The first post is recommended reading.
So we have a horse that ran 113 times, in a game where there’s a total of 60 turns with races of them, in which the girl will have a higher chance of injury if you run three turns or more in a row.
Surprisingly, they actually managed to adapt the idea of it in a really interesting way.
I’ll detail this more in the next post, but Urara comes with a very narrow set of proficiencies. She can only run on dirt races (which already cuts her possibilities from the outset), has a rank A for short races and B for mile races (meaning she gets no bonus for mile races), and her running strategy is by default cut-in (差し, sashi).
So, assuming the player doesn’t invest in any other proficiencies (and mind you, the game has many incentives for such cases), the result is that to meet Urara’s objectives (reach certain fan quotas until the third year rolls around) you will need to either run a bunch of low-renown races, or risk it with some other slightly higher renown ones.
And even then Urara might lose, because drive-in is a very tricky strategy to train with, especially for rookie players. The result is that the player ends up running a lot of smaller races that Urara might still lose requiring even more races to be run.
Which means that mechanically, the player ends up, by simple necessity, making Urara have a similar path to her real life counterpart which is mad cool.
But how is Urara’s in-game version?
Well, she’s like honey. Sweet, able to heal wounds, and DENSE AS FUCK.
Basically, they translated the personality of the original perfectly, but taking the route of “sweet girl that only wants to have wholesome fun discipline be damned” rather than being a delinquent.
Urara’s introduction chapter actually embodies the idea of the real Urara from the get-go. There’s a cut to a race in the athletics festival where Urara is running, determination burning in her face…
…every other girl crossed the finish line long ago but URARA HASN’T AND THIS RACE DOESN’T END UNTIL SHE DOES. Still, everyone, including the commentator, is excitedly cheering for Urara to reach the goal.
This continues into the second chapter, where she’s excitedly challenging everyone to races and despite losing not only is she just happy to have run against them, but everyone else is also just happy to have raced against her.
In this chapter Special Week reveals how whenever she felt down for losing, Urara was able to cheer her up, for just the sheer joy in her face from the simple act of racing. Which is a really interesting take on how the original was the “Star of Losers Everywhere”.
The third chapter has the trainer coming across Urara in the nearby shopping district where she’s gathering attention for a local veggies seller, and her insistent shouting of promotion actually results in all the stock selling out.
It’s also in this moment where you learn she’s King Halo’s roommate, a relationship I wanna go into more detail down the line. But beyond that this bit is an interesting integration on how the original, despite not being able to ever win, succeeded incredibly in helping a small racecourse not close down.
Then comes the fourth chapter (the one that comes before the training campaign) and Urara finally has her exhibition run in which she, to everyone’s surprise, comes 9th out of 10 girls! Not only that but during the race we see everyone, from Special Week and King Halo, to the veggie seller and a rival vendor from chapter 3 all cheering for her.
Two important notes of this last one are that not only does the chapter close with the “crazy stuff is happening” theme that you see in moments like Kawakami Princess punching a hole in the wall, but that when the trainer finally asks Urara if she wants to train with them, Urara’s answer is “Are you gonna race too?”.
She’s as dumb as a sack of bricks, I love her so SO much.
So this sets the stage. Urara wants to win, but even if she doesn’t win she’s still happy to just be racing. Her energy is contagious and her now trainer got infected with it too.
Of course, Urara isn’t that… good while running (in context, diregarding player action), so the first two years of her training are just about gathering a certain number of fans. 5000 by the first summer training, 9.000 by November of the second year, and finally 12.000 by the end of the third year. This is basically evoking that idea of Urara just running and gathering many fans on her way, no matter the result.
There’s many moments through that, like when her trainer had to disguise her “training” as random unrelated tasks like “carry this many apples to this shop”, or the time where she heard some kids try and spread rumors about how she was no good and in her obliviousness went to them to thank them for cheering for her and ended up turning them to her side.
But I actually wanna focus on the third year of her campaign.
Emboldened by her increased fan support and skill, Urara challenges the Negishi Stakes, a simple G3 race that’s fit to her natural skills (short distance, dirt); then with all of her fans behind her she challenges her first G1, the February Stakes, which is a bit harder (being a miles race) but nothing she couldn’t handle by this point; Next she goes for the Elm Stakes, another miles race but G3 this time; she then goes for yet another G1, the JBC Sprint.
In the context of the game, all the other races up to the JBC Sprint had the objective of finishing 5th or higher. The JBC Sprint meanwhile is the first one where the objective asks you to win first place.
Haru Urara, the eternal loser, has undeniably, by that point of the story, won first place at least once.
And then, she decides her next goal: Arima Kinen.
Urara, the girl that at best can challenge a 1800m race just barely, and in dirt no less, wants to challenge a 2500m race on turf.
But everyone is behind her, they want to see Urara in one of the most prestigious races. Nobody cares if she wins or loses, they just want to see her favorite girl in the biggest stage. Even Special Week excitedly declares that they’re now Rivals for Arima Kinen.
So of course she does.
And she loses.
And she cries.
For the first time, Urara is crying, and crying after a defeat no less.
And she’s confused, she doesn’t understand it.
She had so much fun, there were so many people cheering for her, everyone else was so impressive… and yet…
…yet why is she sad?
That isn’t just a question Urara might have in her mind, it might be a question in the player’s mind.
Why make her objective such a crushing defeat? What’s the point of showing this ray of sunshine devastated by defeat?
Well, it’s to… teach her a lesson. Not a lesson on not overreaching or not being ambitious, she wasn’t wrong for wanting to run something way out of her expertise, she wasn’t wrong for getting excited about finally winning something, she wasn’t wrong about crying in her defeat either
The hardest part about growing up is learning that there’s no such thing as mutually exclusive emotions. Feelings can exist simultaneously in many places at the same time. You can be happy in failure, sad in victory, angered by a joyous moment. What makes emotions so scary is how unpredictable they are in that sense sometimes.
Hell, you cry if you’re immensely happy, what sense does that make?
If we understand Urara as “The Ultimate Loser”, a loser that even in defeat seems to win… is that perfection complete unless she’s aware of the bitterness that defeat can bring?
There’s another element though.
During her campaign, there’s this undertone of… resignation in Urara, she isn’t really smart enough to notice it but it rears its head sometimes. It’s like her bar has gotten so low that winning 9th out of 10 racers is that much of an accomplishment, or how she almost backs away from the winners’ circle because she’s not used to winning and thought she’d be on the way of someone else. But after the JBC Sprint she dares to dream, is she wrong for wanting to see her limits herself?
Haru Urara isn’t some magical saint that can bring good luck just because. Be it the real horse or the in-game girl, she’s a creature of flesh and blood, one that will be vulnerable, have her moment of pride before her fall. But that’s how we grow, right?
The game isn’t trying to put Urara in her place or anything similar with this last Arima Kinen objective. The game respects Urara enough to give her a lesson she will grow from beyond any objective measure of “success”.
Not only that, but nowhere in her campaign does anyone ever act codescending towards her. When Special Week shows excitement about Urara being in Arima Kinen, it’s never in that tone of “the loser girl is doing something out of her league”. Everyone treats her with respect because there’s an undeniable passion and commitment. It’s almost as if everyone feels like Urara has already won in a way before even attempting the race.
And it’s poetic in a way, for the last person to learn how to find joy despite defeat to be Urara herself.
But that scene also causes something else to stir in the player.
Is it possible for Urara to win Arima Kinen?
Can you make that ending a happier one? Avoid that inevitable face of Urara crying?
Are there any methods to wrap her story with a happier result?
There are.
But it won’t be easy.
In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say that making Haru Urara win Arima Kinen is basically the last boss of Uma Musume as a whole to this day.
More details on that in the next post.