Header from this Generations CM for the game.
Let’s… set the stage first.
Brothers Jeon Yong-suk and Jin-sik came from Jeollanam-do in Korea all the way to Japan one fateful March while the Sakura trees were in full bloom. Inpired by this, when they started to do business they decided to name their businesses “Sakura” and said businesses soon expanded to many types resulting in what’s now known as the “Sakura Group” or “Sakura Commerce”, which covers everything from retail stores to pachinko parlors and up until a certain point yakiniku places.
Around 1953 Yong-sik who frequented the Fuchu racecourses finally got involved with the ownership of racehorses. The horses always had “Sakura” in the name, just like the company, which prompted the nickname of “Sakura Gundan” (サクラ軍団 Sakura Corps/Squad) for them.
It all started with a horse named “Hayasakura” and took off from there. The Sakura Gundan was often compared with the Mejiro Ranch, another prolific horsebreeding organization. In fact, it was often said that “You go to Mejiro for Stamina and Sakura for Speed” because of the tendency of each side to end up with very specific types of runners.
The Sakura Gundan was defined early on by the combo of trainer and stable owner Katsutaro Sakai with Jockey Futoshi Kojima (Sakai’s son-in-law) both of which had a close relationship with Yong-sik.
Sakai was interested in a mare called Sakura Hagoromo, descended from Northern Taste (make note of that name, it’s gonna be important in future posts) and Clear Amber. However, Zenya Yoshida (Founder of the Shaddai Group) wanted to keep Sakura Hagoromo as a breeding mare, so they instead loaned her to the Sakura Group for her three years of racing career. And Hagoromo had a really good run… that had to end early due to a fracture (non-lethal thankfully) that would mean resting for one year.
To compensate for this, Sakai was given Sakura Hagoromo’s first child, who she had with another one of the Sakura Gundan’s pieces, Sakura Yutaka O. And like Yutaka O, the child proved to be very obedient with humans.
Thus was Sakura Bakushin O born.
Sakura Bakushin O had very little stamina but the blood of long distance stayers ran in his blood, so there were hopes for him to run the Nihon Derby (2400m).
After its debut (1200m) an attempt was made in the Kurotake Sho (1600m) where he ended up second, but made a comeback for the Sakurasou Tokubetsu (1200m) in first place.
An attempt was then made on the Spring Stakes (1800m), the trial race for the Satsuki Sho… where Sakura Bakushin O ended 12th. While it was attributed to the bad weather, there were other elements like how Sakura Bakushin O didn’t seem to shine as much in longer races and the fact that this Spring Stakes was the one that Mihono Bourbon won, before winning the Satsuki Sho and having his streak stolen by Rice Shower in his next big race.
But that’s a story for another day, for now, the priorities were shifted to shorter races, where Sakura Bakushin O had its highs and lows, but that was in no small part because 1992 was the start of a veritable Sprinter Revolution, with the likes of Daitaku Helios’ last year, Yamanin Zephyr, and Nishino Flower.
The highlight of this year was the last race, the Sprinter Stakes (1200m), While Sakura Bakushin O ended 6th it wasn’t due to any lack of skills. It was a tight race that, if we want to attribute a narrative to it, it’s more the highlight of Nishino Flower being able to win against a roster of absolute monster sprinters.
However, as if taking this personally, Sakura Bakushin O went on a tear in 1993, his only defeat was a 4th place in the Ireland T (1600m) and there was bad weather that day, but otherwise he even won that year’s Sprinter Stakes.
His retirement year of 1994 had its highs and lows. Notably he only ended 4th in races that were 1600m and 1800m, and after a second place on the Mile CS (1600m), Sakura Bakushin O retired with one final 1st place at Sprinter Stakes, beating Biko Pegasus.
No other horse won back to back Sprinter Stakes until Lord Kanaloa in 2012 and 2013.
While his record might not have the same streaks of victory as other others, many critics agree to this day that Sakura Bakushin O is amongst the strongest sprinters in Japan’s racehorse history. In fact, during a poll by “Yushun” in 2012 (before the aforementioned Lord Kanaloa achieved the two Sprinter Stakes record), Sakura Bakushin O had the majority of votes as to who was the strongest 1200m sprinter.
So… how did they adapt someone with this much renown? With this much history behind him?
As an absolute dumbass.
As the proud owner of the most aerodynamic brain in a cast numbering 70+ girls.
As someone so fast she’s determined to outrun her own braincells before they can synapse.
Oh? You think I’m exaggerating? You think I’m being hyperbolic? Let me spoil something to illustrate it:
In the middle of her campaign, Bakushin’s trainer sets her rotation for three 1200m races. You see, Bakushin wants to run long distance races, but she has godawful stamina. But she’s also stubborn and has too much ego for her own good, so to play around this her trainer tells her that it’s fine, she’s training for a 3600m by doing that.
Because 1200 x 3 = 3600.
AND SHE BELIEVES IT! IT ABSOLUTELY WORKS AND SHE DOESN’T QUESTION IT!!
BAKUSHIN MOTHERFUCKERS!
BAKUSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!
I might actually be underselling just how STUPID this girl is.
I’m also underselling how much I LOVE her because of that.
But lets step back a little.
Sakura Bakushin O is the LOUD and over-eager class president of the middle schoolers like Mayano Top Gun. She is always running around looking for stuff to do, people to help, chores to complete. You might think she’s a great student because she’s the class president, and if you think so please refer to the many colorful ways I’ve called her a dummy so far.
She sure thinks she’s a good student though, after all, when you’ve had to repeat tests so many times, that just means you’ve done more schoolwork than the others! and more schoolwork means more student!!
As mentioned, and also illustrated, Bakushin has a massive ego, but I wouldn’t call it an “ego problem”, at least not in the conventional sense. Bakushin thinks very VERY highly of herself, but the way this translates is as her feeling like because she’s so above everyone else, she’s RESPONSIBLE for everyone else. She doesn’t think less of you just because she thinks high of herself.
However, she thinks TOO highly of herself. She starts her campaign wanting to run 30 races, and get the triple crown, and run Arima Kinen… all the while she has shitty stamina. For the record, the real horse only ran 21 races and 30 races is basically half the available turns in the game.
Thus comes the really fun way they adapted the story of the real horse. The real Sakura Bakushin O had the blood of Stayers (long distance runners) and attempts were made to test this that ended in failure. In the game they instead turned her into a girl that believes she can be a Stayer and needs to be protected from herself.
The game actually does interesting stuff with her in-game objectives in relation to the real one’s record. While this is to avoid some of the schedule conflicts that happen in the game or to make up for races not implemented in it, it’s also important to note that Bakushin is meant to be an easy training to complete, which means less races at the beginning most of the time.
After debut, the real one’s two first races get truncated into the Keio Cup Junior Stakes. Then you have to face the Spring Stakes and that one only says “participate” instead of the usual “xth place or higher” objective, which is a nod to that being the race where Sakura Bakushin O ended 12th, and a race the player might end 12th given that Bakushin’s Miles proficiency is B.
The six races in-between the Spring Stakes and the Sprinter Stakes got truncated into the Aoi Stakes and THEN the Sprinter Stakes. It’s not uncommon for the player to end in second place in this one due to Nishino Flower being stronger than usual also.
The third year actually opens with a very interesting change. The first objective of Bakushin’s senior year is the Takamatsunomiya Kinen. The Takamatsunomiya Kinen was a 2000m race until 1996 (two years after Sakura Bakushin O retired) where it was changed to a 1200m sprinter race, and the question of if Sakura Bakushin O would’ve gone on a tear through it as he did the Sprinter Stakes is one of those Horseracing Nerds what ifs that the game likes to indulge into.
The liberties don’t stop there either. This senior year for Bakushin is a bit of a mashup of her 1993 and 1994 years. And as a result, she’s actually running races the original never participated into.
This is where the “1200×3=3600” bit comes into play. Bakushin’s ego is over the roof after the Takamatsunomiya Kinen, so her trainer decides to fool her with that and then hey, if she happens to be ready for the next Sprinter Stakes it wouldn’t hurt, right?
So she races in the Hakodate Sprint Stakes, then in the CBC Sho, and then in the Centaur Stakes before challenging the Sprinter Stakes again.
This is where, similar to the situation with Yamanin Zephyr I talked about a while back, schedule changes shift the Bakushin narrative a little.
In the real world, during 1994, Sakura Bakushin O challenged the Mile CS losing second to North Flight, before challenging his third Sprinter Stakes. In the game Bakushin is winning her second Sprinter Stakes before winning Mile CS.
Thus ends Bakushin’s run, and I wanna actually end the post by highlighting something that hopefully makes you think higher of Bakushin and her narrative in general.
First is that it’s actually consistent with other elements in her story. Bakushin wants to run longer races because in the real world the expectation was for him to run longer races. So it makes sense that if everyone in the real world puts all of these accolades onto him, that Bakushin would have a massive ego applying the same logic.
And second, something that I noticed is that characters with “King” in their name like TM Opera O, King Halo, Toukai Teio, and even Symboli Rudolf (nicknamed The Emperor) tend to embody the ideal of a king in one way or another.
While Sakura Bakushin O might not look like it at first, as illustrated her high opinion of herself means that she feels it’s her responsability to look after everyone else. Thus I don’t feel like it’s a stretch to say that Bakushin represents the ideal of Noblesse Oblige, of Privilege entailing Responsability, even if the privilege is entirely in your own head.
For as comically DUMB as she is, guess what, the cast is filled to the brim with DUMBASSES. That list of names two paragraphs ago? It includes one dumbass, one poor soul that babysits AT LEAST two dumbasses, one turbogremlin, and a girl with a sense of humor so lame it causes psychic damage to anyone not called Nice Nature.
So when the standard is that half the girls you cannot leave alone out of fear that they’ll hurt themselves with a kitchen drawer and the other half is there to make sure the first half doesn’t hurt themselves with a kitchen drawer, Bakushin actually has many admirers in the cast. If Bakushin ever made it to Student Council President like Rudolf… honestly there could be worse outcomes than that.
More importantly, Rudolf already exists as a character. If you adapted Sakura Bakushin O as JUST an excited class president or as JUST another girl with big ego, she wouldn’t pop out as much.
In fact, I know that is the case BECAUSE THAT WAS BAKUSHIN IN STARTING GATE.
Please compare Bakushin’s original theme song…
With the new song they made for her for the game.
The fact that she’s as dumb as a brick and as sharp as one while at it, the fact that she’s a clown and her scenario is one gag after another, the fact that I still remember when they released her SR card and I had a laughing fit at the idea of anyone giving this girl a megaphone… and all of this with a character that’s so easy to train and one of the first ones you get for free…
Bakushin is a joke character, a clown, but that isn’t really derogatory, she stands out as a specific kind of idiot in a cast full of them, she’s memorable and the best thing you can do to honor something is to make it unforgettable. She’s one hell of a first impression for any new player.
Not to mention that the whole joke is that she IS a scary opponent in one specific thing but she keeps thinking she can do other stuff also just because.
It’s actually great how her trainer never shoots down her dreams of being a Stayer, after all, she already made it from 1200m to 1600m, given enough time she can go to 2400, right? Bakushin might be a joke, but it never feels mean because the story never makes it feel like she’s less deserving of respect and dignity because of it.
And why else would I go into so much detail, setting the stage for the life of the real horse, if I didn’t have a smile ear to ear remembering the dumdum that turned a whole kitchen pink because she got too excited while baking muffins.
