Umamusume: Pretty Derby Specials
ウマ娘 プリティーダービー BNWの誓い (Uma Musume: Pretty Derby - BNW no Chikai)
- Sports
- Anthropomorphic
- Racing
- Episodes
- 3
- Duration
- 23 min per ep
- Aired
- Dec 19, 2018
- Status
- Finished Airing
Synopsis
Team Spica’s horse girls have racked up win after win and grown ever more popular, but the celebrated trio BNW has hit a rough patch. Made up of Biwa Hayahide, Narita Taishin, and Winning Ticket, BNW is famous for the bond that shines through their hard-fought races—yet lately, that closeness has started to fade.
When Tracen Academy announces a fan festival relay race with each BNW member serving as a team captain, Team Spica is tasked with persuading the three leaders to take part. Bringing them on board isn’t easy, but Spica refuses to give up, hoping the event can help BNW reconnect and turn the relay into a race everyone will remember.
Otaku Consensus
BNW no Chikai lands as a solid character-side addendum rather than a franchise peak, reflected in its 7.15 MAL average and 70/100 AniList score. Critics and viewers most consistently praise P.A. Works’ race presentation: readable stride animation, crowd energy, distinctive race outfits, and horse-like sound design that sell the athletic fantasy. The common reservation is that its offbeat horse-girl conceit and sports-anime clichés still make it easier to appreciate than to universally recommend.
Why You Should Watch
Watch this if you want a concentrated sports-anime fix without committing to another full tournament arc. BNW no Chikai works best for viewers who like Haikyuu!!-style team friction and momentum, but also want the idol-school pageantry closer to Love Live!: uniforms, fan events, ensemble spotlighting, and performance-adjacent energy around competition. Its three-episode length gives it a different appeal from the main 2018 season: it is less about introducing the world and more about letting established horse girls clash, banter, and run with a clear emotional purpose. The race scenes are the hook, with reviewers specifically calling out the stride work, grandstand atmosphere, and sound effects that mimic actual horses despite the characters running on human feet.
Key Characters
- BBiwa Hayahide(VA: Yui Kondou)
Biwa Hayahide gives the special one of its clearest senior-rival anchors, carrying the prestige of BNW through a calmer, more composed presence.
- NNarita Taishin(VA: Keiko Watanabe)
Narita Taishin is the sharper edge of BNW, appealing to viewers who like competitive characters whose loyalty is expressed more through racing than speeches.
- WWinning Ticket
Winning Ticket completes the BNW trio and brings the specials’ focus back to the franchise’s favorite emotional equation: rivalry plus affection equals better racing.
- SSpecial Week(VA: Azumi Waki)
Special Week keeps Team Spica’s earnest first-season viewpoint in the mix, making the OVA feel connected to the TV anime rather than a detached side story.
What Makes It Stand Out
- 1
P.A. Works handles these specials as a compact continuation of the 2018 TV anime, keeping the franchise’s emphasis on legible race action rather than turning the competition into abstract speed lines.
- 2
Reviewers repeatedly highlight the race presentation: character emotion during runs, recognizable stride detail, packed grandstand atmosphere, and sound effects that resemble real horses in motion.
- 3
The BNW focus is historically loaded for racing fans: Biwa Hayahide, Narita Taishin, and Winning Ticket are names taken from real Japanese racehorses, a detail that gives the fictional team an extra layer beyond character archetypes.
- 4
Its structure is unusually economical for a sports entry: three episodes, all tied to a relay-event framework, giving it the pace of an OVA bonus arc rather than a full-cour comeback story.
- 5
AniList’s tag spread captures the hybrid appeal precisely: Athletics at 100%, Kemonomimi at 96%, Idol at 85%, and School at 75%, with a 50% CGI tag signaling the franchise’s partial use of CG-assisted presentation.
Fun Facts & Trivia
- Fun fact 1
- All three episodes are listed with the same air date, December 19, 2018, making BNW no Chikai a short-form release rather than a standard weekly TV run.
- Fun fact 2
- Episode 2 had an especially visible animation-credit footprint, with key animation credited to Jun Nakajima, Masaru Obata, Yuuki Kitajima, Yoshiyuki Ookubo, Yoshiki Nakakouji, Keiji Shigesawa, Tatsuhiko Sugimoto, Toshiharu Sugie, and Maiko Oonishi.
- Fun fact 3
- Maiko Oonishi is the only key animator in the provided staff data credited across both episodes 2 and 3, while Asuna Kinoshita is specifically credited for in-betweens check on episode 2.
- Fun fact 4
- The broader Umamusume franchise is built on an odd but deliberate racing-world conceit noted by reviewers: horses do not exist in the usual sense, while the girls carry the names and identities of famous racehorses.
- Fun fact 5
- One IMDb user-review detail neatly summarizes the franchise’s charm gap: the characters run on feet rather than hooves, yet reviewers still single out the racing animation and horse-like sound effects as convincing.
Studios
- P.A. Works
