So bear with me for a second, here…
The first episode of Season 1 of the anime has a very simple premise: Special Week is finally in the big city, it’s her first time meeting other horse girls, and she gets kidnapped convinced into joining Team Spica.
The first episode of Season 2 is all about establishing that Teio and McQueen have the whole world in their hands.
The first episode of Cinderella Gray establishes three things: This is Oguri Cap, she loves to eat, she’s a monster on the track.
The first episode of Star Blossom focuses on Tsubaki Akeishi, a supremely clumsy up-and-comer trainer that feels defeated in her hopes of being anything more than an assistant trainer until she meets Sakura Laurel and she feels a drive to help the girl accomplish her dream.
You do notice the difference, right?
Sakura Laurel doesn’t make her first appearance outside of the cover until about 23 pages in. Until then, the story is squarely focused on Tsubaki.
The story goes into full detail about her life, how she wanted to become a trainer by watching Sirius Symboli’s France expedition years ago (don’t think about the timeline of events, time doesn’t exist in Uma Musume, let it go…).
Years later, Tsubaki is a sub-trainer (an assistant trainer basically, like the player character in the game’s Main Story) of Team Alkes. She’s clumsy, she has a hard time keeping up with everyone, she’s clumsy, her dad is a trainer on the team, she’s really clumsy, she gets scared by Narita Brian, she’s really REALLY clumsy…
Then she sees a practice training with Sakura Laurel, where she’s absolutely transfixed by how gracefully Laurel moves, evading everything from blocks to dirt in her eyes… except that Laurel then falls behind and has to tap out of the race. This prompts Tsubaki to run to her “help” being concerned, causing her to stumble and needing to accompany Laurel to the infirmary for more than one reason.
Laurel has a really fragile leg that’s been causing her issues, but despite this she still trains, she still tries her best, she still wants to be Narita Brian’s number one rival. And so, the clumsy trainer that keeps trying despite everything, and the girl that wants to run despite her body refusing to, team up.
It feels… surreal to type that description. It’s not like trainers have been non-entities in all the other examples given, in fact, the joke with Spica’s trainer is that despite being clearly modeled to be a Producer-san sort of character he has a very recognizable design and personality, and just lacks a name.
But even in Cinderella Gray, where the relationship between Oguri and her trainer is more emotional (at one point almost throwing a race because she didn’t want to get scouted for Tresen and be away from him), it’s still from the angle of Oguri.
Tsubaki is a full character that even in the first chapter has gone through an arc. Even her name, Tsubaki is a type of flower, a Camellia, just like Sakura is a flower also. They clearly want to make this Tsubaki’s story as much as it is Laurel’s.
This creates a wholly different vibe from the others mentioned. In the anime’s first season you could still get that idol-y vibe, season 2 has a more bittersweet undertone permeating everything, Cinderella Gray is a more traditionally intense sports story, and while it is still too early to know exactly what Star Blossom has in store, it’s already very different from all the ones that came before.
And that’s just so cool. The fact that none feel like they step on the toes of the other, where you can appreciate the evolution of the franchise’s identity, but likewise they’re all so different from each other that liking season 1 doesn’t necessarily mean things were derailed later.
I’m more the kind that buys compilation volumes instead of keeping track of things as they come out so I don’t think I’ll be doing posts for ever Star Blossom volume, but hey, first impressions are important and all.
Oh yeah! couple of cool details.
Team Alkes is a cheeky name. All teams are named after stars where the star has some meaning for the team itself, Alkes’s etymological origin is “The first of the cup”, as in, the first star of the constellation of The Cup, but also to win a cup you need to be first, right?
There’s two original girls in the first chapter. The first we see is Sundance Blaze who is probably based around Dancing Brave (who won against Sirius in the Arc of Triumph Cup).
The other is Team Alkes’ resident gremlin Yoshino Prevail, most likely based on Fujino Makken O.
Oh right, they released Laurel in the game today too, I might be able to complete the Sakura trifecta of articles.