I was really looking forward to this season after S2. I knew it probably wasn't going to be as dramatic, but I had high expectations. Before it started, I was told that Kitasan Black was incredibly successful IRL. Even elected as the best Japanese race horse in 2017! And from that I expected this season to be relatively straightforward and more chill compared to S2.
I just want to quickly interject here to say that this is my first ever "serious" review of an anime, and the very first one I publish one on AniList like this. I've spent a lot of thought and time on this one. I'm open for any feedback!
The first part of this review is going to be a short summary of the plot to give my reflections more context.
We start off with Kitasan training for her first big race and the characters are (re)introduced. We also get to see some new faces, Chevral Grand and Satono Crown. Then, we’re thrown into the first race! Unfortunately though, Kitasan loses to another newcomer this season, Duramente. Who seems to become her rival for this season. This setback came unexpectedly quickly but seemed pretty natural, just like for Spe in S1(even if hers came later). But as the second episode starts rolling, it immediately turns into something existential for Kita, as she wonders what she's even running for. If you remember from S2, Kita is Teios biggest fan and aspires to be just like her.
As she tries to collect her thoughts, Duramente is injured and Kitasan feels as if her feelings are responsible for this. Nice Nature, who hasn't played any major role in the series up until now comes in to console her, they quickly connect and gain chemistry. They have a serious talk that sends Kitasan confidence back up and she finally wins her first race! The next episode has Kita fired up again, continuing her training. Until Goldshi announces her retirement from the Twinkle Series, and Kitasan is deeply affected by this...
It's actually the first time the show ever touches on this subject, retirement. Up until now the previous protagonists just kept existing, training and watching the current protagonists races.
Kitasan runs alongside Goldshi in her last race. But in the end, neither of them win as... "All Haiyu" takes it home? Not even the 2nd place is handed to them, only 3rd for Kitasan. The 4th episode starts off with Kitasan, once again sulking over a loss and requires Nature-sensei's sessions.
Kitasan's confidence is once again brought up, and she goes off to a training camp hosted by Bourbon and Rice Shower. Who you probably(should!) remember from S2. The camp is in full wing and knowing full well she'll miss Dia's race, she still goes ahead. But the morning after Kitasan still decides to ditch the camp and is able to just catch Dia... losing her race. Kitasan returns to her camp, improves significantly and the episode ends.
...or so I thought. After finishing the episode I read up on some discussions afterwards, and the race she spent the entire episode training for was run and won in a 90 second slideshow with the ED rolling. Her first G1 at that.
The story for the most successful Japanese race horse and her friend starting off so rocky and melancholy already had some people concerned or even critical already. I agreed that it seemed odd, but I thought this was a part of the buildup. And I remembered that my expectations were completely subverted in an amazing way while watching S2 as it aired, so I kept my hopes high. But when I learned about the true ending of episode 4, that hope started waning.
In the next episode we have Kitasan speak to Duramente for the first time. They have a nice chat and connect a bit as Duramente’s return race dawns.
Unfortunately, the race lost to.... "Who?!". Again. Sadly it's also the last episode where Duramente has any relevance.
Oh right, did you know that the 3rd season has a 2nd protagonist? Satono Diamond! She was allocated the entirety of episode 6 for her part.
The Satono family is cursed with the "Satono Jinx" that has them losing races over the smallest thing. It's driven her siblings to despair, and it has Dia on the brink of the same fate after experiencing this "jinx". We get to see Dia overcome this jinx by overloading it with bad luck, signs etc. And then eventually taking home her race in a very emotional ending. The episode does an excellent job building up Dia's dilemma. Displaying her resolve and emotions of overcoming this "curse" with an ending so satisfying it mingles with the end of S2. This episode is by far the best one up until now, I even watched it twice.
Sadly after this, not much of Dia's story was focused on again. We’ll get to that.
Back to Kitasans story we go... I'm going to fast forward this plot summary a bit from here:
She wins, it's barely acknowledged, spends an episode hanging around other horse girls. Loses, it's back to Nature-sensei again and the rest of the episode is sulking around.
Then we get a surprisingly nice SoL episode with just Kita and Dia hanging out outside the city. Kita wins again and... It's barely acknowledged. Hosts the school festival and...! Loses again. But as this episode ends, we are left in shock seeing what state Kitasan's in. She's reached beyond her physical peak. This obviously hits her even harder than the usual losses. Oh yeah, and Dia runs her biggest race over in France and it's only shown as a newspaper page :
We're now at the second last episode with Kita running her next race. And she actually wins! But, the mood is still anything but happy as it’s clear as day that she’s struggling to run. And after that, she's forced to announce her retirement. As the episode goes on, Kitasan desperately tries her best training for the remaining races.
The second last race approaches and... The focus is shifted towards Chevral Grand? She then takes over Kita's focus from the episode and her feelings are surfaced. Then she wins the race over Kitasan in a strange ending episode...
We're finally at the end of the show. Kitasans last final race is coming up and everyone in her team wonders what they can do for her. So, they all come together and design her a new outfit:
Even though she was literally screaming for the entire race, she takes it home! And for the first time it feels like Kitasans victory matters for real. We also get a really good winning live performance before Uma Pyon starts playing, the signature ending song for the series.
Despite the story’s flaws and shortcomings, the ending was pretty great. On par with episode 6, but not entirely redeeming...
Now onto my reflections and criticism
When I learned about the ending of episode 4, I knew something was really off. And it didn't take that many more episodes to realize that Kitasan Black’s path was intentionally made really painful. All while grossly overlooking over her victories. It was as if it that was all the show was focused on with Kitasan... When her peak came, I honestly just went “Oh come on!” instead of the “What?! Oh no!” I’m sure the show tried going for. I was hoping that they'd stop the overbearing on her losses, and balance out with her feelings and celebrations after victories. But instead, the end of her career is effectively announced which just left me more mad than sad.
The amount of times Kita was down sulking and needed Nice Nature, totaled to about 4. The show even started joking about this in episode 8, when Nice Nature had yet another pep talk to a sulking Kitasan, despite her winning several Kikkashou races compared to no-win Nature, with the visuals even emphasizing this:
I honestly wonder if I'd enjoy this season more if it hadn't been told about Kitasan's IRL career. Because it felt so strange to make one of the most successful races horses career into something so strugglesome. Maybe I missed the point here, and the intent was actually to display the personal struggle and feelings of someone so successful? But they didn’t exactly show this incredible success either. Anyway, to do this with Kitasan Black was in my honest opinion, a bad choice given how it turned out. And they didn’t handle anyone else’s exact same feelings well either, strongly hinting towards Dia at the end here.
And yeah sure, this anime is about race horses as high school girls. They absolutely don't have to follow IRL history. But, the show does adapt real races and their results. Which to me implies it's inviting real horse racing fans who know about these races and their outcomes to watch. So why does it feel like being in the unknown is how this season was supposed to be enjoyed...?
Dia was promoted as Kitasan's partner in the main role and even in S2, yet she was essentially shafted to a single episode. Yes, we had a similar lineup in S1 where we had Special Week AND Silent Suzuka as the main characters, with the focus mostly laying on the former. But Suzuka wasn't shafted as hard as Dia, and actually accomplished her own goals in the end, just like Spe.
And instead of Dia’s race in France that I mentioned, we instead got to see Cheval Grand taking up her potential screen time? I mentioned earlier that the only acknowledgement of this race was on a newspaper, and that was it. That was a really bad decision, to shove in another story and focus on another character at the very end when the main ones needed it. If they really had to pick someone other than Kita to take up screen time towards the end why not, again, Dia who just lost her biggest race or at least Duramente who’s probably not feeling great having her career ruined?
Another bad thing about the story is how Kita's rivals were handed. We were first introduced to Duramente who seemed to be the antagonist, until she broke her leg in the 2nd episode and never bounced back. Sataono Crown was hinted to be a rival, but not much came out of that either. Cheval Grand seemed to be the rival towards the end of the season, but just like with Crown it felt like Kitasan wasn't actually acknowledging her as one due to the obvious. And then the show somehow tries to make you feel happy for Cheval as she bests Kita when she’s already down for the count?
Even if I did like Nature-sensei's sessions, why weren’t they given to Tokai Teio? Teio's only part in this season was just her approach with Kitasan which was basically just "It'll work out". Sure, eventually it did but it seemed weird how Teio was present but never took on the mentor role for Kitasan and left it to... Nice Nature? I'm not sure if it was to not have Teio shine in another season, or to give the other supporting characters more development. But either way it didn't really play out well... And speaking of Nice Nature, in-between episode 4-8 as well as after she's given almost nothing but some faces at Kitasan’s races. This despite her chemistry with Kita after four sessions…
Closing words on the story
Like I said, I was really looking forward to this season. But I felt quite disappointed with how both Kitasan and Dia's stories were presented. And a whole lot else didn't make any sense either. Such as the disjointed focus on the "rivals" or supporting characters. Or Teio's toothless role.
Of course, not every story needs to have the protagonist be invincible and win all the time. And I wasn't expecting that, even with Kitasan Black. It'd just be boring or even frustrating, and it leads to a lack of sympathy for the protagonist. But when you the opposite, downplaying their successes at the earliest convenience to focus so heavily on their failures or losses and don't balance it out, you still get the same result.
The other stuff
Apart from that the show still had all its funny gags going, some more hidden than others. You could honestly rewatch this entire series and still not catch all of them! I'm not going to blurt them out as they're like easter eggs waiting to be found, but you know when you see(or hear) them. Also felt like they for the first time started emphasising a bit on fan service too... No details but I think if you compare the seasons you'll see what I mean.
Animation was all-around pretty solid, no complaints. OP and ED were pretty great as well, especially the former.
Sadly we weren't given many winning lives this season either... One was about to start at ep 7, but was cut out by the usual ED. We did have a great one at the end, so I suspect that's where all the effort went. Still, I'd love it if this series could do them more frequently! I also didn't realise until now how much I like the signature ending song and how fitting it is, Uma Pyon. Even if I was disappointed by the story, it made me feel like I was watching the ending credits to a very enjoyable movie.
Parting words
Despite the critic I had towards the story, I still enjoyed the other parts of this season. It returned back to more Cute Race Horse Girls Doing Cute Things(CRHGDC) in-between the races we had in S1 that I like so much as a general SoL fan. But I honestly can't overlook this unbalanced and disjointed story telling.
And again, this is my first review and I'd love to get any type of feedback on it! Either link here or just on my profile.