Buena’s title in-game (and thus the “name” of her racing outfit) is Heroína Inocente. Fittingly since her name is in Spanish, that’s Spanish for “Innocent Heroine” which is very much her character type.
The thing that gets me is that since release El Condor Pasa’s Unique Skill in Japanese has been Plancha Ganador. This is a mistake I understand because the idea of words being gendered is bullshit and language feels so free without it.
For those that don’t know what I mean, Spanish is a gendered language. This often comes up just in relation to personal pronouns, but the thing about it, the most intrinsic problem, is that it’s not just personal pronouns but rather EVERY NOUN has a gender and personal pronoun.
Tables? Female. Combs? Male. The moon? Female. The sun? Male. Water? Male unless it’s plural and referring to open waters in which case it’s female, unless you’re talking about the word for sea specifically in which case it is male in singular and plural.
There’s some “neutral” words and terms you can try, but the thing is that even then the language works on a “male until proven otherwise” rule so there’s no true neutrality in the way that other languages like english might have. It took a LOT of time for my ESL ass to catch onto that nuance. For example “we” doesn’t have a discernable intrinsic gender in English, meanwhile the equivalent in Spanish: “nosotros”, is TECHNICALLY neutral, except that if the group using “we” is all female then it becomes “nosotras”, leaving the implication that “nosotros” is male.
So when I saw El’s skill be “Plancha Ganador” instead of “Plancha Ganadora” (“Winner Body Slam”, where “Plancha” can mean plate or press but is also used for clothing irons) I was like “perfectly understandable mistake”… and then they release Buena and give her a title WITH A TILDE. HEROÍNA INOCENTE. TILDES ARE SO ANNOYING YOU’LL BE HARD-PRESSED TO FIND SOMEONE NOT USING A PHONE THAT BOTHERS WITH THEM IN ANYTHING THAT’S NOT FORMAL WRITING.
They’ve gone and changed the flags in Mayano’s outfit to avoid real world implications, they’ve even replaced the language that calls Fine Motion royalty because everyone was taking it too literally… and yet to this day El’s skill remains Plancha Ganador.
Anyway, let’s actually go through her snippet talking about her outfit so I start this post with something other than a pettiness-induced language lesson.
We actually don’t get that much direct insight into the outfit itself, instead the scene talks about how Buena got things like a Special Week shirt, a purple pencil case with Spe’s outfit colors… and then Buena sees a gold brooch that looks like one of Special Week‘s clovers. Sadly it was too expensive, but this prompted her neighbor to take a bunch of part time jobs and get it as a gift for her.
My favorite part of the scene is the two lovebirds lost in their shared past and Special Week is just there like ??????????????????????????????????????????????
Same girl, same.
This does give the context that Buena’s outfit is literally based on Spe’s and when you put them side it really sells the fangirl element of Buena’s character while keeping it distinct. If anything, I’d dare say that it’s roughly like it was modified by someone with girlier preferences.
By the way, here’s another detail on that side: Buena and Spe have the same three sizes and the only difference is that Buena is 1cm taller, and yet things like their face shape and the way they carry themselves makes this difference feel so much bigger. This is most likely because Buena Vista and Special Week in real life were shockingly similar in body shape, which is actually impressive on Buena Vista’s side being a filly.
Also, when the scene is like “that looks familiar” and talks about something in her chest, I focused on the red X in her tie and thought “ah fuck it’s that one plot from Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance again isn’t it…”.
Oh, speaking of similarities, Buena often mentions in her training how for a race she will “flip the switch” and it sounds like something she might’ve learned trying to imitate Cesario, which is a cute detail.
Despite referring to the player as Onii-chan/Onee-chan, Buena Vista is the one case where this is more of a relic of the past. Unlike Curren, where the title is used to be casual and as a reference to their encounter in the past, or Rice who uses it to indicate her trust on her trainer, for Buena it’s basically an indicator of the past. Her trainer is Onii-chan/Onee-chan only in reference to their shared childhood and moving on from this title is one of the indicators of their relationship evolving.
In fact, Buena reverting to it for her kizuna chapter 7 hits as hard as it does because it’s like she’s deliberately letting herself be Buu-chan for the briefest of moments.
Also, it’s fun that the introduction talks about Buena Vista leaving her trainer behind in terms of maturity, and then said trainer is referred to as onii-chan/onee-chan. One has to wonder if that’s a nod to Admire Aura in some way.
Speaking of it, here’s one fun detail: Buena’s trainer is the only trainer in the game with canonical, non-choice, non-inner monologue dialog.
How, you ask? During Buena’s introduction in the training mode there’s some dialog while she reminisces about the past that’s labeled “onii-chan/onee-chan”. Even beyond the fact that the only onii-chan/onee-chan Buena has is her trainer, the dialog is basically a rethread of stuff from the kizuna episodes reflecting the choice-as-dialog prompts you see in those.
It’s understandable why they did this, since in the context of the scene it’s Buena remembering that. In fact, one of the choices-as-dialog pop ups is what breaks the moment and snaps her back to reality. Still a neat bit, however.
There’s no race where Buena Vista ran against both Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka like in her introduction. Her career overlapped briefly with Vodka’s but never properly crossed paths, also Daiwa Scarlet actually retired the year that Buena Vista debuted… well, technically Daiwa Scarlet is registered as retiring on 2009, but her last race was the 2008 Arima Kinen.
The race featuring those two specifically is more a stand-in for how Buena Vista ended third in her debut against horses that would go onto have impressive classic years and as such a third place is still an accomplishment.
Though speaking of that race, let’s actually talk about the parallels that the game draws with it. Specifically the four other girls that get top billing alongside Buena.
In the real world, the top five of Buena Vista’s maiden race is, from first to fifth place: Unrivaled, Reach The Crown, Buena Vista, Three Rolls, and A Shin Beatlon. In the game, the girls that are mentioned alongside Buena Vista are (trying my best to interpret the katakana here): Unicarize, At The Crest, Sansha Sangyo, and Shin Doulunlun.
The game goes out of its way to bring them up for the fan thanksgiving event with Vodka. It’s such a specific event too: The same people from the debut race, but Sansha Sangyou is absent recovering from injuries.
Now, I looked up all of their careers and took aside A Shin Beatlon since that horse mainly ran ungraded races. Could’ve sworn Shin Doulunlun would’ve been her stand-in but there you go. There is one race where Buena Vista, Unrivaled, Reach The Crown and Three Rolls all participated: The Arima Kinen that Buena Vista ran against Dream Journey.
In this case the addition of Vodka as a rival felt out of place, Reach The Crown was the only one out of all of them (including Buena Vista) to ever run against Vodka, in the Japan Cup that Vodka won… then I remembered that the Arima Kinen in question was one Vodka couldn’t participate in because she was suspended for one month as a preventative measure due to her having a nosebleed, despite being the top pick and whatnot.
So the fan thanksgiving is basically playing a what if scenario of “what if Vodka actually got to participate and Buena Vista got her reunion with her debutmates”. Speaking of them, while they’re the usual procedurally generated mobs, they’re UNIQUE procedurally generated mobs, which means that they’re only in specific races related to Buena Vista rather than being in the general pool. You won’t see Unicarize in Win Variation’s make debut, for example.
You know who else participated in that Arima Kinen? THAT’S RIGHT TM PRECURE BABY THE QUEEN IS NOT FORGOTTEN SHE GOT FIRST PLACE IN MY HEART.
On the topic of races, they sure crammed Almost All Of Them in one way or another for her. This is notable because the game tends to cut its losses and stop the career at certain points even if the careers have more story afterwards. For example, Vodka’s career stops before her overseas expedition. It also results in fun bits like Digitan‘s career being a semi-sequel to King Halo’s career.
So let’s summarize how they crammed references to Buena Vista’s races in some way:
- The Sapporo Kinen isn’t an objective, however Buena visits the Sapporo racecourse with Special Week. Sidenote, this drops the fun bit of trivia that despite being from Hokkaido, Special Week never ran in the Sapporo racecourse.
- From the event above and its lead up mentions are made of going to France but it’s dropped for the sake of the Shuuka Sho.
- They condense the TWO Dubai expeditions into the Valentine’s Day event where they go to the Dubai-themed commercial area with comments about wanting to go someday. Something something chocolate.
- The Japan Cup where she won but got demoted via obstruction to Rose Kingdom was turned into the post-summer training exhibition. Incidentally, Rose Kingdom was only added last anniversary AFTER Buena Vista was implemented.
This truncation also had the very funny side effect of implying Eishin Flash lost the Nihon Derby. Due to gameplay limitations (the very same reason there’s truncation going on, even), Buena Vista runs the 2011 Japan Cup in what’s 2010 for her, being the same year that she raced and lost against Nakayama Festa in the Takarazuka Kinen and her first Senior year. However, Orfevre is already mentioned as having won the Nihon Derby the time she shows up, meaning Eishin Flash never won the Nihon Derby or even lost it to Orfevre.
Now, in practice this doesn’t read like a contradiction in the game, I’m just playing that up for the bit. Buena Vista’s Senior year is actually very consistent internally with this.
Here’s what actually happens: In broad strokes the game has grabbed all the senior-only races that overlap between both years (Victoria Mile, Takarazuka Kinen, and Autumn Tenno Sho) and picking the ones from years that further the narrative better or feature characters in the cast (2011 Victoria Mile, 2010 Takarazuka Kinen, 2010 Autumn Tenno Sho). And if we want to finish the career story with the real horse’s tearful retirementit’s necessary to build up Orfevre which means setting Orfevre in her Classic year (of 2011).
Basically it all works perfectly fine unless you go “wait, wasn’t this 2010…?”, but if you only think about it within the context of the plot, there’s no internal contradiction.
Buena Vista has THREE different outcomes for each of the Triple Tiara races.
What’s the difference you ask? Simple!
Did she win?
Did she lose?
And finally…
Did she lose but Red Desire won?
The Shuuka Sho actually has FOUR outcomes, the three already mentioned plus one more if winning means you get the triple tiara.
Speaking of losing, there’s a minor gag/detail you might not notice if you don’t see Buena lose one of these races.
When Buena Vista loses one of these races (particularly the earlier two) she does a very stiff bow to the crowd. The stiff bow makes a return… when she WINS the Takarazuka Kinen and the pressure of everyone’s expectations gets to her, basically signaling that winning that race read as a loss somewhere in her mind.
For those wondering, the themes of the story remain intact even if Buena loses the tiara because then fans still cheer for her, which drives home the strength of her following and keeps the idea of her being the center of the era. Incidentally, If she and Desire lose the Shuuka Sho, Desire is more devastated than if Buena is the one that beats her.
The Arima Kinen against Dream Journey also has this sort of branching, the main overarching difference is that if both lose there’s no scene of Journey quietly celebrating.
On the topic of Red Desire, this will probably be more relevant when she gets implemented, but the idea of running into a new world sure gives off the same vibes as Cafe’s support card, and the fables of the “girl that looks like cafe” waiting for people to reach her.
Considering how meta the plot with Sunday Silence descendants has been for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if Desire becomes a rethread of Cafe the same way Buena was a rethread of Spe.
SPEAKING OF WHICH, Stego isn’t beating the deadbeat dad allegations when Buena crosses paths with THREE OF HER KIDS ONE AFTER THE OTHER.
Oh, and speaking of the Tiara, Buena’s scenario actually keeps the consistency that Gentildonna hasn’t won the Triple Tiara yet. In fact not only does she tell Buena something along the lines of “as someone that wants to chase it, can I get excited that you’ll win it?”. But the Good Ending has a whole section about the new era coming in and Gentildonna’s Triple Tiara is one of the things brought up.
This stuck out to me because I still remembered the bits of the franchise where girls would be treated as legendary racers… and not run until next season, basically.
Some might wonder about ending differences after I talked how Still In Love’s Normal and Good Ending are completely different, but that one is still an outlier. The norm is for the normal and the good end to not be mutually exclusive, to be things you can see happening one after the other.
As an example, Buena’s good ending is basically her retirement ceremony, culminating with her and her trainer thinking about everything while on the beach.
Meanwhile her normal ending has the trainer dreaming of young Buena only to be woken up by current Buena who’s practicing with Red Desire with which she clearly has struck a friendship (by which I mean Buena meeting Desire’s “I must surpass you” with a “thank you, you’re very important to me too” dear God this girl…).
There’s no mutual exclusivity in these scenarios, the good ending is just good because the tone is a bit more triumphant.
By the way, jumping back to the Tokimemo references. Not happy with just being the Yoshio of the scenario, Transcend’s Christmas bit also sets her up as being Sotoi.
Here’s where things get really funny: Yoshio and Sotoi share the same VA so the fact that both roles are being done by Transcend feels extra cheeky. Considering that Chronic Little Sister Viblos is introduced by Transcend on the Valentine’s Day event, and Yoshio’s sister Yumi becomes dateable starting year two of Tokimemo, it really makes you think how deeply they thought this one.
ALSO YOU REMEMBER HOW BUENA GIFTS HER TRAINER HER HAIR RIBBON? SHIORI GIVING THE PLAYER CHARACTER HER HEADBAND IS AN ACTUAL PLOT POINT.
[MUFFLED SCREAMING] THESE FUCKING NERDS.
One fun detail also mentioned in the introduction is the fact that Uma Musume have effectively superhuman hearing but just like with regular horses is still very directional. This is first introduced when Buena’s trainer wants to convey something to her in the midst of all the crowd hubbub outside.
Speaking of introductions, during the introduction of her training mode, one of the scenes has Buena being asked how to say “where can I get my horseshoes repaired” in English, but the word chosen is “cleat”. It isn’t WRONG, but considering how Uma is meant to be the equivalent of Horse, I wonder if it’s just internal consistency to not use the word Horse specifically.
That sure brings… questions about Cheval Grand’s name, but then again nobody questions the fact that “Uma Musume” means Musume has a qualifier implying the existence of a Musume-less Uma. Pretty sure this is the sort of shit that turns you into a mage in Mage The Ascension if you think about it in-universe.
I got super curious about which cablecar they took for the Hanshin JF because I love cablecars and if there’s one near the mountains I wanna know. So let’s take the clues from the top (HAH!).
First, the endpoint is the Hanshin Racecourse, which is in Takarazuka and has Mt Rokko nearby. The trainer mentions specifically a hotel in the mountains, and a cablecar (not a ropeway, it’s very specific wording).
If I had to hazard a guess, Buena Vista was staying by Mt. Rokko the day before the race, they took the Rokko Cable Line, and then took the 1 hour drive to the Hanshin Racecourse. This theory is basically hinging on the fact that there’s not many cablecars in Hyogo, let alone near the Takarazuka area.
This would also fit in with their dilemma in the moment because they explicitly got stuck in the elevator for one hour, so the plan they had would’ve been in jeopardy as the hour plus for the drive was spent inside a stuck elevator.
Fun fact, if this is the case, I actually rode that cablecar earlier in the year!
I don’t like spending New Year’s at home and be alone with my thoughts so I rented a place that turned out to be a glamping hotel. Long story short the heating was too poor for the amount of cold so I ended up returning earlier which was a shame because the area is lovely otherwise.
Of course, the actual ride to the racecourse doesn’t have a time mentioned so for all I know they were rushing all the way from the Mt Maya side of things.
Buena Vista is actually one of two characters from the discarded set of 4 teased back in the day to have made it as a finalized design, with the other being Orfevre… well, at least that’s what the assumptions are. As you can tell by the image (and this link where a bunch of them are compiled) a name was never officially given. But you can kinda see the motif, especially with the black and yellow squares.
By that point the VA was listed as Inori Minase, better known as Hestia from Danmachi and… one of the Quintuplets, couldn’t tell you which even if I had a pic in front of me.
Here’s another fun tidbit that I don’t know when I might be able to bring up. The girl generally accepted to be proto-Orfevre was voiced (according to those slides) by Eriko Matsui, who voices Fuji Kiseki nowadays. And who voiced Fuji Kiseki at that point? No idea! They might’ve assigned Eriko Matsui to her by the time the design was finalized and proto-Orfevre was canned.
I should also emphasized that it’s all “accepted consensus” but there’s never been any official word on what those designs were meant to be. Just like there’s never been any official word on why the designs were canned. I mention this specifically because it’s easy for speculation to get to a point where it’s taken as fact and that’s a very dangerous hole to fall into. It’s why I make sure to stress that short of me having a historical record or article to draw from it’s all my own conjectures for fun.
That said, if the girl up there was indeed Buena Vista, I’m so fucking glad they redesigned her holy fuck. Though it seems even back then the idea of her design reflecting Spe’s outfit was there.
Speaking of VA’s, Buena Vista’s is Fuuka Izumi, and when I was originally drafting these posts I was gonna make a point about how dangerous her voice is given that one of her most notorious roles is Utena Hiiragi from Mahoako… and the point does remain, but ever since she’s also voiced Miruchi in Kanachoro and I feel like that one drives the point even harder
Buena is voiced in a very specific way where you always get this vibe that… if she had even a modicum of malice in her body it’d get out of hand, like a dangerous creature that’s only kept in check by her unrelenting innocence. And even outside of that, it means that her emotional highs are very strong so when she cries it directly pulls at your heart strings.
Buena’s first secret is that she’s been trying to make homemade salad dressing, and if you’ll remember Transcend comments also on Buena’s predilection for them. The ever-reliable Freddy Sakazaki AKA lunaticmonster has pointed out that the real Buena Vista’s favorite meal was green grass so maybe it’s a reference to that.
Her second secret, meanwhile is that she’s not a big fan of dates (the fruit, not the event) and this one to me feels like a reference to her troubled expeditions to Dubai. The fact that dates (the fruit) can be so easily confused in writing with dates (the event) is amusing considering her character, though.
Buena’s profile has things we’ve already seen or can infer, like how it comments that she used to imitate her mom a lot as a reference to how Biwa Heidi and Buena Vista both won the Hanshin JF.
She doesn’t like traffic jams and suspense movies and it feels like a nod to all her races that ended with photo finish and that one Japan Cup’s obstruction. On the flipside, her liking to make bentos and archery feels like the profile painting her as an archetypical main heroine.
It also comments about how her tail tilts towards the person walking besides her which………………… yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……………………………….
It also highlights something we see in her story where she has an uncanny ability to differentiate individual voices in crowds. Which takes me to something I forgot to bring up earlier.
Buena is a very sensitive empath, she gets swayed easily by crowds of any kind or even just the people near her like she feels their heart… and this isn’t something exclusive to Buena. To date (the unit of time, not the fruit nor the event) she’s actually at least the THIRD second-generation Sunday Silence descendant to show this ability alongside Victoire Pisa and Sounds of Earth, and it’s safe to assume that Red Desire has this ability too from what little we’ve seen of her.
Not all of them show this explicitly though, like Daiwa Scarlet and Stego’s brood, but for all we know that maladjusted gang has that ability and they just choose DELIBERATELY to ignore it.
As for Scarlet? She’s… not that smart, let’s say.
Buena doesn’t have alts yet, but she actually has three support cards. Her basic R card, the left one which is from the event at the end of April 2025 where there was a marching band (the card is called “Luz de Ensueño” or “Dreamy Light” by the way), and the 3.5th anniversary card is also technically hers despite the image showing a group.
Buena also shows up as being part of the team Kitahara is training at the end of Cinderella Gray. It also features Scarlet and I would like to have a word with Kitahara, I just want to talk, just words I swear, this rock is just something I like fiddling with don’t mind it, don’t mind me, LET’S JUST TALK–
Jokes aside, if you’re wondering what the theme or commonality is… Jockey Katsumi Ando maybe? That’s the only thing those two have in common with Oguri Cap.
Also, you can do this.
I don’t have eloquent words for this, it just cracks me up like you have no idea.