So Tamaki Abe (who described Daiwa Scarlet as a “very competitive frontliner”) also described the rivalry between Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka as being like the rivalry between Maya Kitajima and Ayumi Himekawa.
For those that don’t know, they’re both characters from the seminal (and I mean “know your culture you damn kiddos” seminal) Shoujo manga Garasu no Kamen (Glass Mask) by Suzue Miuchi. Garasu no Kamen focuses on the struggles to become the lead actress of the play Kurenai Tennyo (Crimson Goddess) by the aforementioned two characters.
Maya Kitajima isn’t particularly pretty or smart but has an all-consuming passion for the craft and an inhuman skill to learn her part quickly, not to mention she can reach emotional highs that floor everyone; meanwhile Ayumi Himekawa was the primadonna of the academy, considered to be of the highest actress pedigree but desperate to prove that she can win the role without the help of her parents.
On a second layer to this narrative we have Chigusa Tsukikage, a legendary actress that was so famous for her role in Kurenai Tennyo that the author handed the rights to her. Chigusa is the one that discovered Maya’s talent and took her under her wing in her acting academy. Meanwhile a production company called Daito Entertainments is trying to make Chigusa’s academy fail so she feels pressured to sell them the rights to Kurenai Tennyo so they can cast Utako Himekawa, Ayumi’s mother and Chigusa’s old student in Chigusa’s old role, a role that Ayumi wants to take for herself.
YEAH KINDA SIMILAR I’D SAY.
Tamaki Abe, has also pointed out that Daiwa Scarlet had overall more male fans while Vodka had crowds of female fans, with the male fans often focusing more on Daiwa Scarlet’s stability and… basically calling Vodka overhyped, so to speak.
And to be fair there ARE grounds for this statement based in the fact that Daiwa Scarlet never ended below third place in a race whereas Vodka’s records are all over the place.
The girlies do love a queen that takes risks tho…
Vodka’s nosebleeds near the end of her career, while alarming, are funnily enough the basis for the in-game version’s weakness to displays of romance. More specifically, you can read how they were so willing to can plans after the real Vodka’s nosebleeds being translated as the game’s Vodka being really weak against anything nosebleed-worthy.
For those somehow not aware (and to be fair, it’s such an old thing by now you might legitimately not be aware), nosebleeds have (mainly HAD) been a common shorthand for arousal in anime properties for decades… more specifically they were basically an euphemism for male ejaculation, but it evolved into a more general arousal shorthand.
And I suspect newer anime fans might not be aware because anime and manga have shockingly evolved past the need for such a roundabout euphemism. Just like how more pervy stories have evolved from “sexually harass girls” to “sexually harass by accident” to “hey what if the girl was actually into you no weird stuff needed”.
I’ve tried to find if they ever explained where the real Vodka’s nosebleeds came from, but no luck. I did find that horse nosebleeds are shockingly common, and while not super alarming, definitely worth keeping an eye for, especially since the JRA tends to impose time outs when they happen.
Oh yeah, then with her Christmas Alt, her profile added the info that she sometimes just… gets really excited before a race and gets a nosebleed anyways.
So one element about Uma Musume that I will actually focus on in the next batch of post is related to how important real parentage is for the in-game relationships. However, for the longest time the relationships were either already established from the outset (eg: Teio and Rudolf, or Kawakami and King Halo) or were worked forwards (Duramente, a later addition; being descended from Air Groove, who’s been there since the start, for example).
Hell, Daiwa Scarlet and Agnes Tachyon were both already there from the start.
Tanino Gimlet was only barely added last year during the Second Anniversary celebrations, and yet the genius of her design is that she can stand on her own and you can also easily see her as Vodka’s epitome of ultimate coolness.
After all, Vodka is a girl all about being cool and acting cool… and here we have a girl that frequents bars and mixes her own non-alcoholic cocktails, that uses an eyepatch, calls herself “God of Destruction” (despite being amazing at arts and crafts), insists she has a demon sealed in her leg, dresses like how Vodka probably thinks she looks, and speaks in such an overwritten way that her dialog has more furigana than a Light Novel.
WITH GOD AS MY WITNESS WE’LL EVENTUALLY GET TO HER, HOLY SHIT.
In what’s probably a pattern by now, Vodka’s personality evolution is basically a change from “what you see is what you get” to… more than just that.
That said, I’d argue that, as far as personality goes, hers is one of the ones that has changed the least outside of Gold Ship, she’s more on the level of Teio in that “they added to it” way. For example, Starting Gate Vodka definitely has more moments that are cool on purpose rather than the current norm where 9 out 10 attempts at being cool are her acting out something that she had in her head.
To be fair, however, a lot of that is from that weird thing Starting Gate does where they speedrun character arcs resulting in a lot of its stories feeling redundant to the final product.
She did definitely have less of the “surprisingly girly” side at play though, and she actually dressed cool somehow.
Like with Scarlet, her characterization in the anime is very limited, but her obsession with coolness and said sense of coolness being Not Normal was already at play.
By the way, for those curious, the hip flask Vodka always carries is apparently filled with barley tea. Barley tea is usually sugar-free but still flavored, the color would also make it look like she’s drinking some sort of alcohol if you didn’t know better… case in point when the Animal Crossing New Horizons reveal happened, westerners thought Isabelle became an alcoholic.
Also, like most types of tea, it stains a lot, so filling the flask with tea is gonna make it a nightmare to clean.
In a funny coincidence (and for once I DO believe this is just an actual coincidence), the state of Indiana prohibited the sale of both cocktail shakers and hip flasks during the prohibition era US of the 1920s.
She and Gimlet wouldn’t have liked it in the 1920s…
Vodka’s love for motorcycles is stated in-game to be the result of her dad being a motorcycle rider himself and she (being the contrast to Scarlet even here) is a daddy’s girl that grew up admiring him and wanting to have her own bike down the line. One of her secrets even states that she’s saving money to buy one, and it’s a known fact that one of the first things she did after moving into her room was to hang a poster of a motorcycle she wants.
Fittingly, in Japan you can get a license to ride a motorcycle while still studying, so it’s not unheard of. More specifically you can ride anything but a heavy motorcycle from age 16, for a heavy one you need to turn 18, though.
Now, normally in Uma Musume the tendency is that a girl’s mom is based off the real horse’s mother (except in one case where it was also a nod to the owner) and the father is based on the owner, but Yuzo Tanimizu has no connection with motorcycles. The current standing theory for this is actually based on comments that Christophe Lemaire (the jockey that led Vodka to finally winning the Japan Cup, if you’ll remember) made where he described Vodka as a Machine.
“Vodka was never a friendly horse. She felt like a machine and didn’t give off the impression of being a filly.I rode her astride during training, but she didn’t react and silently followed instructions from the saddle”
-Christophe Lemaire (Translated with Google Translate) from Number Web
Now there’s a couple of really interesting caveats to consider.
The first is that the web article linked was posted in November 2019 and the framing seems to be more about Jockey Lemaire reminiscing then and there about Vodka (including comments like how even when he visited her years later the air around her hadn’t changed) instead of a quote being pulled from when he raced in the Japan Cup.
Also, the love for motorcycles was only included as part of her profile after the post-release renewal. Her old profile only focused on how despite looking rebellious she actually has a maiden’s heart.
Moreover, the only mention I can find of motorcycles in Starting Gate happened at the end of Volume 2, a chapter that (unless I understood wrong) is exclusive to the printed version, not unlike many other end-of-volume extras in other manga. And said volume is dated to November 2021 long after the game had released.
As such, unless I missed a Starting Gate moment OR there is an earlier comment about Vodka being like a riding a motorcycle, it means we can pinpoint her love for bikes as a late addition to her character.
Vodka’s last scene taking a plane is interesting because it can fit two different moments.
The obvious one is that she’s going to her second-to-last overseas expedition beyond the scope of the in-game training, but there’s another key moment we could fit in there.
During her breeding mare era, Vodka was actually moved to Ireland, though still under the ownership of Tanimizu. As it turns out the interest she had accrued for her second Dubai attempt had remained.
Funnily enough, while in-game Scarlet is the one to have a Tiara, in real life Vodka had a decorated leather strap that fans described as looking like a Tiara.
That leather strap was made for Tanino Bellini, a horse one year older than Vodka, by Hiroyuki Nakata, the main stablehand in charge of Vodka and her mother. Tanino Bellini never got to wear it and so Vodka used it instead.
Nakata says that the strip is what reminds him of Vodka the most.
Speaking of Tanino Bellini, he was effectively Vodka’s older real life brother. Yet another similarity with Daiwa Scarlet having Daiwa Major as a connection.
Interestingly, an attempt WAS made to breed Vodka with Daiwa Major, but the resulting male calf remains unregistered.
Back to the topic of siblings though, Vodka is noted to have a younger brother and a younger sister. And this is an important hint because as we’ve tackled on before, a girl’s brother tends to be based off actual male horses related to the girl in real life. And Tanino Bellini is notorious for being the ONLY male offspring of Tanino Sister.
…okay, to be more specific, there’s also Tanino Tuxedo (2010, with Tanino Gimlet again incidentally), and Lateral Arc (2011, With Deep Sky who was the horse that Vodka lost 3rd to in the Japan Cup), but they were both castrated.
The offspring were castrated, not Deep Sky and Tanino Gimlet.
The sister is tricky because Tanino Sister had a lot of female calfs after Vodka… HOWEVER, if we apply the same logic of using the older siblings for reference that leaves us just with Tanino Excellent and Tanino Coronation. And of the two I’m more partial to Tanino Coronation because just like Tanino Bellini she didn’t have any offspring and that feels like a commonality they want to point out.
Especially considering that aside from the two aforementioned castrations, those two are the only ones that didn’t leave any progeny behind.
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I mentioned this ages ago, but regular Vodka’s skill is actually a reference to how she beat Aston Machan in the Hanshin JF, by dashing in the last 200m of the race and snatching victory.
That said, Christmas Vodka’s Unique skill is actually a reference to how the real Horse was said to be an expert in the Tokyo racecourse, with most of its big wins being there and Tanimizu even donating a Vodka statue for it.
The skill basically states that “If you’re in the middle of the pack on a slope after the middle of the race, you’ll increase your speed when going down the slope”… and just in case it wasn’t obvious it then adds “If you’re in the Tokyo Racecourse, increase the speed even further.”
Speaking of alts, this is actually a point where Scarlet has the advantage for a funny reason: Outside of the first summer event, Scarlet and Vodka have appeared together in all events… which really makes the exception for Scarlet in that one specific event stick out quite a bit.
But anyways, first is her regular racing outfit. According to her it’s supposed to be representative of the “duality” inside of her, her coolness and her heat, citing how despite all of the cool belts in the outfit it’s still so easy to move. The topic actually comes up when she wonders how the hell Scarlet can run with all the frills of her own costume.
Unlike Scarlet, Vodka’s SSR Support card actually has her with her racing outfit and not her casual clothing.
By the way, Vodka is a damn nerd… and while at it she’s also a nerd about vintage leather jackets of all things.
She has her playable Christmas version that came out alongside Christmas Scarlet. Unlike Scarlet whose proficiencies effectively shift the difficulty curve of her training, Vodka’s proficiencies only change by her long distance aptitude going from F to E, meaning you now need 5 Rank Ups in it to challenge Arima Kinen instead of 6.
Beyond that, her initial stat spread is more balanced and her initial skills focus on making her a middle-distance runner instead of a Miles runner.
Like Scarlet she also has her June Bride version, and just like how Scarlet was the freebie of the summer event, Vodka was the freebie of that one.
Her regular SR version actually came out quite a way after release, and in another fun inversion of how Scarlet did things, just like how in Scarlet’s SR you can see Tachyon, it’s in Tanino Gimlet’s SR that you can also see Vodka.
Vodka’s story mentions two motorcycles in particular.
The first is the “Umaha ZX750”, the description (“Streamlined form” and “Stupidly big tank”) seems to describe the Kawasaki ZX750. That said, there also happens to be a Yamaha FZX750 (And Umaha is clearly meant to sound like Yamaha) but that one is apparently more fit as an entry-level vehicle, so it’s probably a mix of both.
The interesting one is the “JUV1331 Reprint Model”. While the most obviously fictional one, it’s a nod to Vodka’s first G1, the Hanshin JUVeline Fillies, where she set a record of 1 minute, 33 second, and 1 decimal… or 1:33.1.
We’ve covered most of the stuff in her profile, actually.
I think the most notorious detail is how she talks about how she’s practicing how to swing her tail in a really cool way. And how she’s also practicing how to slide a glass over the counter.
No, Grass Wonder is not the one sliding on the counter, though many have thought about that one.
For the sake of completion, she does mention playing rough with her dad which prompts her mom to scold her.
BY THE WAY YOU REMEMBER HOW IN THEIR LAST CONFRONTATION VODKA BEAT DAIWA SCARLET BY 2CM?
YOU’LL NEVER GUESS BY HOW MUCH IS VODKA TALLER THAN SCARLET.
THEY CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS.