Before we get into the story, I need you to get into the right mindset of how it was to be there on release for a moment.
The game released in February of 2021, it had two main story chapters. They were fine, but the writing style felt very different from the rest of it all.
Then they announce that by the end of April the next chapter will be released, focusing on Winning Ticket and BNW. They include a preview of that chapter’s Live Show while at it.
Those are supposed to be rails… but from any still image they look like the ropes of a wrestling ring.
For many this was the moment where CyGames “showed their hand” about what Uma Musume was actually like at present. Not an idol story, but something more akin to a wrestling story but instead of punching there’s running… also I talked in the past about how female wrestling shows have a history of live shows and about staff openly admitting to that.
The surprise doesn’t end here though, once the chapter actually drops we’ve gone from McQueen’s very basic race, and Rice’s endearing fairy tale to KENJIRO TSUDA HIMSELF TALKING ABOUT THE NIHON DERBY AND INES FUJIN’S VICTORY IN IT SPECIFICALLY (which if you remember, happened the same year that McQueen’s story opens at).
In the aftermath of a Nihon Derby (it’s never specified if it’s the same one in the intro) a black haired girl is completely mesmerized by the race. The girl she was rooting for lost and was crying, but to her surprise, even the girl that won was also crying.
Her mother explains to her that the Nihon Derby is every girl’s dream. Win or lose, making it to that stage is already an achievement.
Cut to the present, and it’s time for the “Holy Hoof Festival”, a yearly tradition of Tresen Gakuen draws near and Gold Ship is preparing to sell yakisoba there. As the logistics of cabbage supply and whether wasabi has any place on Yakisoba are discussed, Tazuna comes in to tell them that the team’s previous trainer is going to receive a prize.
Aside from that, Tazuna asks a favor from the trainer, there’s a girl that’s been preparing for the festival but keeps getting sidetracked in her own passion for the Nihon Derby. This girl is Winning Ticket, though she prefers to be called Chikezo (チケゾ)… though that’s more of a Japanese thing (“Chikezo” is less of a strain to pronounce in it Japanese than “Chiketto”) so we’ll keep calling her Ticket for now.
Ticket is really passionate about the Nihon Derby, her dream is to participate and give everyone a race that will be remembered for years to come, to become part of the drama in the history of that race. The trainer notices that while they don’t know if Ticket can win, let alone reach the Nihon Derby, her profile when talking about it is so dignified and straight that it’s hard to believe she was bawling her eyes out seconds ago.
So for the time being the Trainer and Ticket decide to do the festival thing together.
The next chapter opens with Ticket entering the team’s room to continue just that and by that time Sirius’ former trainer is receiving his prize. Talks about all the drama and passion of the race come in and the trainer decides on the spot to scout Ticket so she can chase her Nihon Derby dreams.
Ticket loses her debut race and we’re introduced to the other two thirds of the trio she exists around quite well. Narita Taishin expresses annoyance at how loud Ticket is, but notably doesn’t dismiss her as foolish, and then there’s Biwa Hayahide who takes everything in a calm and calculated manner. After talking to them Ticket does more training and hopes to retry her debut race. So she jumps from crying her eyes out back to being really motivated and even though it took her two attempts, she makes her debut.
In the next section the trainer actually meets Taishin and Hayahide directly who basically talk about Ticket in a “thank you/I’m sorry you’re dealing with this baby”. This is the chapter that shows how they met. During one of their first trainings Ticket wanted to run 2400m because that’s the Nihon Derby distance, Taishin and Hayahide then also join in because 2400m is a normal distance for Classic races, and so they effectively bonded over their ambitions to run in those races.
Next is Taishin’s debut, which Ticket goes to cheer her on in, but Taishin loses and needs some time alone.
The alone time extends to the next section, where Ticket keeps offering to train with Taishin only to be rejected at every turn, though Taishin’s wording makes it sound like she feels like Ticket is taking pity on her or something.
This point is driven into Ticket’s head thanks to Hayahide and they both decide to just hijack Taishin’s nighttime training and race her on the spot. This is what finally lets Taishin realize they’re all on the same side, she even admits how she’s driven by people telling her all her life she wasn’t good enough.
Ticket and Taishin face off at the Yayoi Sho. And even though Taishin lost, she takes this defeat in good humor, especially compared to her earlier defeat. In the aftermath they decide to face each other at the Satsuki Sho.
The girls get their first interview and one moment that gets me every time is when Ticket confuses BNW with BWH prompting a reporter to go “That’s… that’s… three sizes…”. The interview immediately prompts some girls to ask their autographs however.
Next chapter opens with the old Sirius trainer giving some encouragement, and then Ticket shows the trainer her “Derby Note” which is a journal with all the stuff she’s been doing towards her goal. Highlighting in particular some Purikura pictures taken by the end of last part. But near the end the trainer finds Taishin practicing extra hard.
Next part reveals why, as Taishin had a run-in with some of her old bullies, and this scene actually has a really cool twist in it. At the start you think that Taishin is pushing herself extra hard because of the bullies talking her down, but then Ticket and Hayahide show up and it’s clear that she’s pushing herself instead to feel up to their level. There’s a cool undertone of putting that contrast between “before where she was out of place and bullied” and “now with peers that understand her” (the bullies are humans, not horsegirls).
Cut to the Satsuki Sho and even though Ticket started very cocky and self-assured Hayahide starts drawing more and more distance between them and then Taishin wins. Ticket wasn’t even near the top three and it dawns on her that… oh no… the next one is the Derby and she had this poor of a show.
You can tell next part that something’s wrong because Ticket is… normal, her emotions aren’t running a million a second, her voice is level CLEARLY SOMETHING’S OFF. And indeed she expresses how she was up for the drama, how it wasn’t even about winning but the drama of it all… and yet her defeat in the Satsuki Sho didn’t feel right when it comes to that.
Training in preparation for the Nihon Derby takes place and Ticket is nowhere to be seen. Sensing what’s afoot, it’s actually Taishin that rushes to find Ticket. Ticket admits that she’s scared and Taishin goes off on her for that. After her outburst Hayahide summarizes with a more level head that they’re all scared, she’s not alone in that.
Even at this point however, the Trainer tells her that they believe she can win. Even when Ticket protests how she feels like she’s the weakest of the trio, the trainer insists Ticket can win. This is when Ticket’s emotions start exploding again, she reiterates out loud how it’s been her dream since she was a kid and wants to win. She then hears Taishin and Hayahide talk on TV and cannot contain herself, rushing to go out and train for it.
The race comes in and the weight of it sets in, but now Ticket isn’t being overwhelmed by it, but using it to fuel herself.
After all, not only did she make it to the race she dreamed being in ever since she was a child, not only was she in the race with two dear friends, but now she had an opportinity to seize her dream.
It’s the derby she dreamed of.
It’s THEIR Derby.
After running head to head for a while and declaring that she wants to become a Derby horsegirl she does one last push and makes it to the goal.
After making it Taishin points at the crowd who is chanting her name.
In the interview afterwards, reporters ask her if she has any words to dedicate to this victory.
“I’m the horsegirl that won this amazing Derby. Winning Ticket!”
The Winning Live afterwards is 涙ひかって明日になれ！ (Namida ni Hikkate Ashita Ni Nare!) which roughly translates to “Let’s cry and become tomorrow” though a more appropiate translation would be “Let’s cry and make tomorrow come”.
If the name wasn’t on-the-nose enough, this peppy trio song is about “crying things out, letting the tears dry, and letting tomorrow come”.
By the way, last time I joked about waiting a whole year… we DID wait a whole year and some for a new chapter after Special Week’s story, but what I really mixed it up with was that Make A New Track also had TsudaKen on the intro and THAT was released around the time of the first anniversary.
The man’s voice is that distracting, what can I say…
It was you all that waited over a year for this post to finish instead, oops.
I already talked about how the paradox of Ines Fujin and how Mejiro Ryan fits into that in a different post, so instead I wanna focus on a different detail. Is there any connection between Ines Fujin and Winning Ticket worth pointing out in this case?
As it turns out, there is, but that’s a tangent that grew out of hand so I’ll focus on that in the next post. However, the important point I wanna highlight is that just like with Ines Fujin’s victory, Masato Shibata (Winning Ticket’s jockey) was congratulated with chants with his name after the race ended.
Ines Fujin isn’t the only victory highlighted, as the plot goes along there’s also highlights for Vodka, Admire Vega, and Eishin Flash.
It then closes giving Winning Ticket the bookend treatment with that.
Ticket is the perfect contrast to the tone that the story had built until now. She’s a mass of emotions, all of them at once. She’s effussively happy, she cries because she’s happy, and then she’ll calm down with just as much ease.
And here’s the thing: Unlike in the other chapters, there’s no “but current Ticket is like this” because… the characterization is exactly what Ticket has been since the game’s release.
I believe (for reasons I’ll elaborate in a bit) that while the IDEA and plan for this chapter had been set for a long while, part of the pause that happened between the game releasing and this chapter releasing was that they decided to take the basic concept and revamp it. One very subtle thing in that front is that Ticket’s story is one where the event CGs don’t actually involve the trainer.
In McQueen’s chapter, they all involve something where the trainer is around. By Rice’s chapter there’s the one with McQueen but overall it involves training and the trainer being in the sidelines. Ticket’s event CGs are all more concerned with letting her have her time with her friends. That small shift in tone where the trainer is an important but ultimately supportive part of a girl’s journey is more in line with how the full game is.
In fact, this chapter is so in tune with the current product that instead let me tell you why I think this story was planned from a while ago. The first piece of evidence is how you can actually piece together a BNW plotline across all the media available until that point. The finale of season 2 crosses into what would be the year that the events of this chapter take place in, and then the BNW OVAs after the original run of Season 1 (the ones where Rice Shower and Mihono Bourbon make their first cameo) cover the latter years of the BNW trio when Hayahide retires.
Those OVAs also have one extra bit that won’t be relevant until the next chapter, but keep it in mind.
Also, even in the game you can actually get a gacha support card that basically depicts the climax of the Nihon Derby in this chapter, but Ticket has her old outfit.
What this paints to me is that they had the BNW story in mind for a long while, as in “the game was originally going to come out around the time of season 1 so we’re hyping it (or using it after the announced delay) in the anime” long. Then, as season 2 happens and the franchise sets onto a more specific tone, they keep the Rice and McQueen chapters because they work as-is, and then they go back to the drawing board with the concept. Still doing the BNW plot with the focus on Ticket but adjusting the voice and also using more of the techniques with 3D learned along the way.
Again, like usual with this topic, that’s my own personal theory.
Speaking of 3D, you can tell that they’re more used to the tools and more money is poured into things because god Damn the contrast between this chapter and the last one is jarring. And it’s only uphill from here thankfully.
I could point to many things, but honestly the pull back with the crowd cheering for Ticket is like… last time they had to relegate that sort of shot with Rice Shower to an event CG and now they’re actually animating it properly.
I haven’t mentioned it, but even Tazuna’s performance has changed since the first two chapters. Earlier Tazuna was too formal is how I’d describe it, while part of the appeal of current Tazuna is that her voice carries that tint of familiarity of a very nice co-worker, of “I see you every day, even if we’re not friends we know each other well enough”. Not quite where she is in current day mind you, but closer than in the earlier parts.
Speaking of which, she IS a bit more present than usual in this one and I can’t help but wonder if it’s a connection with how Tokino Minoru also won the Nihon Derby.
You know how I say all the time that linear time doesn’t exist in Uma Musume so don’t think about it? This chapter overlaps with Rice Shower’s, it starts chronologically (in the real world) the year where Rice takes the first of two Spring Tenno Sho. The time skip that indicates Rice has been in a slump for a while is actually marked by the announcer talking about Biwa Hayahide winning a race.
In short, McQueen takes us from 1991 to 1992, then Rice takes us from 1992 to 1995, then Ticket‘s story takes place in 1993.
The fact that I say this more as trivia than as a complaint about the story is basically why I always append “don’t worry about it” to my declarations of “time makes no sense in Uma Musume”. Because the narrative they focus on is the one that works and that’s all that really matters.
A while ago I talked about old profiles and how Winning Ticket’s old one says that she gets rashes when she’s nervous. This actually comes up in the prelude to both Satsuki Sho and Nihon Derby.
Speaking of, one element I really like about this story is how it’s not just about Winning Ticket, but the whole BNW trio is growing in the aftermath.
One good point of reference is comparing how they all felt by the end of the Satsuki Sho versus how they felt by the end of the Nihon Derby. In the first even the fact that Taishin took first place felt secondary to all their anxieties, but then by the end of the Nihon Derby they’re calm not just because they gave it their all and Ticket still got her dream, but because they faced all those fears and defeated them.
They’re not just happy for Ticket, they’re actively looking forward to their next confrontation at the Kikuka Sho.
That’s why the Winning Live for this specific chapter is one of my favorites. Just like how seeing a guard rail that looks like a wrestling ring “showed the game’s true face”, having a song whose name and theme encapsulate this point about the story feels like the game is going “alright, we’ve had time to set ourselves up. Let’s take it from the top what we’re all about”.
So with all this talk about BNW you might’ve noticed that we’ve focused on the N and the W but not the B. Next chapter will actually address that but I need to make a quick tangent before continuing there.
Don’t worry, that post is already done (it was literally one of these post-story points that grew to like 1500 words and I put to one side) so no crazy waits.