Every great hero deserves an origin story, and that even—especially!—includes the funny big-eating horse girl Oguri Cap from Uma Musume. This obviously isn't the only franchise where a comic-relief background character can undergo this kind of drastic promotion to protagonist, but it's certainly one of the most appropriate. Every horse girl in Uma Musume's stable has her own story, itself based on the true story of their namesake race horse. Cinderella Gray's plot in particular isn't an anime-original instance like the mane-line anime seasons, being instead an adaptation of an ongoing manga entry in the franchise. It all means this first season of the story of Oguri Cap stands apart from its previous Uma Musume brethren—and arguably stands above many of them.

As a spin-off rather than a straight sequel, Cinderella Gray gets to be immediately different from the other Uma Musume anime seasons. The look is the most obvious place to start. This series comes courtesy of CygamesPictures, who previously produced the horse of a different color that was the Road to the Top ONA. The style and facial expressions aren't quite as intense as they were under that team, but it's very clearly coming from the same stable. The art is decidedly less candy-coated than the regular seasons, reflecting both the dustier rural setting that Cinderella Gray starts in and the more muted attitude of its protagonist that gives way to bursts of ridiculous racing intensity.

That is, less colorful as it first appears, Cinderella Gray is not above cutting loose with absurdist indulgent racing insanity as any of the best entries in the franchise. Oguri Cap's strong low-to-the-ground running style distinguishes her personality on the track, dirt flies as she digs her feet in and kicks it up, and she becomes a piercing-gazed beast as her reputation grows and she comes up behind her opponents. Beyond Oguri Cap herself, her latter-stage rival in this anime, Tamamo Cross, manifests lavish lightning abilities and second-form racing superpowers that blast off the screen. CygamesPictures are lending these proceedings different style, but they're still wholly in the wheelhouse of what works about Uma Musume: objectively ridiculous treatment of this material that nevertheless works as fist-pumping excitement due to sheer sincere commitment to the bit.

Because underneath all the anthropomorphized racehorse girls going Super Saiyan on each other, Cinderella Gray is still, at its core, the same shockingly effective sports anime that Uma Musume has always been. The treatment of Oguri Cap's training and trials to reach the top are another place where this anime feels different from before, though. In this iteration, there is a much greater emphasis on the moment-to-moment strategies of running races. Characters are noted as being categorized into the different types of approach they take to racing (not coincidentally similarly to the labels used in the concurrently released Uma Musume mobile game), and those methodologies are demonstrated. It provides some fascinating insight into the kinds of granular strategies that can be applied to racing beyond "running real fast" as some laypersons might presume. It's very engaging and one more proof of the irrefutable truth that Uma Musume is undoubtedly a Sports Anime, and a very good one.

As such, Cinderella Gray also continues its interfacing with the idea of narrative in sports, and the storytelling that can be borne out of adaptation. Oguri Cap's arc is, as usual, pretty directly patterned on the life and career of the real-life horse she's based on. Victories and even participation in events that might feel like foregone conclusions in a more deliberately structured fictional sports story aren't guaranteed here—that's part of the plot and the way of the world that Oguri Cap inhabits and influences. The impact an athlete can have on the realm of her sport is a key element of this series, and how a titular Cinderella story can drive interest, change the landscape, and inspire others to their own impressive heights. And it's only a little amusing that this revolves around a character who was already a memetic favorite within the franchise.

Oguri Cap herself is thus absolutely the anime's strongest asset. Cinderalla Gray is by and large lighter on goofs compared to the mainline Uma Musume anime, as the CygamesPictures-produced spin-offs have tended to be. But it's by no means deadly serious, and the deadpan humor embodied by Oguri Cap is a big part of that. She's a simple creature, happy just to be able to run at first, filling her plate and belly with so much food to keep her energy levels up. Oguri even delivers a piss-take of Uma Musume's infamous idol-dance segments, with her rigid retro dancing debut being probably the funniest moment in the show.

Oguri clashes with a couple of rivals over the course of this season, but her salt-lick-dry approach makes her a perfect foil for the standout secondary character of Tamamo Cross. Tama honestly feels a bit nothing at first, energetically popping up to portent at the possibility of how she'll interact with Oguri. But once her arc begins in earnest in the second half, she feels like she's competing for star of the screen just as much as she is in the contests on the track. Oguri is a low-running horse-girl of the earth; Tamano is a flashing thunderstorm that sails over the ground. Their interactions are measured, but they embody the platonic ideals of rivalry seen throughout Uma Musume—their presence driving each other to become more than they already are. It's why the simple-expressioned Oguri can become a beast behind Tamamo on the track, or Tamamo can unlock her flashy filly form-change. It's all based on equine events that actually happened, but the mascot ginjinka-fication of the horses realized through the lavish lens of Cygames Pictures elevates it to mythological peaks.

Some points and characters do get left in the dust by the ostensible historical structure that Uma Musume adheres to here. Oguri's original trainer Kitahara Jo virtually exits the story halfway through, in a story beat that does feel emotionally earned. But Jo's union of dreams with Oguri is so well-realized that his presence is noticeably missed afterwards, and the replacement in his uncle Musaka is a far more technical and workmanlike mentor. As well, Oguri's friend Berno Light works well enough to give her a companion to bounce off of when needed, but never feels like anything other than relief in her own right. The actual active cast of Cinderella Gray can feel surprisingly minimal at times, which is odd given the far-reaching effects that Oguri's presence has on the world of horse racing.

That influence provides the backbone to some of Cinderella Gray's most subversive strengths, though. It would be easy to accuse the happenings of this plot of bending to Oguri's will. But as mentioned, her advancements noticeably come at the cost of blowing past her original desires, lending this Cinderella story some bittersweet aftertaste. There are far less catastrophic injuries than in other Uma Musume anime to hold back the cast of Cinderella Gray, but fate can still find ways to be a real jerk. And like a real race, the storytelling can still find sudden, vicious ways to play with your heart. One instance in the ninth episode is a standout, as events seem to be playing out for a trite, arguably unearned resolution in favor of our hungry heroine. Only then is there a stunning revelation about what was actually happening, what was actually being seen that punches viewers right in the gut—at least for those who weren't already familiar with their real racing history. It's the ethos of dark-horse sports storytelling embodied in adaptational writing, and it is friggin' cinema.

As the first Uma Musume season to leave the audience hanging, owing to its ongoing manga origins, Cinderella Gray does a superb job thrilling the audience while leaving them hungry for further courses it could serve up. It is its own beast compared to its mainline anime forebears, and just as Oguri Cap and Tamamo Cross prove that ashen-colored horses can win major races, Cinderella Gray earnestly demonstrates why Uma Musume as a concept, which might have once been thought to be a one-trick pony, continues to be ripe for expansion and spinning-off.