Uma Musume: Pretty Derby! Episode 1 & 2 – Anime QandA Review (Collab with Irina!)

(Guest Question Asker: Irina from I Drink And Watch Anime)

Matt, what even is this show? Wait I know what show it is I watched the first 2 eps too for the purposes of this collab, but you know, drinking…! Hi Irina! Welcome to Anime QandA! We’re talking about Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, which I kinda forced you to watch…

Haha, you say “forced”, I say blackmailed…. We’re all friends here. So this is what having friends that aren’t a construct of my own mind feels like? I like it!

So on first glance, some people may think this is just a loli, ponyplay, idol hell mashup but how would You describe the show? Well I know you’re just asking for the benefit of the readers and also because it’s kind of a staple of my reviews, but it’s about a starry eyed country girl ‘Special Week’ whose moved to Tokyo to attend a school for horse girls and live out her and her mother(s) dream of being the best horse girl in Japan!

‘I wanna be the very best…’

And when you say horse girl we’re not talking centaur’s now are we? No, not as such, these are just otherwise normal girls’ who also have horse ears and a horse’s tail. Oh and they run really fast too!

Certainly helps if you’re going to be a race horse girl!

***cough ponyplay cough*** Listen, I’m much too innocent to even know what that is…

Now tell me honestly, what made you want to watch the show in the first place? Cute girls! It’s why I do most things, also if they’ve got a monster girl edge then bonus!

I’m really into their hair, or is it their manes?

And did the first two episodes live up to those expectations? Well, if we’re talking about expectations of plot and character the only thing I had to go off for this series was the MAL synopsis which even now still just reads “based on the mobile game” so my expectations were pretty much zero. But it met and exceeded my expectations for being a show about cute horse girls!

My money is on the protagonist!

You downloaded the game, didn’t you? I would have if I had a Japanese iTunes account or could read Japanese…

This sort of freaked me out but what did you think of the fact that the girls seem to only have been given racing names? I think it’s cute! They’re all named after famous Japanese racehorses such as: ‘Silence Suzuka’, ‘Symboli Rudolph’, ‘El Condor Pasa’, ‘Air Groove’ and ‘Vodka’. I don’t know I just get a kick out of otherwise normal looking girls having weird names. Is that a new fetish? Uh-oh…

Irina likes Vodka, the drink not the horse.

Speaking of Uh-oh – I had a coach like that…. Yeah, I’m not sold on the coach character, I mean he at least seems less creepy in episode 2, but I mean way to get me off base right away with a character by having him rub ‘Special Week’s’ calves without her permission—twice!

Bad touch!

So why do they run in high heels? Maybe it’s like a handicap to make the sport more difficult? Though I think if the show never explains it it’s probably just someone likes girls in heels. Yeah I can see why that might seem like a bit of an unnecessary addition.

Yeah, that does sound like something their coach would suggest. I’m surprised they’re not running in mini skirts…yet… Oh it’s probably going to happen, unless the opening credits is just for illustrative purposes I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up running in their idol costumes at bigger events.

Elite athletes.

Do you have a favorite character so far? If the wikipedia page is anything to go by there is going to be a lot of characters in this show. So given the only two who’ve received considerable screen time so far are ‘Special Week’ and ‘Silence Suzuka’ it has to be ‘Special Week’! Ha – I knew it!

She’s just so ‘special’, she makes me ‘week’ at the knees…

Man, horsegirls sure are nice and optimistic! Well I don’t think that they’re all just nice and optimistic, we get that one girl in the second episode who tries to take down ‘Special Week’ in her debut race. And I think the supporting characters all have pretty distinctive personalities, but I mean yeah… it’s not like we’re going for deeply flawed and complex characters here.

You can tell she’s the antagonist because of the eye patch!

Yes the one clear antagonist is not nice. So what does “Eclipse first, the rest nowhere” mean? That the Japanese are bad at English? No, I mean I get it’s their school motto and it’s something of an inspirational quote but I think all it means is, be better than the best and leave the rest in the dust? Though it’s kind of a harsh motto if they’re trying to promote camaraderie and teamwork too. Oh that makes much more sense, I thought it was some type of deep astrophysics theory…

Google translate only gets you so far.

What’s with all the idol shows? Ah yes, probably the most unnecessary part of the show. After each race the top 3 horse girl’s perform a ‘winner’s concert’ which is basically just an idol show. I know ‘idols’ exist in various sports in Japan, like ‘Shogi Idol’s’ are a thing, but I don’t think they go as far as singing and dancing on stage. I guess this show just wanted to have both sport and idol related things in the show. Plus if it’s the voice actors singing the songs then more money from selling CD singles!

I mean of course every horse girl race turns into an idol concert.

That would be funny since we know the characters lip sync. Are you buying the soundtrack? Wait did you already buy the soundtrack? I don’t generally buy Anime soundtrack’s, at least not new, just wait a couple of years and you can get them so much cheaper from second-hand sites!

What are you hoping to see in the rest of the season? I don’t know, I’m honestly not looking that far ahead. I’m just happy to take it episode by episode just like I was with Laid Back Camp–oops! I probably shouldn’t mention that show around you! Never heard of it…

It’s a sport anime, see?

Since a ‘career ending injury’ is a super common sports anime trope, do you think a girl will twist her ankle (running in high heels ‘n all) and will they have to… dispose of her like they do with race horses? Off to the glue factory with you horse girl! Or do horse girl’s get turned into something different, like lube maybe?–Oh that’s dark and perverse even for me… I take everything back – this show is pure brilliance!

Good advice. Wait, why are you looking at me?!

I take it you recommend the show? You could pretty much just look at the poster or any of the screenshots to know whether this is the show for you, it’s cute horse girls and I love their character designs and personalities, this is just totally my kind of anime. It’s not perfect and I do wonder how far they can take this show’s concept but I’m along for the ride! Ride – I get it! I smurt!

Now if you want to know whether I recommend the show over unnecessary explorative dental surgery without anaesthesia, you can find out in our exciting review of episode 3! Coming soon!

I wonder who these girls could be? Such flawless disguises!

Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles Episode 8 – 20 Question Anime Review (Spoilers)

What’s the show? Ms Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles, Episode 8.

Ah, another single episode review, huh? Too great to wait ‘til the end of the season to talk about it? Not quite, while I’m apparently the only person who actually really likes this show, the episode itself wasn’t a standout in terms of quality but rather it did something interesting worthy of a discussion.

Right, so let’s back up a bit and give some context, what’s the show about? It’s about high school girl Koizumi-san and her impossibly deep love, affection and dare I say all consuming obsession for ramen noodles. It’s also about Yu Osawa, and her impossibly deep love, affection and dare I say all consuming obsession for Koizumi-san.

So it’s a? Maybe a slice of life? I’m not sure; it’s not consistently funny enough that I would call it a comedy. And Yu’s infatuation with Koizumi is very one-sided, so it’s not a Yuri or Romance. I think it’s safe to just call it a food slice of life anime until it develops an actual concrete genre.

This show is so ‘gifable’ too bad the gif website wasn’t working for me.

So what’s happened on the show up until episode 8? Lots of food porn. Lots of girls eating food and getting hot and bothered about it.

Koizumi comes with her own snapchat filters. No pun intended.

Like Food Wars “hot and bothered”? Not quite, no clothes come flying off on this show, it’s very grounded, well save for Yu, who over the episodes we’ve seen progresses from school girl crush to almost stalker levels of obsession.

She asked this with all sincerity, that’s how obsessed Yu is with Koizumi she wants to literally become ramen in order to be eaten by Koizumi.

And how’s the show treat this behaviour? It’s a source of almost all of the shows jokes, which for some people might be a reason not to watch the show. Though in Yu’s favour, she’s never creepy about it, and she states her intentions to follow Koizumi from ramen store to ramen store. If Koizumi did ever feel threatened by Yu, she’d have no problem standing up for herself, and Yu would probably back off… probably… At the moment Koizumi doesn’t really acknowledge Yu’s presence, in fact she’s friendlier with Yu’s other two friends, which I think is an important bit of characterisation.

Who are they? Misa and Jun, popular fashion type girl and nerdy bookworm type girl respectively.

Misa, Jun, Koizumi and Yu.

So I think that gives us enough context about the show, what makes episode 8 particularly interesting? Well the first half of the episode plays out like pretty much every other episode does, Koizumi goes to a ramen place, one of the three girls ends up tagging along for whatever reason, Koizumi goes into a long spiel about whatever type of ramen they’re eating then the two girls eat said ramen while blushing and moaning. There’s always a bit of character development thrown in so it’s not just watching girls slurp noodles, but, well… yeah it’s almost entirely that every time.

Close up slurp action, for those who are into that kind of thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

And the second half? Suddenly hot boys!

Me too.

Right, can’t say I saw that coming. Who are they? Well save for the dark-haired one on the right who’s Shu, Yu’s older brother, the others are all new characters. Shu appeared briefly at the start of Episode 6 and got entranced by Koizumi’s beauty as she passed him on the street. But having an entire half of an episode completely focused on four different characters, and male ones at that was so unexpected and genuinely refreshing. Within minutes their characters archetypes are established and you want to see more of them and hopefully have them interact with the four girls in future episodes.

Why do I feel like they’re about to start a boy band?

Four girls, four boys. Are we assuming the show is lining them up to be love interests? Maybe. I mean, I will admit a passing sadness for the idea of Koizumi and Yu not getting together, but if the show does go the whole romance route I wouldn’t be opposed. It’s just hard to think how a show that’s been so food-centric will suddenly pivot into another genre. Granted, the boys only talked about food too, so it’s not like I’m expecting a massive upheaval it’s just interesting to think where it will go.

And you’re not bothered about a bunch of as you put it “hot boys” appearing in your otherwise clear broth of cute girls. Well it’s not a ramen without meat!

*childish giggle*

You could have also said “noodles”. I could have also said noodles, yes, that would also have been correct and a sufficient innuendo for penis.

Thick and firm.

Thanks for explaining the joke. But really, why so okay with it, I’m just surprised as all? Well, at the risk of sounding shallow, the girls on this show aren’t that cute, I mean in comparison to other shows I’m watching, don’t get me wrong still cute in the context of this show, but those boys are hot.

“I’ll have what she’s having”

Should I be asking who is ‘best boy’ instead of ‘best girl’? Hahaha. Totally long fringe purple hair boy on the end, his voice is so deep.

I was kidding, but thanks. Should I be worried about you? It’s fine. I’m just excited something different is happening in this show. I was a bit worried it would go stale if it didn’t shake things up, so hopefully they continue with this!

If you were starting to feel like it could go stale why keep watching? Because I think it’s a good show, it could be nostalgia for when I visited Japan clouding my vision; I love seeing all the attention to detail in the ramen shops. It just gives me such a warm feeling watching this show, almost like all those bowls of ramen I ate over there.

“Itadakimasu!”

That’s fair enough. Plus it’s not like there haven’t been glimmers of hope for some more interesting plot developments. Yu cooks Ramen for Koizumi at her house in episode 3, Koizumi helps a little German girl who gets lost in episode 6 which reveals her softer side plus the aforementioned brief encounter with Yu’s brother. But this episode marks a paradigm shift into some real potential for drama, can you imagine how Yu would react if her brother started dating the object of her obsession!

There wasn’t much actual stalking in this episode as Yu was at the beach so this image was taken from the opening credits.

Drama indeed! So final recommendation? If you’ve already dropped this show this season, perhaps this will be enough to get you to come back? If not I totally understand, it’s a very niche show and I can understand why some people would get bored of it. Either way I’m happy that things are starting to progress towards something different and look forward to the remaining episodes!