Place your bets on how long until I get sidetracked by wrestling!
Not that you can place your bets on these races though, at least not in the same venue.
“Twinkle Series” is the name of the circuit or league of races at the core of Uma Musume. It’d be very easy to describe it as just “horse racing but with humanoids” but the result in practice is actually very interesting if you try to take it at face value instead.
Because when you do so, what you have is an ever-rotating series of running courses that vary from short sprints to longer 3km marathons, where the participants dress in extravagant outfits to stand out from a distance, and where the participants are expected to perform a live show with singing and dancing right after.
It’s a combination of athletic running with wrestling sensibilities THERE WE GO!! Whoever had “by the fifth paragraph” congratulations.
Jokes aside, while the intent is very much “like horse racing with Showa Joshi Wrestling live shows right after”, inside the context of the game it is treated as-is, creating this very interesting impression of a fictional sport, something that’s a combination of many other things into a recognizable shape. Think Blitzball in Final Fantasy X, but instead of rugby underwater it’s olympic-level running with high heels that have horse shoes on them.
Unlike Blitzball though, it’s very explicit that the world has many other sports with equal amounts of attention on them, in fact, Mejiro McQueen is a known fan of baseball, Super Creek’s dad is an avid golf player, and there’s a support card showing Mejiro Ryan playing Basketball among others.
The game and other places make it explicit that in this world the Twinkle Series isn’t a gambling sport. This clarification exists specifically because in the real world the main appeal of horse racing in Japan is that it’s one of four sports where you can legally gamble for the results. The other three being bicycle racing, motorbike racing, and boat racing. So Uma Musume wants to paint the picture of something more akin to Soccer in that sense.
Of course, like Soccer, I don’t doubt there’s gambling stations either in other countries or other venues, but people will gamble for anything so it’s nothing specific here.
All which is to say that the world might feel like it revolves around the Twinkle Series, but that’s only because you’re seeing things from the POV of girls that train to run in it.
And how do they run it? Well, the only proper requirement to enter the Twinkle Series is to have a trainer. Once a girl has a trainer they’re allowed to have their Twinkle Series run, though their selection of races might be limited by where they’re enrolled. Tresen, being the biggest academy of the country gives its girls easy access to a broader selection of races, with option for some international tours even.
The average Twinkle Series run lasts three years, divided into “Junior” (first year), “Classic” (second year) and “Senior” (third year), with some races being limited to one of these categories only. The Satsuki Sho, for example, can only be entered by girls in the Classic stage.
Of course, the emphasis is on the word “average”. Many careers are cut short by tragedies, and there’s also tales of a certain Horse Girl that ran for five whole years and didn’t get one win until her last year of those five, and that long of a run is nothing short of crazy for any that learn about it.
There’s no specific age for a girl to start their Twinkle Series’ run. Middle Schoolers might run against High Schoolers, it’s all about when the girl feels right to run.
How does a high schooler run for three years and still not graduate? Linear time only exists to tell you when it’s time to eat and when it’s time to sleep, don’t worry about it.
Races in the Twinkle Series are gated by “Grades” and to be able to participate in specific races a girl needs to basically have a specific amount of votes towards them participating. This means that some are able to jump to G1 races after debut, while others might need to gather steam for longer.
The game plays a bit more liberally with this because of mechanics, but the principle is still the same.
So that leaves a question: What happens after those three years?
Well, girls tend to not get into the Twinkle Series again because… it’d be kinda unfair for someone that has three years of running experience to go against others just starting. In fact, many of the “scarier” opponents in the franchise tend to be the older characters, which is why there’s perceived threat scale that basically goes Rudolf, then Maruzensky and/or CB, and then Tazuna.
Yeah, Tazuna. Anyone that can keep the others at bay should be cause for concern.
But retirement from the Twinkle Series doesn’t mean retirement from running altogether, in fact, it’s very often the case that finishing the Twinkle Series gives a girl enough popularity and credence to start an international tour (See: El Condor Pasa and Agnes Digital‘s endings for example).
Some hopefully reach their goals after the end, others gather enough popularity to keep following other paths… though mainly many of them end so battered after all the running that they’re happy to call it quits as far as active running goes.
A chance to burn bright in their youth, hopefully setting them into an easier life afterwards, whether through the lessons learned or the platform acquired.
Uma Musume strikes a really interesting balance in this front. Even with characters like Special Week whose whole deal is “becoming Japan’s Number One Horse Girl” it never feel like they’re gonna be at a loss after the run ends. You never have the impression that a girl will have “nothing to do” after they stop actively running, and you always feel like they came out the other side stronger as a result.
They don’t stop existing after all, they’re just not “active” the same way.
But that’s just the running. Talking about a Live Show at this point might feel absolutely tacked on... but that’s why the next post is gonna be interesting, I believe.