You ever get targeted with pinpoint precision where it hurts the most by a fictional character?
The real Kawakami Princess is the daughter of King Halo. In her running days she had first place after first place. She got first in the Yuushun Himba and then first in the Shuuka Shou. She had all the tellings of a coming powerhouse… and then she landed 12th in the Queen Elizabeth Cup and she fell into a rut that she just could not get out of. She never got a first place since, at best managing second place in the next Queen Elizabeth Cup… and then one last Queen Elizabeth Cup where she landed 9th before retiring.
Despite these failures, however, Kawakami Princess’ exploits still set her name in history for all its rises and falls. It’s even said that Kawakami renewed interest in pieces from King Halo.
Before I explain how all of this was turned into something that destroyed me, let me explain a minor detail from the Uma Musume world.
In the real world, there’s races specifically aimed towards female horses. While this doesn’t mean that mare-only races are somehow less competitive, it’s just a plain fact that male horses end up with more muscles naturally. This hasn’t stopped mares from running the “boys” races, and indeed Air Groove was famous because “The Empress” was able to fight the boys in their battlefield, but we’re still talking about a sport where those participating will want a more level playing field so the separations exists for that.
But in Uma Musume, they’re all girls, so… why would there be a distinction?
Well, in Uma Musume, mare-only races, like the ones behind the “Triple Tiara” title (Ouka Sho, Oaks, and Shuuka Sho) or the Queen Elizabeth Cup (to name a few) are branded as more “lady-like”, refined races for refined ladies if you will. It’s not that it’s segregated by prestige but by the specific sort of brand that the prestige carries.
Think of it as the connotation that getting a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards has compared to an MTV Video Music Award. Depending on the artist a KCA might actually be a better way forward than a VMA.
This will be important later.
SO! Kawakami Princess…
When you see her backstory, Kawakami was a tomboy girl that kept getting in trouble. Her parents, knowing how much she liked Princesses tried to show her storybooks, the kind where the princesses are nice and demure, but they didn’t interest Kawakami, she was only interested in “Princess Fighter” or “Prifai” (this world’s equivalent of Precure) because they showed her that “even a tomboy can be a princess”.
And that’s Kawakami’s brand of Princess, a magical girl but a Precure type of Magical Girl fighting for justice and defending the weak. In these efforts Kawakami has grown insanely strong, with her introduction having her punch a wall and open a hole.
Quick sidenote, there’s a story that in the real Kawakami Princess’ ranch, she was so fierce that there was a sign that said “beware the horse” instead of “beware the dog”.
So from the outset we have a childish girl (the real one had to debut at Age 2 instead of age 3 due to when she was born) with a selfish streak, a tomboy trying as hard as she can to be girly. She has her heart in the right place but her rash demeanor gets her in constant trouble.
In the game Kawakami follows a similar trajectory to the real one, but things get interesting on the lead up to the Elizabeth Cup.
Through her story we see Kawakami in her highs and lows. We see her defend a little girl (referred to as “girl with braids”) from her bully (referred to as “tanned boy”) while calling herself a princess the way someone would call themselves a superhero, and we see her fumble massively in refined situations with King Halo. We see her rising star as she starts to win and then we see it all fall apart in the same spot where the real one fumbled.
In the real world Kawakami Princess actually won first place in the Elizabeth Cup, but because it was determined she obstructed Fusaichi Pandora they ended up pushing her result all the way back to 12th place.
Fusaichi Pandora is a really meritorious mare in real life, and one that faced a lot against Sweep Toushou and Kawakami Princess and became even more notable after her daughter Almond Eye started making a name for herself… but for now, there’s no Pandora, just an unseen girl.
The way they made the cut-in into a story element is actually really interesting. After her victory, Kawakami, in her excitement, runs to the Circle to greet her fans and ends up pushing a girl by accident, causing her very angry trainer to protest how her girl almost fell.
Kawakami of course feels bad, but this spirals out of control as this event coalesces with all her other moments through the campaign and they start to blast her for being so rough and unrefined.
She starts having doubts, she considers retiring early because even when she wins nobody cheers for her because who would cheer for the rough girl with no grace?
This is when everything starts piling up on her mind. She wasn’t good enough for her parents who wanted a quieter child, she wasn’t good enough as a princess because her definition of a princess was not the “right one”, and now she isn’t even good enough for racing because nobody wants to see her win…
And then comes the Fan Thanksgiving Day.
Fan Thanksgiving happens at the start of April of the third year, it’s basically the game’s version of a school festival, but with the framing that being open to the public it’s a means for fans to show appreciation for their favorites.
So Kawakami gets her spot like everyone else and her support is rather lukewarm, turning to cold when the fan of a “Chestnut-haired Horse Girl” (The way the game basically refers to the implied aforementioned Pandora) start heckling her about her use of the word “Princess” saying she’s uncouth. It’s absolutely harrowing to see her try to keep herself together for the sake of her fans, and when she’s at her lowest point, on the verge of tears, who else shouts their support (aside from her trainer) but…
…the tanned boy, the bully from way earlier in the story.
He starts saying that he wants to be a Princess, that if a “Princess” means being as cool and strong and dazzling as Kawakami then he claims he wants nothing but to be a Princess too while apologizing to his mom who told him many times boys can’t be princesses.
Even the “Chestnut-haired girl” apologizes and shows her support for Kawakami, basically making the fan that was heckling her before go quiet.
As the scene ends, the braided girl actually goes after the tanned boy, implying that not only did Kawakami defend her, but they became friends at some point too.
There’s more going on afterwards, like the ending where she gets to advertise her favorite show, or when her trainer pretends to be her mascot character while playing with Sweep Touhou, and many other scenes I could point out to, but I think this should get the point accross of what Kawakami’s story is like.
And it’s impossible for me to explain why it’s special to me because to explain it I’d have to write my whole biography first. But through my life (and even today, though therapy has helped a bit) I’ve been plagued by the same problems of feeling like (and often being told I’m) not being good enough for anything I do.
Not good enough of a programmer, not good enough of a writer, not good enough of a manager or language-learner. Not good enough at physical activities, not good enough at anything academic, not good enough at working for others. This has led me many times to overexert myself physically to a dangerous point because whatever I did was probably not good enough anyways so I shouldn’t be complaining and do more. And whenever I’ve tried to make my own identity in a way that works for me, that wasn’t good enough either, I didn’t fit with any one group and none of those groups would take for who I was.
So when the tanned boy screams at Kawakami that if what she is is a “Princess” then he really wants to be a Princess too, that’s not just me feeling Kawakami’s validation that whatever weirdo identity she created is so good others wanna learn from it, that’s also me as the tanned boy also.
And I haven’t even mentioned how important Magical Girls as a genre is to me, how Kawakami’s scenario was clearly made with love for the genre and for Precure in particular which is also dear to me. Or just the fact that “muscle for brains” is one of my favorite character archetypes in general, or how Kawakami’s “ladylike” manner of speaking is very deliberately forced and she often lapses into less refined vocabulary (or lack thereof with a lot of grunts and noises).
Oh yeah, did you know Kawakami was actually contemporary with a horse called T.M. Precure and in the scenario it receives a nod as a girl that Kawakami is geeking out about because her colors are the colors of a Prifai character?
I don’t really have “favorite” Uma Musume characters because they’re all dear to me, but Kawakami has the special distinction of making me tear up any time I decide to properly read her scenario, including as I wrote this entry.