Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray Season 2

Episode 19

There are a lot of good Caps in this episode. After several weeks (plus another impromptu week off) built around reinforcing that Oguri Cap was not the only character in her own story, this episode of Cinderella Gray does return to center around her. And while a lot of that is based on the idea of Cap realizing she's lacking something that running champions like Tamamo Cross and Obey Your Master have, just as much of the episode is about showing off why Cap was such a great choice as a multiplicitous goofy goober to lead her own Uma Musume spin-off. There are blobby Caps, yoked Caps, silly little starfish Caps—a virtual visual gallery showcasing all the sides of this, God's perfect creature.

It makes sense for Oguri to seem a bit adrift, given that the viewers themselves might be wondering "What next?" in the wake of the epic Japan Cup arc. The answer is in looking ahead as always: the international competitors have gone back home, but there are still plenty of domestic rivals looking to snatch the crown, and the spotlight, from the likes of Oguri and Tamamo Cross. The idea of the world opening up is still felt even as the focus is back just on Japanese horse girls. The Uma Musume media machine is hyping up horses like Dicta Striker and Super Creek with their own narratives as rivals to the two main ashen girls. Oguri made a name for herself coming out of Kasamatsu, but realizing now that she's lacking something that the other superstars have, it's becoming clear that she might really have been a big fish in a small pond. Big horse in a small field? Whatever. The point is that by the end of this episode, Oguri's even relented that her goal isn't necessarily even to win, but simply to stay competitive to a point that she could still be considered Tamamo Cross's main rival. That's how heavy her underperformance is weighing on her.

Given how horse racing and coverage of it (in-universe and out) is regularly a question of relevance, it's a fair worry for Oguri to have at this juncture. This sort of thing has been a factor in previous Uma Musume stories, from Rice Shower's relationship with audience perception to Fujimasa March maintaining her status as Oguri's rival in her own mind. March was permitted to be revisited by Cinderella Gray's plotting in a way that pays off with others in this episode, but she's not the main character of the show the way Oguri is.

It's why it pays to have a main character who is, as noted, a particular kind of goofy goober. Oguri's confidence-shattered mopiness could seem melodramatic in more played-straight contexts, but her particular brand of silliness underscores that drama while still effectively eliciting the "No, poor baby!" response from the audience. At the same time, it highlights the seriousness of where she's found herself—if even Oguri can't maintain her blissful upbeat deadpan in the face of this slump, things must be pretty dire.

The other characters are learning that they also need to step up and improve. Belno Light's brush with journalism a few episodes ago was, as with so many parts of this season, not just a funny joke, but a precursor to her realizing how seriously effective information-gathering can be as a sidebar strategy in racing. Look at how far it got Obey Your Master, after all. Musaka's old hand correctly deduces that the thing that Oguri is lacking is her inability to enter the "Zone" that high-level horse athletes like Tamamo and Obey Your Master have been seen doing. I really appreciate his assertion in the face of it that this story isn't an anime or manga (I mean, it is, but it's all based on a real horse-racing career) and thus Oguri can absolutely hard-work-and-guts her way around seeming superpowers even if she can't manifest them herself. This is an episode ostensibly about what these kinds of athletes do in their downtime, and considering strategies and scheming to win the information war of modern horse racing is every bit as important as good old training.

It's well-structured for this kind of episode and leads up to a satisfying finish in its way, predicated on bringing back other characters who might have been left behind by narrative reality otherwise. Obviously, Fujimasa March was already mentioned, plus Norn Ace and the others from Kasamatsu. It's a satisfying return that pays off March's side-story appearance in the season premiere. But even more importantly, Jo Kitahara also reenters Oguri's life…and reveals that he failed the exam that would allow him to become her trainer again. Reality, unlike plotted-out anime and manga, doesn't always go the way one would expect. But this is still a script-worthy teachable moment for Jo to bestow on Oguri in her hour of need: You can't give up just because you failed once, you've got to get right back on the…well, you know.

That's a classic kind of lesson in this sort of sports storytelling, as is "returning to your roots" to try and get back in the game. This seems to be part of the plan with having Oguri practice running against March and the others. It reminds her of her original joy from running for running's sake, but it also provides something she'd been overwhelmed all this time without: perspective. As Jo notes, Oguri has worries at all now because she has so much that's much bigger to worry about than she ever did in Kasamatsu. Virtually returning to a simpler time gives her a potential way to get around that wall—motivation to run when she was previously too stressed out to do so. It's why it's important that Belno also be included in the efforts, not as a member of Oguri's team or support crew, but as a friend with whom she has fun. After all the heady, multi-layered drama of denser character webs of the past weeks, this is a great way for both the characters and viewers of Cinderella Gray to re-center. Yes, there are still plenty of other characters with their own stories brewing back there, but as they observe, there's always a time and a place for such things. This reminds watchers why Oguri Cap is still the central character after all, and draws her in a bunch of different funny ways while doing so.

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Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray Season 2 is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Chris backed the horse girls before they were cool, and he's so happy they've spurted off the way they have now. You can follow him reskeeting fanart of Vodka, Michelle My Baby, and the other cool ones over on his BlueSky.