So after falling the rabbit hole of an early attempt at making horseracing trendy, I got the manga versions of My Sweet Umadonna.
Yes, versions, plural. They’re quite interesting, actually.
First, let’s rewind for a second and set a timeline.
In December 11 2011, My Sweet Umadonna: Boku wa Kimi no Uma (My sweet ウマドンナ 〜僕は君のウマ〜) released. Then, in December 9 2012, the its sequel My Sweet Umadonna 2: Uma Sugu Kiss Me (My sweet ウマドンナ2 〜ウマすぐ Kiss Me〜) released.
Our story starts in the time in-between these two releases, in the August 2012 issue of Weekly Shonen Sunday S Special edition, where a manga called My Sweet Umadonna: Bakyuun (My sweet ウマドンナ 馬きゅ〜ん) released.
It ran for 3 volumes, until March of 2014, meaning it outlived both the game and the other manga adaptation.
Said other manga adaptation is just called My Sweet Umadonna (My sweet ウマドンナ), it started in July of 2013 and ran until it was compiled into a single volume in December 2013.
So let’s sum this up:
- December 2011: First game releases, releasing it around this period actually aligns with Arima Kinen which is usually the last race of the year and where many horses retire (and thus when interest in horse racing spikes). And which is the objective of the game by the end.
- August 2012: First manga adaptation releases, the first volume actually aligns with the release of the second game, to the point it’s promoted inside said volume.
- December 2012: Second game releases
- March 2013: First manga resumes publication.
- July 2013: Second manga starts publication.
- September 2013: First manga’s second volume is out.
- October 2013: First manga’s last run starts.
- December 2013: Second manga ends with a volume published, notably the timing would align with a hypothetical third game at this point.
- April 2014: First manga’s last volume is published.
I list the events this way because the picture it paints is fascinating, you could tell they had a plan, down to timing the releases, and the plan was so set that even when it was clear Umadonna wasn’t the next big thing they still had a released timed. It’s notable because volume 2 of the first manga and the second manga don’t really promote the game or any game.
So with this out of the way, let’s actually tackle first the second manga they released for reasons that will be obvious before long.
Called simply “My Sweet Umadonna” (My sweet ウマドンナ), it’s an adaptation in broad strokes of the first game… at least I assume based on my research since I have zero experience with the actual game.
It was written by Furuta Asa (古田麻) who seems to only have this to their name, and it was illustrated by Ohtsuka Tommy (大塚トミイ) who has worked on manga as early as the Slayers Special and as recent as “Saikyou no Youhei Shoujo no Gakuen Seikatsu: Shoujo to Shoujo, Kaikou suru”, AKA School Life of a Mercenary Girl.
The back of the book (that I used as header for this post) outright states “This horse is a pervert” so you know it’s an early 2010s period piece character-wise, reinforced by the fact that Umanosuke (the horse in question) is introduced as very timid compared to every other horse in the ranch.
And so we have our cast: Asuka is the cute one, Kotobuki is the one with big boobs, and Kurisu is the one with the big butt.
Listen… at some point you gotta respect the commitment.
Oh, also, Umanosuke runs faster if he gets horny, which, lucky for him, a cute girl is riding him and if whispering in his ear isn’t enought then hitting him should do it.
The story is… honestly nothing too crazy, he trains, hijinx ensue, everyone is uncomfortably horny for this horse and vice-versa. You get a speedrun as to the plotlines of each girl like Asuka having memories going to races with her dad or Kotobuki and something something her grandpa. Umanosuke wins Arima Kinen and everyone’s happy, the end.
Also instead of just Asuka trying to feed Umanosuke mouth to mouth, it’s the three of them.
Sidenote, they really wanted to make that A Thing, since it’s something that happens in the game.
And even played it with Satomi Shigemori (Japanese talent and model) during the hype cycle for the sequel.
To be honest though, it’s just… fine. I could sit here making a million jokes about the girls being horny for a horse or the horse being horny for humans, but in the end after the novelty and any amount of shock wears off it’s just… fine, there’s nothing to the story in its execution that sticks with you afterwards.
Sure, I could talk about how the Arima Kinen that happened the year the game came out was when Orfevre beat Eishin Flash, or how the names of all the characters are based off past Arima Kinen winners, or how there’s actually a change in story because in the second game Umanosuke had to forego Arima Kinen due to a nosebleed…
But aside from “Neat!” There’s not much else I can do to extend this section.
Now, earlier I said “let’s actually tackle first the second manga they released for reasons that will be obvious before long.” and you might think the obvious reason is that I’m opening with the one most closely related to the defunct game we’ve focused into… and you’re half right.
The other half though, is the fact that the second Umadonna manga FOREGOES THE WHOLE CORE PREMISE ENTIRELY.
My Sweet Umadonna: Bakyuun (Where Bakyuun is just an onomatopoeia but it’s written 馬きゅ〜ん with the kanji for horse), is written and illustrated by Kenmotsu Chiyo (剣持ちよ) who you might know nowadays from RPG Fudousan.
And that accolade is foreshadowing for the key component of Bakyuun. Just like how the main game was crafted with the idea of capitalizing in the Light Novel boom, Bakyuun was capitalizing in the slice of life with cute girls market that K-On! left on its wake.
Also, you know how the whole point of this franchise was the idea that the girls were hitting on a horse?
THAT’S GONE
NO HORSEFUCKING
Bakyuun is basically a wacky comedy about stablehands where the horses are just that: horses. The tone is set in the first few pages where, afraid that they will be cancelled (no, not that way), a girl called Sakura Chiyo gets stripped of her clothes by another girl called Akane Tenryuu.
You know how I mentioned that in My Sweet Umadonna, the characters are named after winners of the Arima Kinen?
In Bakyuun they’re named after LOSERS of Arima Kinen.
Just the first volume’s introduction page includes: Sakura Chiyo (Sakura Chiyono O), Akane Tenryuu (Akane Tenryuu), Nishino Hana (Nishino Flower), Imai Hikari (Stay Gold probably?), Fukai Sora (Probably Seiun Sky), Niiyama Miho, and Fukai Haku (the last two which I’ll decipher at the least convenient moment, I’m sure).
The second volume opens with them playing the actual Umadonna game and showing concern that the JRA is now making porn.
Not gonna lie, Bakyuun is actually entertaining to read, it’s like a Manga Time Kirara work that allows itself to be more unhinged than cutesy… the elements that make it so are also completely secondary to the core premise of the franchise. The setting of stables IS unique but is also completely inconsequential unless they’re specifically throwing jabs at its own franchise.
And by god do they ever.
If the introduction in both of the first volumes wasn’t enough, there’s one episode where the main Umadonna girls show up and can only say “ウマドンナよろしくね！” and nothing more.
Or another one where the main trio turns into horses and they propose the inverse of the main game’s premise (where a faceless human has to romance three horses) before the idea is shut down.
One of the often-quoted small worldbuilding details in Uma Musume is how the 馬 kanji in that setting only has 2 “legs”, and imagine my surprise when this manga has a chapter talking about the frustration that the kanji has five legs (in truth, one of them is the tail).
One of my favorite scenes is actually a chapter where the aforementioned Sakura Chiyo comes across a manga selling millions that’s about “horses turned into girls” before they start discussing that whole trend.
This all the way back in 2014 by the way.
If I had to put any final thoughts… it would be that, mean as it sounds, it failed for a reason.
And I’m not even talking about the wacky premise necessarily.
Once you get past the shocking initial premise, Umadonna is a super basic story where it’s hard for anything to stick properly. Meanwhile, with Uma Musume, once you get past the quirky premise you realize you’ve been falling down a hole for almost 3 years now.
Or to put it another way: knowing the name origins of the Umadonna girls is neat, knowing the reason that Daiwa Scarlet likes to write goals in her diary in red ink makes you unravel her whole genealogy and in the process also learn why in-game her mom is a workaholic.
Here’s the funny thing though, in Uma Musume the JRA has found what they wanted to be achieved with Umadonna. Even beyond the ever-increasing attention towards horseracing across so many demographics they didn’t even touch before, they’ve actually used the characters as promotional elements for specific races or racecourses.
There’s another horseracing-related manga I wanna talk about down the line, but for now I think it’s safe to say we can put this specific topic to pasture.