Umamusume: Pretty Derby is a franchise consisting of the manga, anime series (which I have not watched a lot of it yet, oops) and of course... the simulation game where you train (cute and funny) horse girls, named after historical horses, to help them win in races (and watch them do a live performance, no joke). 🏇🏇🏇

Part of the game, there is a career mode where you pick a horse girl and pick the supports. Increase her parameters, do something fun, fulfill goals by racing to gain enough fans and/or aim for a certain rank.

The contents of the English server may be little at the moment but content is planned to be released at an accelerated pace.

Whether I'll be playing it for a long while remains to be seen. I can tell in the future it's gonna get somewhat frustrating at times to build their stats due to having luck involved. I have some past experiences playing games like this...

No jumps races??

Excellent, excellent anime series that makes great use of the fact it's charting historical races to tell great sports stories

Only because of this, it's gotten me mildly interested in the game (and I've been waiting years for it to release in English stores), I know nothing about how the game works other than it's a gacha of some description but it should be fun.

Gold Ship best girl

113 MB game size with 9 GB+ in-game size huh?

Maybe i'll free up my space later as I'm intrigued to try the game, too. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang's additional skins' size have been becoming a burden to me over years lol

Once again, I regret to inform you that

I love my horse girls

This game has a surprising amount of depth and stats for something that was designed as a mobile game - it's like a sports manager + simulation + cute visual novel in one

i.e. perfectly catered to me

The recent Haru Urara memes are both funny and touching lol. Maybe I'll consider installing the game very soon as I wanna try leveling up her too.

Edited July 7, 2025Jul 7 by CowTzy

That's it though, it's great to see people taking to horses that weren't in the anime much like Urara and Bakushin (and now I want to rewatch it), but the reason they can do that is because they've built the characters around notable racehorses and have ways to make them unique and fun characters. I'm 3 playthroughs in and each career is different and very challenging to finish, Id love to complete them all but it'll take many failures before I do (love a game having roguelike elements). It really is that one gacha game that also has a good gameplay loop. To my surprise.

Plus my Twitter timeline is full of compliments about the real horse Gold Ship who is just as much a fave as his anime girl version, proper independent free spirited animal.

Is there a reason why this has blown up so much in the last few weeks? I’ve been tangibly aware of the anime series for years, and by extension the game, but it seems to have infiltrated my socials to quite a large degree recently. Has it only recently been localised?

1 hour ago, Brett-Butler said:

Is there a reason why this has blown up so much in the last few weeks? I’ve been tangibly aware of the anime series for years, and by extension the game, but it seems to have infiltrated my socials to quite a large degree recently. Has it only recently been localised?

Yes, the English version got released a couple of weeks ago! Given the Japanese version has been out for years (with many more characters and support cards than the English version currently has) and the anime gained a fairly small but loyal following it's pretty long-awaited.

Would not have expected it to blow up so much either, I think a few popular streamers have started playing it, but the game's quality (for a gacha game), the general amusing nature of certain horses for meminess and the wholesomeness of the series probably helped for anyone open to anime things.

Gosh, this game is too addictive, and I still have to watch many anime this season.

Addiction aside, this was my first gacha game anyway; hence, there's a big realization in me about why it is called gacha.

Edited July 13, 2025Jul 13 by CowTzy

I'm proud of myself lol.

Finally getting my first URA Finals victory as a f2p player

Nice!

I completed all the goals on a 'speed good ignore all others' Sakura Bakushin run but then got destroyed by the URA final qualifiers, that's hard.

Did unexpectedly pull the Kitasan Black SSR support card most of social media is obsessing over last night so that might help future runs.

On 21/07/2025 at 06:55, CowTzy said:

I'm proud of myself lol.

Finally getting my first URA Finals victory as a f2p player

El Condor Pasa was runner-up in the 1999 Prix d'Arc de Triomphe

12 minutes ago, Mack said:

El Condor Pasa was runner-up in the 1999 Prix d'Arc de Triomphe

Yeah, the first season of the anime, which chronicles notable events in Japanese racehorsing around 1998-1999, introduces El Condor Pasa as a new force to be reckoned with before showing her going to France - and because of this they even anime-fy the Prix d'Arc de Triomphe winner in that race (though for licensing reasons they don't use the winners' name, Montjeu is called Broye instead), for the purposes of the plot.

Haven't done an El Condor Pasa career myself yet but I'd be interested to see how that works and if they allow you to run a special European race, as pretty much all of the available races are Japanese ones.

The impakt!

Edited July 27, 2025Jul 27 by CowTzy

Welp, the gacha money apparently will be used to develop their generative AI tools.

Big mistake, and I can see myself uninstalling the game real soon.

Edited January 9Jan 9 by CowTzy

Hold on there, I've just won Group A Scorpio Cup with this fantastic Taishin I've been relentlessly perfecting. AND I pulled her card I've been repping in my avatar first try as soon as it finally released.

Obviously it's concerning that Cygames is exploring AI, but I would honestly have been more surprised if Japanese gaming companies didn't try this. More rational is that because a big part of the reason I've kept playing the game is the fantastic translation (ranks up among the best J-to-E translations I've ever seen in a game) and its sense of heart and humour that I will really start to notice if they replace that with AI. As they're still transposing content from the Japanese server, the only real risk is the translation for now. But I will keep an eye on it and only really make a move away from the game if it's actually in Uma.

already submitted some feedback to them to emphasise that I do not want AI in the game.

Just spreading this reliever. Cygames has given their well-written clarification yesterday, so I think that's transparent enough to me.

People on X will keep questioning small details like the job vacancies related to AI and the "without prior notice" thing, though (so I chose not to open the comment section).

Edited January 15Jan 15 by CowTzy

A few months ago, I downloaded this game from Steam and didn’t understand anything, I only remember the musical. Maybe it’s better on a phone

Edited January 16Jan 16 by Nine And ¾

Here are the forthcoming banners, based on the original Japanese timeline, for the first six months in case anyone wants to purchase some Carats to gacha their favorite Umas you can just simply visit Game8 tho, but if you're lazy enough...;

January:

5–20

Oguri Cap & Biwa Hayahide (Christmas alts) (Character)

Mayano Top Gun (Speed SSR) and Narita Taishin (Wit SSR) (Support)

15–23

Fine Motion (Character)

Manhattan Cafe (Stamina SSR) & Inari One (Power SR) (Support)

22–31

Tamamo Cross (Character)

Nice Nature (Wit SSR) & Oguri Cap (Power SSR) (Support)

29–Feb 9

Haru Urara & T.M. Opera O (New Year alts) (Character)

Admire Vega (Power SSR) & Matikanefukukitaru (Speed SSR) (Support)

February:

5th–14th

Rerun Banner (Character)

Sasami Anshinzawa (Pal SSR) & Tamamo Cross (SR) (Support)

11th–19th

Sakura Chiyono O (Character)

Tazuna Hayakawa (Pal SSR) & Riko Kashimoto (Pal SSR) (Support)

5th–20th

Mihono Bourbon & Eishin Flash (Valentine's alts) (Character)

Nishino Flower (Wit SSR) & Sakura Bakushin O (Guts SSR) (Support)

25–Mar 5

Mejiro Ardan (Character)

Agnes Digital (Power SSR) & Ines Fujin (Wit SR) (Support)

March:

5–13

Admire Vega (Character)

Reruns: Kawakami Princess (Speed SSR) & Fine Motion (Wit SSR) (Support)

12–23

Kitasan Black & Matikanetannhauser (Character)

Narita Top Road (Speed SSR), Sakura Bakushin O (Power SR), Admire Vega (Guts SR) & Mejiro Ryan (Stamina SR) (Support)

22–Apr 2

Satono Diamond (Character)

Marvelous Sunday (Guts SSR) & Curren Chan (Speed SR) (Support)

26–Apr 6

Mejiro Bright (Character)

Reruns: Curren Chan (Wit SSR) & Zenno Rob Roy (Speed SSR) (Support)

Unconfirmed schedules:

Early April 1

Seiun Sky & Fuji Kiseki (Formal alts) (Character)

Symboli Rudolf (Stamina SSR) & Sirius Symboli (Wit SSR) (Support)

Early April 2

Nishino Flower (Character)

Daiwa Scarlet (Power SSR) & Sweep Tosho (Wit SR) (Support)

Late April 1

Yaeno Muteki (Character)

Twin Turbo (Speed SSR) & Ines Fujin (Guts SSR) (Support)

Late April 2

Nice Nature & King Halo (Cheerleader alts) (Character)

Bamboo Memory (Guts SSR) & Seeking the Pearl (Speed SSR) (Support)

Early May 1

Ines Fujin (Character)

Mr. C.B. (Wit SSR) & Tokai Teio (Stamina SR) (Support)

Early May 2

Mejiro Palmer (Character)

Matikanefukukitaru (Speed SSR) & Rice Shower (Power SSR) (Support)

Late May 1

Curren Chan & Fine Motion (Wedding alts) (Character)

Haru Urara (Power SSR) & Ikuno Dictus (Stamina SSR) (Support)

Late May 2

Inari One (Character)

Admire Vega (Power SSR) & Sakura Chiyono O (Stamina SSR) (Support)

Early June 1

Sweep Tosho (Character)

Taiki Shuttle (Speed SSR) & Oguri Cap (Guts SR) (Support)

Early June 2

Mejiro Dober & Taiki Shuttle (Camp alts) (Character)

El Condor Pasa (Guts SSR) & Matikanetannhauser (Wit SSR) (Support)

Late June 1

Air Shakur (Character)

Air Groove (Power SSR) & Gold City (Wit SR) (Support)

Late June 2

Mejiro McQueen & Gold Ship (Summer alts) (Character)

Maruzensky (Speed SSR) & Nakayama Festa (Wit SSR) (Support)