The only time where the time gap will be so neatly divisible.
Hey everyone! Honestly it’s kinda wild that I’m writing a second one of these.
I wish I could brag about all the stuff I wrote for this blog in late 2024, but life took a time toll on things in the last year. I’m fine myself though! Without going into too much detail the last year or so has been spent in an investment of how things are set up at work to streamline and delegate.
The process is already showing its effect, but also things were so lopsided that even now I’m still taking that effort to spread the load and relieve myself from certain stressors.
Now, I’ve talked about it in this blog plenty of times in the past, but Uma Musume has kept me sane during such periods. I don’t even mean necessarily escaping into the game, but rather, being so keenly aware of how the franchise has evolved even ever since I started this blog, is an example I remind myself about of how sometimes, things just gotta be given their due time.
And in a kinda poetic way, the current topic I’ve been trying to write about since last year is an example of how sometimes a delay can result in something better.
Let me explain.
Currently, the topic I’ve been trying to tackle in this blog is that of the game’s “Main Story“.
Originally I wanted to have them done before Part Two released, and my goal was to be like “Yeah it’s pretty cool how the narrative style evolved from melancholic galge to something more intense and hot-blooded, can’t see what’s next”.
The first delay before life kicked in was that the draft for Winning Ticket’s story got really bogged down by me trying to explain why the Nihon Derby is a big deal so I decided to first make a whole post explaining that, and then I got sidetracked by listing all of the Triple Crowns in Japan.
Then life kicked in.
Then the Part Two of the main story released and a new dimension was added to it all. Turns out each part is ostentably also mirroring the career of specific jockeys, so I had to add that dimension to the narrative of the posts. I have general notes of where I want the whole thing to go (and also to note down any extant info I come across while researching one part) and by this point I was planning on closing the batch by basically talking in a very cautiously optimistic tone about how the difference between Part One and Part Two is that Part One was when Uma Musume was proving itself and Part Two is the part where they were able to make promises.
I had planned for a whole bit where I theorized which other horses might be added to the game, starting with Fusaichi Pandora for reasons that will be evident whenever I get to it.
Then they added Fusaichi Pandora so I started planning how Almond Eye being part of the game might be a reality.
And as of this writing the anniversary stream actually added Almond Eye, and Lucky Lilac, and Chrono Genesis, and even names I’ve come across and didn’t even dare think about like Loves Only You.
Did I mention that they’re also adding Speed Symboli? Not only that but they’re literally adding Haiseiko, the first thing I wrote about in this blog.
Now the thing I’m writing isn’t just about tonal evolution with cautious optimism. It’s tonal evolution and an evolution of how the game has evolved from making do with what they had to being able to paint long-term narratives that you can see them setting up from now.
That’s such a better and more satisfactory thing than what I originally had in mind and it’s all thanks to giving it time and not stressing about this blog.
I love this page so much, not just because I can share my passion my way with everyone, but because I tend to not be very… fandom-heavy on anything. Even the word “fandom” makes me uncomfortable, so to know I have My Thing, and it being something that I can write so much about is such a good feeling in general. So please never ever take the silence in this blog as a sign of me not loving the franchise of what it’s brought into my life, if I had it my way I’d dedicate so much more time to this, but until I have infinite money I have adulting that takes energy out of me sometimes.
On more behind the curtain things, I was surprised to see how much traffic my post about Dolphin Wave has gotten, I guess nobody ever talked about it in English?
The Speed Symboli post has gotten more traffic recently and my posts about Sunday Silence have been consistently hitting numbers.
The fact that this page averages 30 visitors and 50 views daily is nothing short of wild too.
I want to believe that anyone that comes back or even keeps reading other entries is because they like what I write specifically. I’ve never mentioned it, but I don’t like just hearing a factoid and copying it, I like to understand what’s being told so I can convey it knowing what it all means. That and the fact that I editorialize so hard that I assume it’s tricky to copy the posts without sounding exactly like me in the process.
To whoever asked me in the contact form how I research my posts: 1) I’m sorry for not replying earlier and 2) Here’s a quick explanation.
There’s three resources I use consistently with the rest being on a case by case basis: JP Wikipedia, Pixiv Dictionary, and LunaticMonster‘s Shijitsu de Uma Musume.
Wikipedia doesn’t have extensive articles all the time, so I often have to cross reference other related articles to have a clearer picture of everything. For example, Sakura Chiyono O‘s history tends to wind down after the Nihon Derby, but the game continues afterwards so I looked up all the subsequent races to get an idea for what the game is trying to convey after the fact. They also tend to have citations that can themselves lead you into other details you might want or need.
It’s just the basic thing of “Don’t quote Wikipedia, look at Wikipedia’s citations”.
Another example is that when I wrote about the french race that I refuse to name right now, I had to look up a couple of tangential bits like “wait, wasn’t Napoleon making a mess at this time? How did the British race with the French if at all?”.
Pixiv Dictionary is… basically Japanese Know Your Meme, but in the context of stuff within Pixiv. These tend to have plenty of early fan reactions to characters and fan theories. However, it’s also a website that’s not updated that often so I take it as a jumping point and then go off on my own.
LunaticMonster’s comics are something you’ve probably seen if you’re into Uma Musume. They have information that has citation on which publication they come from which is, again, a great frame of reference just in general.
With all the info swirling in my head, I then try to find a common ground between both the real horse and the fictional girl and try to filter everything through a singular idea, a singular narrative. Often the one that the game tries to make with the girl’s training story. Something important to consider is that each girl isn’t just the horse, they often add elements of the jockeys, trainers, staff, ranch, and even time period. And that’s not even counting other nerdery like for example Biko Pegasus and Tokusatsu stuff.
The “Extra Notes” posts are basically born from all of the info that didn’t make it into the main post because it would distract from that main narrative.
A lot of this is also just… a me thing. I’ve never been formally diagnosed with anything specific other than ADHD but the way I process/filter a bunch of information just isn’t… normal. This isn’t me bragging, sometimes I often need to translate basically Fer Machine Language into understandable conversation.
My advice for researching anything? Be curious. It doesn’t matter if you’re using the same sources as everyone else, let your curiosity take you to tangents because you’ll often find information that enriches the end result. Ask silly questions, try to find answers to seemingly dumb things.
Here’s an example I always bring up: If you spend enough time watching videos about Pokemon, you’ll eventually come across people quoting a manga called “Satoshi Tajiri, the man that made Pokemon”. In all the years I’ve seen Youtubers talk about it, I’ve never seen any of them point out the fact that said manga is part of a bigger anthology of important historical figures, implying (deservedly, honestly) that Tajiri is someone of the stature of Osamu Tezuka, Fujiko F Fujio, Eiji Tsurubaya, or even John F. Kennedy.
You’d think that people that love Pokemon would be proud to point this out but all of them stop at “the manga exists” without ever wondering why the manga even exists.
As an example in this blog that I’m still proud of, me noticing that Vodka‘s motorcycle fixation seemed like a late addition led me to finding an interview that might be the source of that character trait that I didn’t see anywhere else.
More importantly, information breeds information. The more you learn about something the more you learn which questions to ask or what to look for. You can see me learning exactly that if you track this blog from the start.
…that wasn’t a quick explanation at all, was it? Oh well.
Thank you to everyone who drops by, and sorry to everyone that wants more and keeps checking the page only to find nothing new. I mentioned it a couple of posts ago but if you wanna make sure I’m still alive I do have a daily blog.
Regardless, Happy Birthday to Uma Musume and happy birthday to this humble blog.
Here’s to one more year, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another…