this is a massive screw up compared to the second season. If there was one strength the second season had over the first season is that it gave more attention to the side characters. But now it feels we're going back to first-season level of writing mediocrity. And I'm saying this despite loving the first season, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to its writing issues.

[grecefar]

it was nice to see gold ship race again, I lost hope to see the members of spica racing again.

the dream trophy, is a minor league were the older uma musume go when they can't cut it in the twinkle series anymore?

[FlareKnight]

A grand win goes to...some random character! Honestly has that person actually gotten any lines in any season before now!?

This has been a weird season. Hurry on to races like Arima Kinen and then have them pass by with all the main characters falling short. Plus compared to S1 it seems like a lot of elements (like the winning live) are just being tossed out. Even in this one, Kita did finish in the top 3 so she would have been participating in that. But didn't even get a glimpse even when she won last week. Kind of feels like the show is just meandering around a bit aimlessly.

I guess it's nice that Gold Ship got to race. It's more than Special Week, Teio, Suzuka, etc have managed. It's nice that the story is letting them hang around, but it does feel like they have nothing better to do so are just living there .

[Master_Yoma]

Well its good to see Gold Ship and her wackiness with tipping over the starter gate and solving one side of the rubix cube before giving it to Kitasan

Such a shame that Gold Ship didnt hit her eye again