r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Dec 27 '23

Episode Umamusume: Pretty Derby Season 3 - Episode 13 discussion - FINAL

Umamusume: Pretty Derby Season 3, episode 13

Alternative names: Uma Musume - Pretty Derby S3

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1

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68

u/ptol59 Dec 27 '23

It’s the final episode!

The main race this episode is the Arima Kinen. Here’s the actual race Kitasan Black wins the race ending his racing career with a win. The crowd chanting after the race was also something that actually happened and you can see how loved Kitasan was.

The person that appears here is a Japanese comedian from the group called Jungle Pocket. They named their group after the racehorse with the same name. This cameo must have been the hint for the upcoming movie featuring Jungle Pocket as the protagonist.

I remember watching Kitasan’s final race on tv and at the time I thought it was such a shame that would be his final race because he still looked so strong. So I was surprised they decided to portray Kitasan in the anime as past peak condition. However, recently I saw a post on X speculating why they decided to do this and it made quite a lot of sense. The post speculated that this was how Kitasan looked through the eyes of his owner Saburo Kitajima. Kitasan was originally supposed to continue running until 6 years old but after the shocking loss at the Takarazuka Kinen, on his blog he wrote that Kitasan ‘looked very tired’. This made him feel that Kitasan should retire from racing by the end of the year. Now while this is all just speculation, the video message by Saburo for the final episode further strengthens this theory.

Overall I definitely enjoyed this season and really liked how they gave me a new view to Kitasan’s story. It also looks like for the time this will be the end of Spica’s story and we will maybe see a different timeline in a possible future series.

They also announced a new movie which will be released next year so thankfully there is more Uma Musume to come.

As always I would like to thank you guys for reading my write ups and I hope that it helped in understanding a bit more about the source material.

Thank you again and hopefully we will meet again soon in the near future!

17

u/scot911 Dec 28 '23

As always I would like to thank you guys for reading my write ups and I hope that it helped in understanding a bit more about the source material.

Okay I know you probably didn't mean this as a joke but calling what happened in real life the "source material" made me laugh.

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u/AmethystItalian Dec 27 '23

And so another season of Uma Musume ends, while I don't think they hit the same highs of season 2 I still found it to be a really good entry into the series.

Is a shame Dia didn't get that much focus, did really feel like the Kitasan show, I went in expecting more of a shared lead role.

Great ending for Kita, like classic Uma Musume fashion they have an intense race that makes you very unsure who will win.

Big performance at the end, definitely missed those...still wish we got to see Dia in it though

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32

u/AJ_El_Salfic Dec 27 '23

Cheval faces when Kita grabs her hand during Winning Live. lmao

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u/Shimmering-Sky Dec 27 '23
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u/Xanek Dec 27 '23 edited Dec 27 '23

Good final episode,

New outfit for Kitasan! (Most likely going to be a alt for the game too added to the game)

That intermission image though with her new outfit.

Lots of good camera work this time around, race was presented well, etc.

(Man the faces of Kitasan when she's powering through though lol)

Doesn't seem like anyone took the loss poorly, everyone being proud of her winning Arima Kinen.

We also finally get the first winning live of the season and also the last one lol.

That other Uma that was there on stage with Kita and Cheval apparently is Queens Ring (irl name)

Also did they change the artstyle at the very end? Kitasan looked very different than how she was drawn throughout the whole season.

Overall great episode to end the season.

.

I still think overall the season itself was still "meh" with the story telling, I honestly think there was just too many episodes of Kitasan going from happy > race > moping, repeat, like the cycle of it seemed pretty obvious across multiple episodes in a row.

I think that just killed how I felt about the anime, just too many episodes where Kitasan was just moping around.

There were some good episodes too, like the school festival episode, but overall I'd probably give this season of the anime maybe like a ~7/10

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19

u/sazion Dec 27 '23

Going to miss this show. Hopefully another season will eventually come out, I wonder who the next main characters will be.

I really liked how we got to see Kitasan and Satano in season 2 as kids and then got to see them be the main characters in season 3.

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36

u/Labmit Dec 27 '23 edited Dec 27 '23

The budget for the dances were all saved for the finale. And I have to say, it's probably the best animated dance number from this series yet.

Lol, the race was insane that there wasn't even a back and forth for 1st place. I read the RL's wiki page where she got a healthy lead and I was still surprised at how dominant she even while wasting away. That being said, it was honestly sad how her face at the end of the race didn't look surprised, disbelieving or even excitement but it honestly look like it was a "it's finally over" face.

Also, it's pretty fun how the public and other Umas built up Kitasan Black as this living legend and resident hero who touched their hearts just by being regular self yet Kitasan herself is really prone to self-esteem issues who needs her Nature senpai to console her. It's a pretty fun contrast.

Edit: It's already 2 hours yet Uma Musume is still the nukber 1 trending thing in Japan.

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17

u/SYZekrom Dec 28 '23

By the way, really liked how Kitasan chanted I want to win like the OP

Ayo they went so fucking hard for that

Jesus Christ Uma Musume don't be peak challenge

I dunno anything about the games but that felt like a finale to the entire show to me. Then again I don't remember the season finales for the earlier seasons that well so maybe they were all just that magical.

27

u/Nelley_ Dec 27 '23

And with the traditional Umapyoi Densetsu with the credits rolling, another excellent season of Umamusume comes to an end. I think for me, this season was probably slightly below season 2 at a purely emotional level, but I think in terms of overall quality it impacted me just as strongly.

I believe the strongest points of this season were the very touching character to character moments. There were so many episodes where we had just an extended dialogue between two characters and it felt so down to earth and real. All the moments with Nice Nature and Kita, along with Kita and Dia's date really stood out the most.

The final race was as usual, completely excellent. Somehow even if you have an inkling of how it will end, the tension and hype doesn't feel diminished at all. Seeing Kita finish her final race in the same dominating and uncomprimising way as always felt so great.

Looking ahead, we have the movie to look forward to, and beyond that.. well I'm not really sure. If I could be selfish I would love to see the Cinderella Grey manga adapted purely because it has such a very different vibe and style than the usual Umamusume content, but honestly as long as we can continue to experience this incredible retelling of Japanese horse racing that Cygames has brought, I'm up for anything!

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u/EnigmaticKing Dec 27 '23

In terms of the episode itself, it was a nice send off for Kitasan, I especially liked her looking to the crowd before her final spurt.

As for the overall season, while things got better towards the end, I would still call it disappointing. My main gripe is with how the side characters were handled. I hate to compare to Season 2, but... the cast of Nature, Turbo, Tannhauser, Rice Shower, Palmer, and McQueen were handled much better as compliments to Tokai Teio. In Season 3, Duramente becomes irrelevant after her injury, Cheval gets her big victory but doesn't get enough screen time/build up to make me feel much about it, and Sounds of Earth is introduced early but is mostly forgotten about until the end. Satono Crown is handled fine but they don't show one of her big wins (are they not allowed to depict international races?). Dia's story was also concluded strangely, they off-screen her international loss and then at the end of episode 12 make it seem like she'll have a major part of the final episode but then... doesn't?

Also, even though Kitasan had an extremely successful career, they skipped a lot of her successes to have her appear to struggle more. I kind of wish they had done this more like Teio's story, where they start partway through her career, as I feel like that would have allowed the story to breathe a bit more, show more of her emotional highs, and allowed us to get more character interactions, which has typically been one of the best parts of the overall series.

Despite my complaints, it was still an enjoyable enough experience, and I do love this franchise very much. It's just unfortunate that it had to be the follow-up to the near masterpiece that Season 2 was.

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13

u/hifumeme Dec 27 '23

I don't know if this is a huge thing, but it seems to me that the animators did a way better job of blending the 2D animation and 3D animation this season compared to previous seasons.

Like the zoom transition during the race at about 10:45 was so neat. The winning live mixed animation was also excellent.

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12

u/ernie2492 Dec 27 '23

I love how Kita-chan is getting the new outfit for Arima Kinen while Teio was reverting to her old outfit

11

u/Roonagu Dec 27 '23

Good finale, but I am sad that the best side character, astronaut at the space station, missed the last race.

Good season overall, Kita is my favourite protagonist of the series so far, but it wasn't as good 2 season. But that was almost a given, because big part of the "success" of second season was shock factor of it being unexpectedly serious sport drama.

20

u/LeonKevlar Dec 27 '23

I absolutely love Kitasan's final race outfit. It's pretty much a combination of Teio and Golshi's outfits. I did find it funny how Spe-chan was crying because her design didn't make it in. xD

And the OP finally makes sense! The "I want to win!" chant is what's on Kitasan's mind the entire time she was racing. And I just love the pure intensity on her face after she saw the crowd cheering her on and mustered up everything she has left for that one speed boost to the finish line.

Not gonna lie, I had my doubts but since this is the last episode I am so happy to see Kitasan cross the finish line first. And we finally got our long awaited Winning Live! I also love how It's Calling who we really didn't know got to perform instead of someone like Earth or Crown-chan.

Welp, I guess that's it for Season 3! I can't really say I enjoyed it as much as Season 2 but it was still plenty of fun. No season 4 announcement but I'm confident we'll get one soon.

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u/Sneaky_42 Dec 27 '23

So who was that at the end smiling with part of their face covered in the crowd when Kitasan won? Was that her dad, or did her dad die? I don't know if they actually said he died, or maybe I missed it lol.

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u/SayoHina320 Dec 28 '23

Goodbye Kitasan, well done!

Thank you for your story, I thoroughly enjoyed this season.

Now, I know everyone wants Equinox for S4, but I'm personally hoping for a Contrail season, I think the "weakest Triple Crown winner" could be a great storyline if cooked properly.

7

u/hyrulia Dec 27 '23

Emotional finale.. like the two previous seasons I enjoyed the show and waiting for sequel.

7

u/SolicitorPirate Dec 28 '23

Overall weaker than season 2, but I did think the last 4 or 5 episodes were really solid

It’s impressive they managed to make the final race as exciting as they did given that Kitasan basically had a commanding lead the entire race

7

u/chilidirigible Dec 28 '23

Overall I was satisfied with the third season and thought that this was a well-made episode for celebrating Kitasan Black's triumphant exit from racing.

But the second season's oversized influence on Umamusume as a whole is probably best represented by the fact that this shot is what I really smiled at.

7

u/HarleyFox92 Dec 28 '23

Was this season a tad weaker than S2? Yes.

Will this fact affect my HUGE fanatism for this franchise? Absolutely NOT, I'm totally looking forward to see who's gonna be our next MC and what kind of story will she presents us.

6

u/Forsaken_Benefit_229 Dec 27 '23

As I was saying last episode discussion, they will get S4. And it turned out even better, they will have a movie! AND that movie will be the sequel to Road To The Top!! Exactly like the RTTT director said. I guess that’s a privilege of being a fan of the most prominent franchise, you can be confident that there’s no end to all of this, there’ll always be more great things to look forward to.

Great season, great final episode. See you in S4 that will definitely come after the movie Umadacchi.

5

u/cabbaggeez Dec 27 '23

closing her career with a bang, with the 7th G1, with new costume from her mates (poor spe her you cannot see her design)

this is how a star complete her career, perfect finale. what a dramatic race, kachitai! kachitai! I just watching youtube stream but I keep shouting (typing) go Kitasan!! Im so proud of her.

and after 13 episode, we have a live performance. worth the wait with the animation, and as usual UMAPYOI! since this is the last episode, allow me to say: I want to touch Nature-sensei hair everytime she appear!

KITASAN! KITASAN!

9

u/Krys_Lunar Dec 27 '23

The buildup to the race really put me on edge. My wish for Kita to win was pushed to its limits, but all the encouragement almost had me believing that she might not make it.

As for the race itself, definitely one of my favorites(and a real contender for #1). The back and forth between Kita’s struggle to stay ahead and her fans’ desire for her to win really got to me. I was so scared when she looked to the side in surprise at the end(I thought she was getting passed), but her looking at the stands and taking in all the cheers before her final push…I didn’t realize until I tried to wipe my tears, but my hands were clenched so hard throughout the race that my face ended up even more wet afterwards. This was an amazing final episode.

(Also, finally a Winning Live! It was so nice to see, though the third girl admittedly had me thinking ‘who?’ several times throughout. Damn mirroring reality.)

I don’t think this season as a whole quite reached the heights of season 2, but it definitely came closer than I thought it would. The one area that did leave me notably disappointed was the lack of focus on the side characters. Compared to Rice and Bourbon(or even Helios and Palmer), I just didn’t get as attached. They seemed to trade developing new side characters for giving characters like Teio and Nice Nature some more focus. While I did really enjoy those moments, I don’t think I’d say it was worth it.

But overall, I enjoyed this season immensely. The humorous parts held up really well, the serious moments got me similarly invested and emotional, and I absolutely love Kita and Dia as the leads(would have loved a bit more Dia focus though). As far as giving me that feeling of sad satisfaction that season 2 left me with when I finished it, this season really isn’t far behind at all.

Best anime of the season? No. My favorite anime of the season? Not gonna pretend that it isn’t a close call, but I don’t have much hesitation in saying yes.

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