In a haze, a trainer asks themselves: “Had I known how things would end, would I have done anything different?”.
But they already know the answer.
“…………………………………..there”
It was a humid summer night after another appointment as a rookie trainer.
Despite the choking heat, they suddenly found themselves walking faster, after all, being an adult doesn’t make you any less scared of lonely nights like these.
Then it suddenly started feeling colder.
“Come.”
A chill ran down the trainer’s spine and cold sweat started pouring.
Did they imagine that voice?
Come come come come come come come come come COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COMECOME COME COME COME
COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME COME
COME COME COME COME
Co me
Before they knew it, they were on a strange hill they’d never seen before, with a girl they’d never seen before.
A girl they couldn’t take their eyes away from.
Skin paler than the full moon. Looking at the stars with terrifying crimson eyes.
“……..such a beautiful night.”
“However, it’s still so……. so….. bright…. ahh……..”
“Ahhhh….. I want to be satiated…….”
“More…… more……… ah…. yeah….. that’s right…….”
“Then let us feast, all the way to the moon.”
“Ahahaha…….. hahahahahaha….! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA…… HAHAHAHAHA!!!!”
Ecstatic laughter filled the darkness.
It was as if she was pure naked instinct made manifest
The trainer trembles in fear, and yet they find themselves walking towards her rather than running away.
Reason screams they should be getting really far away from that……. that THING. And yet there’s a primal magnetism that compels them not to.
She’s a chilling, terrifying creature.
She’s also so beautiful she’s burning into their memories.
“…”
“I found you…”
“I found you…”
“I FOUND YOU!”
“Come and give yourself to me.”
The last thing they remembered was those crimson eyes filled with joy.
And pain.
A deep pain, like their very soul had been ripped out.
The trainer woke up collapsed on the floor, drenched in sweat. Was that all nothing but a heat-induced nightmare?
Then they noticed something unfamiliar, a red mark in their neck, as if something had bitten them…
“Come and give yourself to me.”
Something, perhaps fear, compelled to run out of the room.
“Excuse me…”
They just couldn’t get that girl out of their head.
“Excuse me…!”
She was also wearing a uniform, so perhaps…
“Excuse me!”
“My apologies, I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
“But… well… are you okay? After yesterday…”
Their eyes met, it was impossible to forget those crimson eyes.
But the girl before the trainer was now so delicate, so ephemeral.
She looked like the smallest of breezes could blow her away.
The trainer finally asked her name.
“I’m Still… Still In Love.”
Let’s step back for a second.
Still In Love is a horse whose legacy can be easily summed up in a single phrase: First horse to win the Triple Tiara since Mejiro Ramone and first one to do so after the Shuuka Sho was introduced.
But as usual, there’s more to it and we also need to learn a bit about her jockey.
Hideaki Miyuki is an anomaly in the horseracing world. Usually jockeys come from farming or horseracing backgrounds, but he was as normal a Japanese boy can be. The chain of events that led to him becoming a jockey is nothing short of fascinating, though.
Young Hideaki rescued a dog, and his family told him that he could keep him if he made it to the top 8 of the prefectural tennis tournament, which he did. Years later the dog would accidentally spill some kerosene and Hideaki’s mom slipped on it, prompting a run to the hospital. While on the hospital Hideaki met with someone that worked with horseracing stables and commented that Hideaki was about the right height to be a jockey and showed him how popular the likes of Yutaka Take were.
Perhaps due to this sort of introduction into the sport, Hideaki wasn’t picky about his assignments, he took to the job like a job, filling in as many hours as he could and while he didn’t always win he got a LOT of experience in the process.
He also became notorious for always being there in everyone’s commemorative photos, a trend that started when a young Kenichi Ikezoe asked to be in a photo with him during a milestone celebration, after which Hideaki took his mother’s advice of never being jealous of others but instead sharing in their joy.
In this context, almost 10 years after he became a Jockey, is when Still In Love enters the picture.
Still In Love is a descendant of Sunday Silence, her mother was a mare called Bradamante that didn’t have much of a record to speak of but produced a good colt called Big Baillamont (who defeated whose father was called Baillamont) and so expectations were fairly high for Still In Love.
And she did have a strong start indeed, winning by three whole lengths in her debut race, and also winning the Koubai S.
Then came the Tulip Sho.
The Tulip Sho, as a refresher, is the test run for the Ouka Sho, the first step in the Triple Tiara.
Hideaki and Still In Love lost to Katsumi Ando (known among many other things for being Daiwa Scarlet‘s only jockey) riding Osumi Haruka. But I need you to understand that this defeat hit Hideaki hard, he wondered if Katsumi Ando had eyes on his back from the way he was able to know when he would try to get ahead of him.
Hideaki worried that Still In Love would be assigned to someone else after this, he lamented that such a fine horse would slip away from him, he even fantasized briefly about eloping with Still In Love like some romantic drama… but drama it was because when he met with their trainer they just went “Well, just gotta make sure you don’t mess up in the real race, huh?”.
In the Ouka Sho the most popular horse was Admire Groove, representing Air Groove’s bloodline. But Still In Love would take the victory away.
Then came the Yushun Himba (AKA the Oaks), and yet again Admire Groove was the most popular, though in this case it was born out of how Still In Love hadn’t had that much of a track record in longer races. But Still In Love would win yet again.
The victory would sour Still In Love for some fans, however, as they hoped that Admire Groove would take the Oaks making her a third generation winner after Air Groove and Dyna Carle.
Admire Groove would take away a victory at the Rose Stakes (The Shuuka Sho trial) which made her be more popular than Still In Love yet again for the Shuuka Sho, but Still In Love would take the victory away.
She did it. They did it.
Still In Love, the eternal second banana in popularity to Admire Groove, the unassuming but still impressive horse achieved a title that hadn’t been taken for 17 years since Mejiro Ramone. It was so long ago, in fact, that the Shuuka Sho didn’t exist and so Still was technically also the first winner of this new iteration of the Triple Tiara.
Speaking of the old Triple Tiara, the next race was the Queen Elizabeth II Cup, and here’s where Admire Groove took the victory away. Still In Love still had an impressive showing considering the caliber of the competition but this is the start of Still In Love’s crashout arc.
The Shuuka Sho was the last time she won a race, all of 2004 and 2005 would be filled with disappointing performance. Reflecting about it years later, the horse’s staff remember Still In Love became more rebellious, that while physically she was even better in her Senior years she was also less stable mentally.
Still In Love retired in 2006 and had a foal with King Kamehameha called Judah born in 2007, but that same year she developed a case of intussusception (a condition where part of the small intestine folds into itself causing a blockage) and died.
Despite the poor performance, everyone remembers Still In Love fondly, especially Hideaki, who credits his time with her as being what “made him a man”.
Sadly, Judah didn’t make much of a splash and so Still In Love’s bloodline has ended. The irony that Admire Groove’s bloodline continues to be strong isn’t lost on anyone.
So we’ve got an unassuming horse that became a beast when running, but as time went on became more unstable mentally. A horse whose jockey was really attached to her. A horse who burned bright but also burned fast.
I hope whoever decided she would be perfect as a mid-2000s denpa Visual Novel heroine is having a very nice day.
Still In Love is two characters in one… kinda. There’s the outwards-facing, demure, so-unassuming-automatic-doors-don’t-see-her Still; then there’s the inner, lustful, aggressive Still. We’ll call inner Still “Crimson” through this post. Still refers to herself as 私 and Crimson refers to herself as ワタシ, it’s one of the things that lets you know who’s in controlaside from the completely opposite body language.
Crimson isn’t a second self, however. Rather, it’s how Still has compartmentalized all the things she feels are “ugly” about her that she can’t deny either. She has a competitive drive like every Uma Musume, but that drive made others scared of her, called her a monster and as a result she tried to push those impulses away… the result being that Crimson is more what happens when those emotions are repressed to the point they exist separate from the rest of the self.
Still and Crimson are the same, they’re just the polar extremes of the same self. This is an important concept to present early on. Keep an eye for any moments where Still shows strong emotion or Crimson is calm and the overlap is clear.
And they do show this dichotomy early. Still isn’t exactly of the mind to be in the Twinkle Series when even a mock race results in everyone scared shitless of her, something that’s a bit of a trigger when even back in her childhood people were calling her a monster.
But her trainer in a slip of the tongue, tells her that they thought her running wasn’t scary but beautiful, an intense display of raw emotions.
Despite constantly seeing her “ugly side” this person didn’t just stay around anyways, but was even taking in that side of her instead of rejecting it. The introduction chapter closes with some fun wordplay as the screen shows her name, Still In Love, but what she says is 今でも愛してる (Ima demo aishiteru/Still in Love).
Something established in this introduction is that the trainer can find Still, sense her even. First when they were compelled to go to the hill where they met and then when trying to find her after a practice race.
Still’s training scenario is funny because if you told me the real horse died after the triple tiara and they just decided to go balls to the wall about it, I’d believe you. But we’ll get to that.
There’s a difference right from the get-go as the objective before the Ouka Sho is just to gather 5000 fans. This gives the player some freedom on how to approach things and the time is filled with vignettes that establish further the stakes that Still has to deal with.
After debut, Still wanted to chase the tiara, but to chase that dream requires her to somehow be able to tame Crimson during a race and that’s easier said than done. During a freestyle race (basically an unofficial race outside of any racecourse) Crimson goes wild on the other competitors prompting Still’s trainer to get in front of her to stop her.
Sidenote, apparently “don’t jump in front of a running horsegirl” is something they teach back in kindergarden in this world.
The incident establishes something that will become more of a recurrent theme: Still fears being near her trainer will only cause problems and tries to somehow get away from them. As the trainer calms down a crying Still, a serious-looking girl looks on before turning back claiming that they’re “different” from her.
Mejiro Ramone is also introduced into the story, originally she’s only mentioned as an example of what the Triple Tiara entails, but she then taunts Still about how she’s hesitating and if she doesn’t move perhaps she will steal someone else’s innocent heart also (implying she’ll steal her trainer), which of course sets off Still.
The follow-up is also one of my favorite scenes because Rudolf finds Ramone and basically goes “You look in a good mood……….. what the fuck did you do”.
We’re also introduced properly to Admire Groove, or Aroove for short. She will be Still’s main rival and where Still is obsessed with love, Aroove despises Still because of it, believing love to be unnecessary and a sign of weakness. It’s noteworthy also that Aroove sets off Crimson immediately, with the scene right before discussing how to bring out Crimson safely but being kinda capricious to come out.
The scene after your objective of a fan count is met sets things up perfectly: Aroove wants to prove that you can win without meaningless details like praise, and Still wants to show her that her feelings aren’t meaningless.
And you gotta win, Still is one of the odd scenarios where certain victories are mandatory very early on instead of a more permissive “make it to this position at least”. The result is that Air Groove gets introduced being very worried about Aroove and Aroove not being all too appreciative of that.
Crimson is out in full force by the Oaks and we learn more about Aroove in the process. She’s an orphan and was always a talented racer. While very appreciative of the staff that took care of her, the fact that she lacked parents was always evident to her and seeing others be encouraged by their parents made her resentful, she decided to prove that she was good on her own with no need for help. This actually sets her in parallel to Still as having childhood baggage with being too good.
This comes to a head during summer camp, where Aroove collapses from not eating properly and Air Groove finally snaps, basically telling her that she can talk about strength all she wants but she’s destroying herself instead. On the flipside, Still has a conversation with Crimson and tells her that she can go all out during the Shuuka Sho.
The proverbial massacre breaks Aroove to the point that she has nothing else to turn to, she basically reaches Air Groove in desperation for answers. While Air Groove states the obvious thing that trying to be a lone wolf like that is effectively like running with a handicap, Aroove admits that she doesn’t have anyone she could rely on even if she wanted to. To which Air Groove offers herself,if Aroove has nobody, then she’ll be there for her.
I actually love the scene because it’s very realistic to how these things go in real life. You have people telling you something time and time again but you need yourself to be open to learning the lesson to get it at all.
Meanwhile Still is being cheered on by everyone, even those that believed her to be scary are shouting her name, but Still only has eyes for her trainer, and the joy in her trainer’s face is all she needs. Despite this, however, she still looks sad.
The aftermath of the Elizabeth Cup reveals why: She can no longer feel Crimson’s presence inside of her and she was worried that without her, she wouldn’t give her trainer the victories they wanted.
Meanwhile Aroove is the most composed she’s ever been, win or lose she looks satisfied and has Air Groove cheering for her.
In the aftermath of the Kinko Sho, they consider stopping Still’s Twinkle Series run, but the process takes some time and her trainer wants to see her run one last time, for which the Takarazuka Kinen is a good pick.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the point where the scenario really shows its true colors. It’s also where the historical record becomes more of a suggestion for the sake of compelling narrative.
And it all starts on a quiet night, where Still finally finds Crimson and give her permission to go all out, she no longer cares if she gets violent in the process.
For the happiness of her beloved, Still will become the Monster everyone thought she was.
And from here on, things will have a red filter that becomes more and more intense the stronger you become in training. Why red? Because the trainer’s eyes are now a bright crimson like Still’s and it starts tinting everything, not just literally but metaphorically. The trainer cannot stop thinking about Still, it becomes an obsession to the point their health deteriorates.
Through different scenes the fact that Crimson bites the trainer’s neck went from suggestion to explicit and their growing weakness implies that she’s taking… something away from them, and in the process turning them into whatever Crimson is… or perhaps awakening the trainer’s own Crimson.
Come Takarazuka Kinen the problems don’t stop and it’s clear that Crimson has now taken control to the point where it’s hard to tell now where Crimson ends and Still starts.
Next race will be another Queen Elizabeth Cup, and both Aroove and Still are completely unrecognizable from their encounter one year earlier. Aroove is now more mature, more collected, and meanwhile Still has become more and more deranged.
She’s not the only one though, during one training session the trainer wants to call it a day but instead what comes out of their mouth is an order to continue running, an order that Still gladly takes as they push each other to the limits of their obsession.
Then one night Ramone finds Still, but Still doesn’t want to run against Ramone, comparing her to a flower that has lost her smell. To this, Ramone just calmly explains that Still right now is just a beast that loves herself and thus can never beat someone like Ramone who loves others.
An improvised race calms Crimson enough that some clarity returns to Still and she realizes how her viciousness basically infected her trainer also. But they’re too far gone, even when Still tries to make herself scarce for their sake, they find her and insist in wanting to see her run.
Come the Elizabeth Cup, Aroove and Still’s positions are basically inverted. Now Aroove is the one full of love wanting to prove the power of those bonds while Still is the self-serving creature with a death wish.
After the race, Aroove plainly states that if Still and her trainer are gonna burn each other so much, they should part ways. She then wonders out loud to Air Groove why things went that way, and Air Groove theorizes that both know their fling has an end point and they’re just making the best of it while it lasts.
Ramone then challenges Still to the next Japan Cup, where Still decides to go as hard as she can, even declaring outright that she doesn’t need a future.
The challenge calms Crimson enough for Still to regain proper control of herself. To this, Rudolf shows surprise that Ramone would go out of her way to help Still like that, but Ramone muses that she’s not the emperor, she’s not benevolently looking after her subjects, she was just amused by the show of love of those two. And while Rudolf says the sensible thing of “we need to keep an eye on that trainer” Ramone urges her to not intervene, it’ll all be over soon enough anyways.
Cut to the ending and the normal ending (which you get for making it to the end but fumbling the scenario-specific race, this is true for all girls and not just Still) has a very strong Bad Ending vibe that’s really fascinating, especially because the endings in careers don’t really feel like the biggest divergences. In the normal ending the trainer foregoes going to the hospital to see why they’ve gotten so weak and instead chases after Still, Crimson having taken over. The cycle will continue until one of them finally breaks and perhaps even afterwards.
The good ending, meanwhile has the trainer get out of the hospital after a long stint there to get their health checked. Neo Universe tells them that Still is lost, she has departed and leaves the trainer a note from her wishing them well in the rest of their life, that she cannot continue to be close to the trainer if it results in this sort of toxic cycle.
The trainer runs around asking everyone if they’ve seen Still but nobody knows a Still In Love, which is preposterous to the trainer with how she’s the second Triple Tiara winner. Aroove shows up and confirms to the trainer that Still is somewhere out there, and they should find her and tell her to come back or Aroove will leave her behind.
Then a child asks her trainer for Still, her friends tell her she doesn’t exist, but she knows she’s real. This is what gives the trainer the final push into looking for Still, no matter how long it takes.
Eventually, the trainer finds Still in a flower field. She’s happy but immediately alarmed, if they continue to be together there’s no telling what might happen to the trainer, not to mention that she no longer has Crimson in her, she’s lost that drive to run, she cannot give the trainer the races they want.
The trainer doesn’t care.
Back in the day, when they worried what would happen if Crimson became too much, the trainer promised to look after Still. And they were going to keep that promise.
And it’s not fair! Here’s the trainer wanting to protect Still by looking for her while Still went through the effort of vanishing to protect them, for them to be happy even if it’s without her.
But she cannot deny her feelings any longer.
She waited so long for them, for someone that would accept her the way the trainer does, for someone that would look after them the way the trainer has.
Even after everything that’s happened, even after falling off the slope of madness, even after both of their lives but the trainer’s especially has been through such risks…
Even now, her feelings haven’t changed.
…
…
…
Then there’s the fucking hot springs scene.
Oh you thought we were done? Girl, we’re somehow Not.
The hot springs was always something you got as a nice bonus but here it can be seen as the True Ending or epilogue or even context for the ending. It happens before the ending, but is framed as happening after the ending, but can easily fit in either slot and that completely changes your reading of it.
YES FOR THOSE WHO HAVE PLAYED THE GAME I AM STILL TALKING ABOUT THE FRIGGIN’ ONSEN TRIP EVENT, IT IS SOMEHOW THAT CONSEQUENTIAL.
The event starts with the trainer being very weak and convalescent, they arrive very exhausted. Still opens the window and comments on how beautiful the stars are, but the trainer says it’s all oh so hazy.
The trainer starts rambling the way someone in a death bed delirium would, wondering about what race Still should get into next. After all, she’s becoming more popular now, they want everyone to love Still.
The trainer asks Still if she’s happy with the choices she made, with losing control… because the trainer is. They’ve never been happier than with Still in that slippery slope of madness. This moment brings a huge amount of relief to Still, who feels as if this has reedemed her on her own madness.
The trainer’s sleep becomes more and more deep, almost as if slipping into their last breath, and a crying Still reassures them that they will be together, no matter where, when, or how.
…
Okay so what the fuck.
If you took this as both of them fucking dying I wouldn’t blame you, this is framed like a couple’s double suicide scene. However with how plausibly deniable things are in Uma Musume, the trainer might be fine and just be tired and they’re all having a very dramatic moment.
But the problem is that unlike with Machan‘s scenario where the supernatural stuff could be waved away easier, Still’s scenario is so coated in allegory and such that it’s basically screaming at you to read hard into it.
So here’s my theory:
This isn’t a long gone epilogue, it is the setup for the Happy Ending. The callback to the flower field where Kazuma Kaneko also vanished in is actually a call FORWARD to what awaits them.
Two people died, but it’s not Still and/or the trainer. It was Crimson and the trainer’s madness.
We know that by the time of the good ending, Still no longer has Crimson in her, and while the implication is that it burned out or Still made peace with it, it’s hard to deny that Crimson had some supernatural factor to herself. Not to mention that Still in this event is more like Crimson in body language and behavior too.
Likewise, if Crimson existed inside Still, could the trainer not have developed something similar? After all, they lost control of their body and even their words on more than one ocassion, and if this Trainer Crimson took over, doesn’t it make sense that as it vanished it would be like falling into a deep slumber?
While still weak, by the time the ending happens the trainer has a clearer mind than they had before, it’s not hard to imagine the madness going away with this event.
Two mad souls in their last few moments. They will indeed remain together even if in a different form, no matter what. You can even fit it chronologically after the Good Ending, with it being one last hurrah from the remnants of each others’ madness.
However, I should stress the fact that in these sorts of things interpretation isn’t prescriptive. It’s purposefully vague and open ended with interpretation and it’s fun to stare into those loose ends and see it all in a different perspective.
I hate grabbing open-ended stuff and saying “This is actually how you should read into it”. The gaps are as much a part of the composition as the more solid elements.
My theory comes from how the story read to me, but honestly I’m not against the idea of a foregone conclusion where the trainer dies. They’ve not been stellar and it’s clear they bring something nasty out of each other, so the trainer dying in this event would give Still the closure that she wouldn’t get with them around tempting fate.
And to add to this, you all do remember how this post opens, right? A trainer wondering if they’d do something else knowing how it all ends? WHEN ARE THOSE WORDS BEING SAID????
By the way did you all know that Cyber Agent bought Nitroplus a while back?
I just thought that would be an interesting detail to bring up for no reason.