Blog posts of the past are connected like a chain.
I glossed over it for the sake of the post’s narrative, but another element behind Chiyo-chan’s campaign is this undercurrent of wanting to challenge Maruzensky. All of her training is basically leading to being able to even THINK about challenging her, hence why she’s her final boss. What I like is that it’s never painted like “wanting to come out of her shadow”, it’s always squarely “senpai’s really cool, I wanna be able to face her in a race” and when she does, the result is that win or lose against they’re both happy Chiyo-chan got to that point.
One of the races I didn’t mention in the post is the Kyoudou Tsuushin Hai, which has the subtitle of “Tokino Minoru Memorial”.
Remember that name, it will be important before too long…
I’ve talked enough about Chiyo-chan’s last objective being against a beefed up Maruzensky, but if you (optionally) face that Arima Kinen you will also face a beefed up Mr. CB. While it’s a fun side objective in general, the meaning of it being in Arima Kinen is that Arima Kinen was the race where Sakura Star O suffered the accident that left it convalescing. So any racing nerds that wonder about going to Arima Kinen with Chiyo-chan will be rewarded in their curiosity by one hell of a challenge.
Speaking of races, Sakura Chiyono O’s climactic Nihon Derby in real life resulted in the highest attendance and bets up until that moment in the history of the race, and Sakura Chiyono O beat Bamboo Atlas’ 1982 record by 0.2 seconds.
In Cinderella Gray, Chiyo-chan’s profile states her brother was her first training partner. Aside from the fact that this gives Chiyo-chan that cadence of a little sister, it’s probably a reference to Sakura Toko, who is Sakura Chiyono O’s older brother.
Incidentally, Chiyo-chan’s racing outfit was first revealed in Cinderella Gray.
One of Sakura Chiyono O’s half brothers (descended from Sakura Sedan) is also named after another sumo wrestler. Sakura Hokuto O is named after the 61st Yokozuna Hokutoumi Nobuyoshi, also known as Chairman Hakkaku of the Japan Sumo Association as recently as 2022.
Futoshi Kojima, the often mentioned jockey of the Sakura Gundan is a known avid Sumo fan so it’s not out of the question that the horses have names he had an influence on.
Speaking of the Sakura Gundan, this actually receives a nod in the game as the “Victory Club”. All three Sakura girls implemented so far (Sakura Bakushin O, Sakura Chiyono O, and Sakura Laurel) have been part of it. Bakushin even claims that “it’s the destiny of every girl with Sakura in their name to join”.
So all of them having “Sakura” in their name is like girls with a kinship aided by sharing the same name. It’s Nana, without a goth in sight.
The “Victory Club” is basically like an extracurricular children’s club for elementary school kids (basically before they’re of age to join Tresen Gakuen). Bakushin and Chiyo-chan are said to have joined because their mothers joined before them, Laurel’s mom didn’t but she knew Chiyo-chan from those days. This is actually a neat nod to the fact that Bakushin and Chiyo-chan are descended from mares with the Sakura name (Sakura Hagoromo and Sakura Sedan), while Sakura Laurel isn’t (she’s descended from Lola Lola and Rainbow Quest).
Even the name “Victory Club” is a cheeky pun. As mentioned in the Bakushin post, the Sakura Gundan was also defined by horses owned by Katsutaro Sakai (acting for Sakura Commerce) so we have the “Katsu” in “Katsutaro” (勝) being read as “Katsu” or “Victory” (勝利).
Speaking of those three, you might notice that Chiyo-chan is the only one without petal eyes outside of a pink light reflection on them. On a more superficial level this is just one of those design details the game has going on, she has blue eyes like Maruzensky hinting at the parentage… but also, the cover of Volume 4 of Cinderella Gray has her showing petals the same way that Tamamo Cross showed lighting when she was in The Zone.
And my headcanon is that the other two are just… always on, which would check out for Bakushin at the very least.
I mentioned that Sakura Bakushin O had a certain quality of a King to her, but Chiyo-chan is more like… uh… like if you called your dog Sultan. Her demeanor is just… absolutely puppy-like and cute, from how she calls her notepad “Chiyonote”, to her dog plushie she calls “Sakura Wanko O”.
Sakura Wanko O is important, whenever Chiyo-chan has something she wants to say but has a hard time conveying, she will pretend to speak through Sakura Wanko O to say it.
Sakura Wanko O is a gift from her trainer got at a summer festival, and keen-eyes players might notice it’s the same model as the legendary Wafumofu Tamasaburo.
OH RIGHT the Chiyonote. Aside from keeping notes of everything like an honor student would, she also keeps proverbs she comes up with on it. And if you thought that she was free from being DUMB like the rest of the cast, let me tell you some of the stuff she’s written on it.
『みかんの足はウマ娘』The feet of a tangerine are horsegirls.
『花咲く前に大地を知れ』Know the land before the flowers bloom.
『隣のダートは力強く見える』The neighboring Dirt looks strong.
『手を伸ばさなきゃ蛇口すら捻れない』I can’t turn the faucet unless I reach out.
『チヨがお鍋、トレーナーはおたま』If Chiyo is the pot, my trainer is the egg.
『よい挨拶は、よい人参に勝る』A good greeting is better than a good carrot.
『にんじんは、いつ雨が降るのか知らないものである』Carrots don’t know when it will rain.
In theory she’s just noting down any realization she comes across in a poetic way to encapsulate a lot without writing all the context around it… except that without said context her Chiyonote is just a written Horse ebooks whose wisdom runs the full gamut from “Unfortunately, as you already know, people” to “Imagine growing a flower”.
Chiyo-chan’s outfit is modeled after a miko because she loves the idea of being a very Japanese girl, since she already enjoys many Japanese-ass things like traditional Japanese sweets and Sumo (oh hey). She claims the clothes make her feel like when she first enrolled in the academy and she felt like there she could finally bloom. In the event where she reveals this you can advice her to go with either Yaeno Muteki or Grass Wonder and they’re both amazing encounters.
Grass’ in particular is fun because she SCARES Chiyo-chan from the outset by going full samurai mode talking about how they’re both chasing “Monster Maruzensky”.
CHIYO-CHAN IS GRASS’ SENPAI BY THE WAY.
Chiyo-chan’s secrets are both related to Maruzensky… or rather, one is, and the other one I theorize might be related.
In one she says that she can’t help but be distracted whenever she sees a red car. Aside from being a funny way to depict her as easily distracted (like a puppy), Maruzensky is known to ride a red sports car, so she’s probably just wondering in Maruzensky was in that one.
The other is that she can stand wasabi but not mustard. I couldn’t find any more explicit relation to it, but the first thing that came to mind was the fact that Sakura Chiyono O is descended from Maruzensky, and despite Maruzensky having a limited roster of races available due to being imported (or rather, Maruzensky’s mother was imported while she was pregnant), Sakura Chiyono O was born in Japan and could participate in them. So “likes wasabi, dislikes mustard” is probably referencing how, despite being half foreign (so to speak) Sakura Chiyono O was more Japanese in the end (hence withstanding the local spicy root with little tolerance for the foreign spicy seeds). It can also be another nod to how she takes pride in liking traditional Japanese things.
There’s actually a fun interplay with Chiyo-chan and one of Maruzensky’s secrets. Despite driving like a maniac that believes she’s in Initial D, Maruzensky admits in one of her secrets that she gets carsick when she’s in the passenger’s seat… now, I don’t wanna try to break down what it means on Maruzenky’s side, but Chiyo-chan also gets carsick. Except that, unlike Maruzensky, she doesn’t know how to drive and the carsickness sure doesn’t motivate her to try.
And I feel like that encapsulates so much about the weight of Sakura Chiyono O’s legacy in relation to Maruzensky, sharing the same weakness but never having the opportunity to be the pilot so they’ll never know what they might’ve been able to if they were.