Umamusume: Pretty Derby
ウマ娘 プリティーダービー (Uma Musume: Pretty Derby)
- Sports
- Anthropomorphic
- Racing
- Episodes
- 13
- Duration
- 23 min per ep
- Aired
- Apr 2, 2018 to Jun 18, 2018
- Status
- Finished Airing
Synopsis
In a parallel world, legendary racehorses are reborn as “horse girls,” each carrying a distinct heritage and the drive to compete again. With their sights set on the track, they train and race in pursuit of the triumphs that once defined their names.
Special Week arrives in Tokyo determined to become Japan’s top racer, enrolling at Tracen Academy, a school dedicated to developing horse girls into elite competitors. There she’s captivated by the graceful, polished running of Silence Suzuka, sparking a new goal to chase that level of excellence. Before long, Special Week is invited to join Suzuka’s team, Spica—marking the start of her climb toward the front of the pack, one race at a time.
Otaku Consensus
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Season 1 earns its reputation as a better-than-expected Cygames adaptation by treating its absurd-sounding racing-idol setup with straightforward sports-anime sincerity, helped by Kei Oikawa’s clean direction and Pierre Sugiura’s character-focused series composition. The Special Week and Silence Suzuka material gives the season a clear emotional lane, but the most common criticism is that this first cour feels more like a solid franchise foundation than the peak fans associate with later seasons.
Why You Should Watch
Watch Umamusume: Pretty Derby if you want the training highs and finish-line tension of a sports anime without the grimness, gatekeeping, or dense rulebook that can come with competitive series. It scratches a similar motivational itch to Haikyu!! in miniature, then filters it through the team chemistry and performance-culture energy associated with idol anime like Love Live!. The appeal is not novelty alone: P.A. Works gives the cast enough expressive physicality that the races read as character drama, not just mascot spectacle. It also works especially well for viewers who like ensemble school settings, cute-girl casts, and sincere rival admiration, but want those elements tied to measurable athletic stakes rather than slice-of-life drift.
Key Characters
- SSpecial Week
Special Week anchors the season as the earnest competitor whose appeal comes from visible effort, appetite, and unpolished ambition rather than instant prodigy mystique.
- SSilence Suzuka
Silence Suzuka became a fan-favorite foil because her composed, almost kuudere presence turns speed into a kind of personal aesthetic rather than simple dominance.
What Makes It Stand Out
- 1
Season 1 was produced by P.A. Works, a studio better known for polished character acting than long-running sports franchises, which gives the racing scenes a clean, TV-anime readability instead of treating them as pure game promotion.
- 2
The series is built from an unusually specific genre stack: AniList tags it as Athletics at 99%, Kemonomimi at 94%, Gambling at 75%, Boarding School at 75%, and Idol at 60%, making it a sports-school show that constantly brushes against real racetrack culture and performance spectacle.
- 3
Pierre Sugiura handled series composition and personally scripted episodes 1-3, 5, 7, 9, and 13, giving the season a consistent comedic and emotional baseline across its major opening and closing beats.
- 4
Yousuke Kabashima served as both character designer and chief animation director, a dual role that helped unify the cast’s recognizable silhouettes despite the large ensemble and shared racing-uniform visual language.
- 5
The season’s reputation is unusually sequel-shaped: fan discussion often calls it good but foundational, with viewers recommending it as the character and world setup that makes the later seasons land harder.
Fun Facts & Trivia
- Fun fact 1
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby Season 1 aired as a 13-episode spring 2018 TV anime, running from April 2 to June 18, 2018.
- Fun fact 2
- Cygames and S. Kosugi are credited as the original creators, tying the anime directly to the broader Umamusume multimedia project rather than to a conventional manga or light novel source.
- Fun fact 3
- The writing staff was split across credited episode blocks: Pierre Sugiura wrote seven episodes, while Youko Yonaiyama wrote episodes 4, 8, and 11.
- Fun fact 4
- Critical commentary around the show frequently highlights surprise at its competence, with reviewers framing it as a gacha-game anime about horse-girl racers and idols that works better than the premise suggests.
- Fun fact 5
- Its database reception is steady rather than cult-only: MAL lists it at 7.36 from 104,968 votes, while AniList records a 73/100 score and 1,996 favourites.
Studios
- P.A. Works
