Did you know I’ve spent the almost one year of this blog’s existence trying to make this set of posts happen?
When I made the website, I KNEW I had to talk about these two, but the problem, as you can probably appreciate, is that you cannot talk about one without talking about the other. And even as the format of this blog settled down enough that I fell into the rhythm of weaving in and out of the story of the real horse, that still didn’t help.
I mean, even their god damn portraits are designed to pair with each other! Both versions!!!
Uma Musume has plenty of pairings, but none of them are as intertwined as Vodka and Scarlet, and what makes it so compelling is, as I hope my earlier posts illustrated, the uncanny parallels they had with each other even in real life.
Both born from strong mares with no big accolades, both carrying the blood of really noteworthy stallions that chased the Triple Crown but had to retire after only one G1 victory and only one year of running career. Hell, Agnes Tachyon won the first race of the Triple Crown while Tanino Gimlet won the second. One retired from something in his frontal left leg and the other from something in his rear left leg.
And then one was named in hopes to carry the legacy of her mother while the other was named in the hoped she’d be as strong if not stronger than her father.
One was consistent and the other explosive, one was very big and the other was very petite, one was cheered by male fans while the other had a crowd of female fans, one stayed with a single Jockey and the other had many through its run, one had a regular career while the other defied what a regular pattern is to begin with.
And this is without accounting for the fact that there was the exact overlap in staff on both sides that would result in one side going “you know what? We’re rivals now”.
Which added to the intertwinning because most “rivalries” tend to be emergent narratives that you can see from the outside, kinda like how Rice Shower being painted as a “hitman” that stole the dreams for consecutive victories off others was just happenstance… and yet here we had two camps that were explicitly going after each other as much for sport as for anything else.
So even if I tried to focus on just the real horse as an anchor and then take it from there… I’m gonna fall into the same trapping.
In fact, let me convey how intertwined Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka are in-game by revealing to you a funny detail I’ve left out until now: The most important event for Vodka’s story is arguably inside Scarlet’s story.
There’s a secret event called “Number one and Cool” (1番と、カッコイイ) that you can unlock if you basically chase Vodka through her G1s and beat her.
The event takes place basically after Vodka has headed overseas after the Autumn Tenno Sho. Scarlet calls her asking why she hasn’t returned and Vodka then confesses she just can’t show her face, that Scarlet kept winning and winning and Vodka doesn’t even know where to start. So Scarlet sends her videos of all the races where they raced each other and admits that she was only able to do her best as she did because Vodka was pushing her. She then tells her she should come back and try again in local races instead of sulking overseas.
By the way, When Vodka refused to watch the videos, Scarlet said “watch them or I’ll burn your bike poster”.
Why is this important? Because if you remember Vodka’s real life career, right after the Tenno Sho she went overseas and it was only after returning early instead of extending the overseas expedition towards England, that the second slump Vodka had fallen into was finally broken and she started making waves again.
So even if it’s for different reasons, they still found a way to integrate that plot development, and it’s not even in Vodka’s own story.
The story actually ends with a comment about how “For Scarlet, Vodka is clearly not just a rival”. Which is slightly funny because in Starting Gate, they really try to pull the “more than friends, they’re rivals” and now they’re saying “they’re more than rivals-“.
They’re what then, Cygames? THEY’RE WHAT?!
By the way, if you do the inverse (playing as Vodka and chasing all of Scarlet’s races and winning, which is harder btw) you get the flipside event with the flipside name “Cool and Number one” (カッコイイと、1番), where Scarlet has been in a foul mood and Vodka tries to take her out to the aquarium to appease her and it’s not until Scarlet storms off and almost gets run over by a car that she admits that her mood is foul because she kept losing, only for Vodka to admit how she wouldn’t have put so much effort if Scarlet wasn’t so strong.
While this one has no parallel with Scarlet’s career, it’s still a really fun way to show how both react to a similar situation.
God, they’re so gay…
In fact, I’d argue this extends to the story of their training modes. I’d say that you cannot grasp the full story unless you play both.
Let me give you an example.
If you play Scarlet’s story first, you see the aftermath of the fight they had about the Nihon Derby situation. You see KINDA Scarlet’s side of the situation where it feels as if Vodka is putting her “childish coolness” over her, and making less of her in the process, prompting Scarlet to think about going to the Nihon Derby and showing Vodka up.
But THEN if you play Vodka’s training mode, you get extra context for the situation, where yeah she had the idea about the Nihon Derby since earlier, but then after the Ouka Sho she starts talking Scarlet up about how she’s her rival, and she’s gonna show her a good fight and she better look forward to it.
So then you realize it’s not as simple as Scarlet’s pride being hurt, Vodka goes and talks sweet nothings in her ear promising her a good time and then at the last moment she remembers what her original goal was and has to pull out.
GOD, they’re SO gay…
It’s also interesting to see how the characterization changes between both and how the POV affects this.
If you play a Scarlet, she’s very calm, though with her anxious moments every so often, and then when you see Vodka, she’s trying to act and say cool things in an aloof manner. But if you play as Vodka, she has none of that aloofness and instead of a calm Scarlet you see one that just can’t keep to herself and keeps nagging for every little thing at every single moment.
The result is that by playing one side you understand what the other finds so annoying. You only get why Vodka gets annoyed at Scarlet never shutting up by playing as Vodka, and you only understand the frustrating focus on coolness in Vodka that Scarlet finds infuriating by playing as her.
And yet, both sides have moments where where the… not necessarily “mask”, but the framing slips and you see the actual girl underneath. Be it Scarlet talking with Vodka’s trainer to ask them what training they’ve been doing and being a very cordial young girl, or Vodka freaking out when she laments that Scarlet left without saying anything nice out loud and Scarlet’s trainer was right there.
You can actually see what their dynamic is from the outside in a number of events, or in any of Machan’s many side stories. And in these you understand the undercurrent to why, despite all their bickering, they’re basically joined by the hip most of the time.
Ages ago I joked that their dynamic was basically Scarlet being very mom-like with Machan (always fussing up about her being in the way of a camera, or worrying to death about her wellbeing) while Vodka was very dad-like (being the conciliatory one that goes “come, we’ll play over there”).
SO IMAGINE MY SHOCK WHEN THE JUNE BRIDE MACHAN SSR SUPPORT CARD HAS HER TURNING SCARLET INTO THE MOM AND VODKA INTO THE DAD OF THE MOVIE THEY’RE FILMING
GOD THEY’RE SO GAY also, to whoever is in charge of Machan’s stories: I see you and appreciate you, keep it up.
But even beyond that, when they’re not bickering you have Vodka being the one that can take the initiative in a situation and is overall less anxious, while Scarlet is the one that makes sure to keep everything in order.
When they bicker before the Tulip Sho, Scarlet is the one complaining about Vodka being messy while Vodka complains about how garish Scarlet’s loungewear is.
Actually, that whole pre-Tulip Sho situation is a trip, because while Scarlet talking smack and saying she’s the flower and Vodka is just the stem IS in character for her, Scarlet saying that is, fittingly, the most Vodka thing ever so it makes sense why you only see it in her side.
It’s like you ask them to remember how a situation went and they both have different details, and they’re all true, it’s just that one remembers some of them more.
Umayuru has a fun chapter that shows what it would look like if they ACTUALLY hated each other… and funnily enough, they both end up roping someone else to be joined by the hip to them anyways, they both keep an eye on each other, and they both feel as if whoever is tagging along with them now just doesn’t get it.
And you can also see why they push other perfectly. If Vodka was facing against someone that’s also cool then it’s a simple matter of either being the cooler one or not cool enough. If Scarlet was facing against someone more dilligent then it’s the same situation. But because both of their approaches have so little overlap it adds the idea that they’re not just proving themselves, but that their style is the best.
Not only that but as illustrated before, they LEARN from each other. Scarlet learns to appreciate the merits of being cool and leaving an impact when it helps her enjoy her victories more, and Vodka only realizes she was being too cocky when she realizes the extent of what Scarlet can do that she can’t.
GOD THEY’RE SO FUCKING GAY
And from a writing standpoint, it’s really interesting to think about why this works so well.
You see, “opposites attract” is a bullshit statement that only results in pain, the only reason these two “opposites” work so well is that underneath the superficial differences they’re fundamentally the same.
They’re both anxious girls that feel the need to grow up faster: Vodka by adopting coolness as a means to show she’s not a child, and Scarlet by trying to become more self-sufficient. They both have a sense of responsability imposed onto them but one has it by being a single child and the other the eldest of three.
They both head almost blindly towards their one objective, they both prefer to defer to more experienced students for advice… Hell, even though Vodka claims in her scenario that she just isn’t as persistent as others, she’s still persistent about what she cares about, a dogged persistence to rival Scarlet’s even.
The “opposites attract” dynamic requires that level of solidarity that both sides see in each other even if they don’t realize it. Or to explain it with my own personal analogy on the topic: opposites only attract in a magnet because their opposite side is the same as the one they’re facing.
Basically positive pole only exists because it has a negative pole on the other side of itself.
And the best part of this? They still work amazingly separate from each other.
While I’ve gone off about them this long, I could go off just as long about how well they work without the other one in a scene. How Scarlet is seen by everyone as a reliable person, how Vodka is basically that one kid that hangs out a lot near the older kids, how each has their own web of relationships with shockingly little overlap.
Because in the end, if they were just “Scarlet and Vodka” in the same way one says “Bill and Ted” that would be boring. It’s the fact that they’re both indispensable for each other but not DEPENDANT on each other to have a personality that makes all of this so special.
GOD THEY’RE SO FUCKING GAY I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.