another season, another great step of uma musume. this season honestly was quite messy, and really just all over the place. but its ending arc might’ve kinda redeem itself quite nicely. although there are still some parts that i still find quite odd, it was a great chapter of uma musume nonetheless.
lets talk animation since i dont know anything else about how produce an anime (as per my last reviews, im going to watch shirobako one day i swear) but i watched enough to be a little in the know about certain specifics about how animation works and how industry has changed over the course of time. as studio kai picked up uma from the last season, season 2 has tried to impleiment some 3D to some of its scenes which werent a huge deal since it was really only to showcase multiple horses racing on the track which is i assume is harder on 2d to do (again im stupid and not qualified to talk about this lol). here they decide to pretty much do it here as well but also show 3d characteristics on 2d characters (honsetly im not sure about this one but whenever i look at dia i feel she definitely has some sort of thing going on like if you look at kitasan and dia side by side they feel like there totally different idk maybe im hallucinating). i still hope that cygames pictures picks up uma s4 since everything they touched in terms of uma stuff have been great.

(skip this whole paragrah if you want, just summerized 2/3 of the show which i think helps contextualize on why the ending is somewhat redeemable)
so whats next up on the uma story lines? well its pretty much a direct continuation of s2 where two best friends kitasan black and satano diamond go joined their idol’s footsteps to become fellow racehorses at tracen academy. kita and dia were in s2 briefly to showcase they were going follow the footsteps of teio and mcqueen as they were the ones that inspired them to race. kita joining immediately spica while dia on team capella. as show quickly moves to showcasing kita going the japanese derby, but is out performed quickly by duramente. satano also gets her chance to shine as she slowly tries break the satano curse in which eventually does on the kikkashou. but lets take step back a bit, ever since the loss of agaisnt duramente, its been affecting her phyiscally and mentally as she keeps going on a losing streak. theres a part where I really appericated the scene with nice nature as she here acts as the relateable level-headed friend that genuinely wants help kita help back on her feet. this display of characterization from nice nature really helps understand what kind of character she is with just one scene. even though we do not get much from her after this, its nice to have a character whos not just the trainer who can help as a peer. the whole kita training arc was a great segement not just to help get out of kita’s funk but use bourbon and rice shower in a clever way since their ways of training (showcased in s2) benefit kita’s hulk type body and strength. with that, kita is back to form and dia coming off with back-to-back wins as the curse is broken, arima kinen is here. but honsetly? the results arent important its what happens after with kita struggling to find her reason to race in the first place. its important to note this since this will help shape the ending in the way i think makes it more tolerable. eps 9-10 felt more filler though its still enjoyable to see the slice of life aspects.
as we head to ep 11 , this is where it starts. so kita suddenly hits her “peak” condition which makes her get weaker and weaker ever race. and i was taken a bit back on why it kinda just suddenly happen? they did foreshadowed this eariler but it was more like i didnt think the reason for it was just so idk... weird? well its fine idc about how it happen really its probably for the reason that this is based on the acutal race horse's career. but how this affects the story onwards is the real kicker. what they done well is that when kita’s coming terms with her career coming to an end and trying to give a worthy send off to everyone. to see kita’s career soar and make her dreams come true which she truly wanted after the arima kinen loss. to see everyone smiling and enjoy the sport of horse racing. sure that was good. but key characters like duramente, and diamond were left out of the race which really undersells the final races by a good margin. (especially duramente like we only saw her literally race once at ep 1, such wasted potiental on a cool character).
so in end i think even though the hiccups were clearly visble towards the end, it was still a fun watch regardless. this one is a bit longer than i thought. i had a lot more to say since i had to re-watch almost the whole season again just to understand what the hell was going on lmao. this is probably my least favorite uma anime but from here on out it gets much better. road to the top is next