AWTY 132 - Copywrite Strike (Uma Musume: Pretty Derby)

Music. Hello, and welcome to our weave. There yet in exploration and education in anime, I'm your anime idiot, Patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dee hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your giant anime cloveman hoofed hellbeast whose bite can crush bones despite having really no reason to.

Cool.

So a minotaur is that close?

Similar, except this one's real. It's called a horse. What? I don't like horses.

Yeah. If you've listened to the podcast this long, you might know that Brendan doesn't like horses.

There might have been a trench he.

Likes so many things didn't seem to make that list.

So many bad things, so many objectively incorrect opinions, and yet horses.

I don't know if I've ever told you this story for as long as I've known you and known that you've hated horses. I have a friend named Hannah who I love very much, and she went to disneyland one time and saw a horse walking down Main Street, and her brain immediately just went, they're real. She had never seen a horse in person.

What an incredible the perfect place to be. Like, magic is real. Just step two steps into disneyland, like, oh, mythical creature is awesome.

And it's like I mean, she's a very intelligent person. She knew that horses were real, but just to see one in person is a whole different thing.

I would have loved totally fair. I would have loved for the horse was taking its head off, and it was like the two people in the costume and just really threw her off. Like, wait, what? Wait.

That would happen at disneyland, though.

If there's anywhere their technology.

I really hate to ask, but why all the horse talk?

Why are we horsing around? Okay, clip, clapping around the topic. Beating around the bush carrot.

We're watching bojack horseman. I'm hijacking this.

Oh, shit. All right. With this. No, if I have a request for watching season four, it's just sad, but it's just only great.

It's all sad.

That's true.

Surprise.

Anyway, no, not bojack. Something much more kawaii than bojackers. We're watching, umamusume, pretty derby.

Oh, boy.

That's the appropriate response of that.

I just can't I can't believe it. I actually saw a screenshot from this not too long ago.

Yeah.

And I was just like, are you for serious? Is this real?

Yeah.

And Brendan had the same thought of, is this real? It can't be real. Got to watch it, though.

Got to watch it. I wish it wasn't real. God, I wish it was not real. But I said it a long time ago. I said it years ago because I can't believe we've been doing this podcast for years now. Like a plural years.

Every time I'm reminded, my soul shrinks a little bit more.

But early on, I said, D is here to bring good anime. I'm here to bring the rest of anime. This is the full anime experience. This isn't just picking and choosing the cherry picking the good ones. This is the worst and the best of anime for sure. And horse girls.

Yeah. How did this come into your life?

Real quick, I would like to say that when looking this up, it says that this is a sports anime. And I feel like that's just not right.

Hey, no disrespect. ping pong is a sports anime.

Yeah. And it's good.

It's very good.

Sports anime is good.

Yes. I was rewatching.

I don't think this will be good.

Other tangent, I recently watched Queen's gambit, and the reason I started watching it is because someone pitched me as it's a real life sports anime. That's enough for me to go, hey.

Let me give this me. After we watched the Go anime.

Actually, was it? Because I think it might have been.

It might have been, actually, yeah, I said that. But if a second person is like, yes, let me connect this to anime, then that makes me hesitant to start it because I have not yet surprised. I don't watch the things I say I'm going to watch.

We love it.

It's good. It's short. It's a Seven Ups. Anyway, how did this come into my life? Great question. It all started, like, most bad things, Twitter. And I saw someone just playing, like, getting a video recording of a video, like a phone game. And it's just these horse girls racing. And one of them just goes fucking Super saiyan for no goddamn, like, really intense for a phone game. And they're like, I don't know what's happening. This game is only in Japanese, but this seems nuts. And I'm super invested. And I was like, all right. And they're like, oh, by the way, there's an anime of it. I was like, oh, hold on.

Hold the phone.

What?

Get out of your horses.

I was like, all right, I'm obligated to put it on the list. We're watching horse girl anime.

Time to conquer brendan's fears, everybody.

Oh, boy.

Yeah. Is this your choice for immersion therapy of like, okay, let me just have, like, a couple let me see the ears and the tail surroundings.

I'm going to go back and watch Monster misumi that's got the full centaur girl. So we progress a little bit. And then I'm just going to watch what's the horse movie? My Little pony seabelle.

The one where they're humans.

What?

You don't know about that? I don't have time. I don't have time.

That's another one too deep into horse.

Hell because, like, horse girls its own weird mess of bullshit. Okay. Anyway, you two heard about this?

Just that one screenshot I saw of someone calling an anime girl a horse girl. And I was like, what?

Excuse me?

No, I don't know about it. I wish I could continue that streak. But here we go.

Here we go.

Get to watch the first three episodes.

We're off to the races.

And they're off. dugan runs. He gets in his car. He drives as far away as possible. He's going. He's going. And he's gone. We are done talking about this show.

Wow, a ten minute episode. We've really done it, everybody.

Thanks for tuning in. Wrap up there.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for joining us as we just slowly poison ourselves bit by bit.

I mean, let's be totally real. You could just go listen to the kantai Collection episode and it will be this thing.

Yes, I picked kantai Collection and now I'm on probation. And then when I get off probation, it's like, hey, guess what idiots I picked. I did a Summer Wars on you again.

It's just digging you're on double secret probation.

Your birthday is banned. No, just kidding. We can't do that as much as possible.

Wait a minute. That's a bad idea. Oh, boy. Let's get in there's. No jockeys. I feel like jockeys would have been a weird funny element.

How would that have even worked?

I don't know.

First you need to admit your crimes and describe these horse girls to the audience. And then we can go from there. But I think you owe them at least that much.

Well, we'll recap the first of the episodes and then we'll work shopping. We'll see what we could have proved. This is our horse girl anime now. Okay, as is tradition, we start off with episode one. And, like, just the all right. Just the opening is just so right out the gate. Horses. It starts with hieroglyphics and ancient drawings of, like, a mayan civilization or something. And it's just of horse girls. It's just talking about, like, the history of horse girls from, like, olden times and that no one really knows where they came from, but they've just always existed with people.

Someone fucked a horse. Yeah, someone had to have fucked a horse.

That's where minotaurs come from. So, like yeah, but like, I mean, just no one questions it's. Like, are there other away animal creatures, like mustard masuma? We got, like there's a parallel world. All right, all right, all right. Yeah.

We're already lost in the sun.

It's just it's a lot horse girls, they've been around since ancient times, and now we're in modern day Japan, and there's a horse girl on a train excited to move to the big city because she's a little old country bumpkin. And when we say horse girl, we don't meet a centaur from mazur, Massume.

We don't mean a 6th grader. Just with Lisa. Frank binders.

Just fucking obsessed with horses. We're talking about just a regular anime girl that's got horse ears and a horse tail. That's it.

And she can go real fast.

It's literally the only thing that makes a horse. Like, I was really hoping for hooves. Really hoping for, like, a sedar Mr. Tumbnas.

Sort of like, that wouldn't be cute enough.

Yeah, you can't hive all those perverts.

And so we see her on the train and she's talking to random people on the train because she's the only horse girl there. So they're all looking at her and she's going to the transit academy. And the little girl is excited like, oh, what's your name? She's like, My name is Special Week. I was like, good, right? Fantastic.

So just a little peek into what's coming later. I was prepping a game and looking up Japanese race horses. And a lot of these characters are actually named after winning Japanese racehorses. Really? That is something to keep in mind when we get to certain characters like vodka. But a lot of these are like the actual champions of like the last 20 years or so.

The Incredible.

My opening thing was going to just be an absurd name for, like a character. I was like, no, that's what they really are. That okay.

I really want there to be a horse named a copyright strike. I thought of that earlier today. I thought that would be really good.

That would be great. My name is mickey Mouse. And then in the anime dump, it's just like blaring. Like anyway, yeah, she's a country bumpkin. And she gets off the train because she's all excited. And turns out she got off at the wrong stop. She got off prematurely because she was too excited. Just had to stretch her legs. And she has some trouble in the train station because she is not familiar with it as well. Back and forth with the train attendant. And he's like, oh, yeah, you wanted to get off at the next stop. You'll have to get back on the train. She's like, oh, don't worry. I'll just run there. It's like, I don't know. It's pretty far to the next stop. She's like, I'm a horse. bye. And then just runs. So we see her getting to the racetrack in town, and she's all running around and amazed, buying food and looking at all the shops and all the different chotch keys and stuff that's there. She's all excited. And she sees them announcing the racehorse girls guy. It's never easier to say, so they're like it's before the race. So they're announcing all the racers in the race. And we see Silent suzuka, who is apparently the most fucking popular horse on the planet. I don't think horse, she's got the personality of a piece of wood.

But she's so good at running, though.

I mean, sure, fast, but she goes zoom. So she's special week. God, that's one name I unfortunately will get right. It's just mesmerized by her right away when she sees her. And so she starts watching them race. And while she's watching the race, some dude in a ponytail with a shaved side of the head, not both sides, just one of the sides is just feeling up her legs and instinctually she rears back and kicks him in the face, as she should. He is a pervert. And she calls him she is a child, and she is a child. And she says, my mom told me about you, city perverts. I want nothing to do with you. Good day, sir. I was like, wow. And I should respond, she took a stand. Yeah. I'm just like, fuck this, I'm out. And she got away from him. I was like, good for her. Yeah.

Finally, a good use of female character being like, you pervert in, like, the right context.

Just strain the face. And if she had hooves, she would have broken his jaw off, which would.

Have been, yeah, he is down. For a long time, I was legitimately like, this man is dead.

He is too dust. And then it cuts to the main race of all the girls racing again. And it's just yeah, they're just horse girls. So it's just girls with ears and tails just running at, like, 60 mph around a tracker, however fast horses go. And everyone's expecting suzuka to win. What a twist she does. Fascinating. And Special Week goes to watch, and she goes, like, to the end of the race. And as suzuka runs past the finish line, she is both inspired and falls in love with suzuka. And we see while she's watching the race, the Pervert comes back up to her, starts talking to her again. He is unfortunately going to be a reoccurring character.

As soon as he showed up, I was like, he's a fucking teacher. He works at the school. Yeah, his haircut is too weird for him not to be.

They put too much attention into his clothes and design. He's going to become pop back up.

You look like a protagonist. I guess I have to deal with you.

You got a weird color streak in your hair. You're the main character now, I guess. And she starts talking to her, and she's like, I want to be the best horse girl in Japan. And he's like, what exactly does it mean to be the best? It's like and then, yeah, it cuts back to the race. And we see suzuka takes off like a goddamn jet. Like, we see the sound barrier breaking around her. And yeah, this is when she crosses the finish line and falls in love with Special Week. Or Special Week falls in love with her. And then the perverts are filling up Special Week's legs again as they announce the winners. And then after the race, it's just immediately nighttime and the racetrack turns into a stage for a kpop idol show starring the winners of the race.

Jp is a thing.

Do you expect that, listeners?

That's the thing.

I can't wait.

Did I say kpop?

You said kpop.

I wrote jpop. All right, it's fine. The horses are fucking in my brain.

There's no way I could have expected this.

Yeah, this was really a low point because yeah, horse races have winter circles. Okay? Going to give like, the trophy. Cool. But when they're like and now a special presentation. A little ditty. It wasn't enough that these are star athletes, let's make these teen girls dance for your amusement as well. No, thank you.

I also like thinking about it though, I guess because these girls are already being commodified. So in the context of a mobile game, it's like, sure, whatever.

Yeah, this probably works a lot better in the game form, but it's also kind of like hey, congrats on your Super Bowl win. Now do a song.

All of the Patriots, it was a Broadway number. I mean, they're already being objectively commodified as purely entertainment and as a way of gambling, I assume. There's gambling. There's got to be gambling.

There's got to be if there's gambling in kjo.

Yes, but we could also objectify them sexually as idols. So it's two birds for 1 st.

As if people already don't objectify them sexually as horse girls.

Yeah, they don't have characters bent over showing but shots like every 2 seconds in the show.

So a special week, it gets switched and then all of a sudden remembers fuck, I'm here for school. I'm late for curfew. And goes running back to the academy and tries to get back in next day. Special week is getting a tour of the school and she has to introduce herself to the class. She's the transfer student chick. And as she's walking in she's like, I got to do this right? Can't fuck it up. Hey, guess what? She fucks it up wild. She trips as she walks in.

She's so quirky though.

Isn'T she? And then when she falls, she gets brought back up and everyone's like hi, how are you doing? I'm this character. We meet a ragtag group of classmates. I refuse to learn any of their names.

Who cares?

Totally fine. They're all nonsense anyway.

And then we see the teachers going over the ranking system. There's like G one and G two and ranks for races. And then it comes to them at lunch. She's talking to her classmates saying she wants to be talking to the classmates and they're asking which team she wants to join. Apparently they are all on like race teams. I don't know why. It's an individual sport. And so she says, I want to join the team that suzuka is on because I'm in love with her since yesterday. And I'm like, well, what a coincidence. That team is having tryouts later today. It's like, how convenient. And especially it goes to the tryouts and everyone's introducing themselves and saying what their goal is and everyone wants to win like a specific race. And she says, I want to be the best horse girl in Japan. And everyone laughs at her. You're a child.

Ridiculous.

We all know what we want to do. How can you be into this sport and not know a specific thing?

Aspirations? What are you, an idiot? Set that bar lower.

I want to be the best baseball player okay, but you have to pick a position and know what the sport is. You know that stuff, right?

And then we meanwhile, the pervert is scoping her out from a distance with binoculars, like a good old fashioned true pervert. And the race starts, and Special Week is nervous, so she flusters at first and then takes off. So she's a little behind everyone else. And we see she has trouble running. And then she sees Zazuka, that name's going correct. Okay, it felt wrong. She's running, and she sees suzuka watching her, and she gets a motivated she gets her second win by the power of love. And suddenly she's flying past everyone else and takes the lead. And she's running alongside this other girl in her class, and she's getting a little head, little ahead, and all of a sudden, she's able to push past her and cross the finish line. She won second place. Turns out the first place winner already won a while ago. First place winner was El condor paso. That's the name I wrote down because.

I will say I love that she's from America and her voice actor does that.

Yeah. I also love that she's just wearing a mask at all times.

Some of them have accessories.

It's just weird. That one's I would expect for the race. It's weird when she was wearing it in school as well, for me. But I think we also saw a girl with blinders on at some point, which I really love.

Yeah, like the ear coverings.

I like to think the girl with blinders just has Add. It just gets very easily distracted by stuff. It's like, no focus. Yeah. So we get a reaction from the pervert. He's looking at a stopwatch, being like, so I guess she made good time. I don't know what's good for horse girls. And after school special week is sad because she didn't win. And as she's walking back, a couple of other horse girls wearing sunglasses and a mask just fucking kidnapper say their names. Yeah. They also introduce themselves, and she says, like, why are you wearing a mask if you're going to say what your name is? That's defeats the purpose of a mask. So they put her in a bag and cannabap her and take her to the pervert.

Jesus.

Turns out he's a coach. He's coach of team spica and speaker. She saw posters for different teams, like, I guess, recruiting clubs, and she saw their poster, and it was, like, weird. Like, all the girls in bushes with their legs ticket or something. She's like, that's a weird group. I don't want to be associated with them. And then they kidnap her, justifying her judgment. And he says he wants her on his team. And what a coincidence. suzuka is also there, and she just transferred over from her team to this team. Why? Fuck have we known?

She got bored.

She seems way too good for this team. But I guess she's here. And all the others want to win a specific race, but Special Week wants to be the best.

And this is not picking up the hint that that is not a good answer. Everyone is like, what does that mean? She's like, no, I'm sticking to my guns of this vague goal, this vague goal of supremacy over the sport that I've never made.

It's usually enough.

Yeah, pretty much. And suzuka says she wants to be a horse girl that can inspire people to dream. Also weird and vague. But Special Week says, you know what? I'll join your team because you're the first people I told my dream to that didn't immediately laugh at me. You've only told a few other people your dream today, earlier today, and they laughed at you, so it's a low average.

I know you kidnapped me, but you're not making fun of me, as the.

Stockholm syndrome sets in. And he says, Good, your debut race is next week. And we get a quick shot of her in the gates of that race being like, I'm nervous. And then it ends and we get the ending, which is actually the opening ends. My God. It just ends with her and suzuka, like, jumping off a cloud and then flying over to the moon together. If it ain't gay, I don't know what the fuck is. Episode one. I'm done.

Yeah. So in episode two, they say the lunch bell rings and then they leave, but it's also nighttime. And then she's walking home with Suzika, and she tells her that she looks up to her and that she's excited to be on the same team as her. And they get back to the dorm and my God, they were roommates.

I didn't even realize it.

Yeah, because Special Week got there late the first day she didn't get to sleep in her actual dorm. So it is now that we find out that suzuka is her roommate. So special. Week is just so excited. And that's just like her whole deal. She's just excited to be there. And then she has a dream about her childhood when she was racing with a bird because she didn't have friends. And then she wakes up and suzuka is like, you're late. And she's like, oh, my God. And she runs out the door with a carrot in her mouth.

We haven't had this trophy yet because.

She'S like a horse and they like carrot.

So funny.

Is feeding carrots to horses actually good for them? Or is that like feeding bread to ducks where it's actually really unhealthy for them and you shouldn't do it, but it's just a trope now and, like, some milk, sugar.

Carrots are fine for horses. They're a pretty neutral vegetable.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, probably sugar cubes is the better comparison of, like yeah, don't just, like, regularly do that. You don't need to eat pure sugar.

That makes sense. There's a lot of sugar and carrots.

So they're in class and they're talking about horse girl stuff, and the teacher talks about the Triple Crown girls. And I wrote down the name narita Brian. That's a good one. All three of their names are ridiculous, but that's the only one I wrote down.

Someone that stuck out to you?

Yeah, but then a special week is invited to go see the student council president, who is one of those girls. And I think her name is like symbolic rudolph or something.

Yeah. Yes.

So she's telling her about how horse girls should carry themselves, and then she wishes Special week luck at her debut race. And she introduces her to teo, who is now going to give her a proper tour of the school. And then she turns to this thing on the wall and she says, do you know what this means?

It's been here for weeks. I got no idea.

The thing on the wall says, eclipse first, the rest nowhere. And I'm like, do you know what that means, Special week? Because I sure fucking don't. That doesn't make any sense. Like, I feel like I'm going to cry right now. What does this mean? And all the president says is, oh, it's the school motto. You can go now, you figure out. And then she doesn't even explain to the audience what it means. She's just like, what a beautiful motto.

It doesn't save it for the finale and explain it and be like, it means this, blah, blah, blah. But until then, it's just a fucking garbage nonsense phrase that doesn't even work. It's your school motto. And it isn't anything to do with racing or anything.

It just confounded me. I was like, hello?

I really wanted to be like something vinci Code bullish. I'm like, what does it mean?

Eclipse was the first horse that established the school.

So she goes on a school tour with teo. She says she shows her a pool and she's like, I've never seen a pool before. She didn't know how much of a bumpkin she is. So on the tour, tayo asks a special week if she wants to be a Triple Crown girl, and she doesn't know which I mean, that's a good place to start if you want to be the best fucking horse. And teo goes on to say that she wants to be just like the president. I am surprised that they have not revealed that tayo is the president's sister or anything. Wait, because they have the same hairstrike.

Is she?

I mean, I thought to be something going on. Okay, it doesn't matter in episode three, too.

Yeah, it doesn't really matter, but that hairstrike makes me think that they're related. Also, they have similar hair color. Anyway, so it's training time. He's making them play twister to strengthen their core muscles and balance. Okay, sure.

We can lie to ourselves.

And they train some more. There's like a really short montage. Special Week is very tired, and she's going up to the dorm. And then this ra girl that we've seen a couple of times, she goes up to suzuka and says, hey, Special Week is very unique. She has never met another horse girl before, nor did she really have friends growing up. So if you could be her friend, that would be great.

Hey, this girl sucks. Can you really carry her for me?

So before the race, trainer man, who doesn't have a name, he just introduces himself as Trainer. So he tells the whole team that there is no plan for Special Week's debut. He says that she should just erase how she wants and to sprint when it feels right. And then we see them putting horseshoes on their shoes, which I was like, that makes sense.

Yeah, I got a good chunk on it.

That's a fun touch.

Just in their bedrooms with a hammer and just hammering horseshoes into their actual shoes.

Yeah. It makes me think of all of the work that ballerinas have to do with their point shoes. They have to do so much shit to those to make them workable. So special. Week seems down. So suzuka is like, are you okay? And she asks why she wants to be the best in Japan, and she says it's what she promised her mom. And she explains that she has two moms, to which you think, oh, great, gay, gay mom. Incorrect.

I won't rule it out because I need one good thing to.

This is the life raft of this anime. We got to hold on to your love.

Yeah. Well, she explains that her biological mom died after giving birth to her last her dying breath. She said that she wanted her to be the best horse girl.

That's a lot to put on your kid as you're dying.

Yeah. And your friend slash partner who's about to raise them by herself.

Hey, do me a favor. Make him a world champion and get me that fucking belt. What?

Yeah. It's not enough that you're taking on parenthood unexpectedly at the last second, so do the best to make it the world's best athlete did.

But so her adopted mom did what she could to train her, and she wants to make both of her moms proud. So now it's racetime. She goes out to stretch. She's, like, presented for the first time, and she's super stiff and nervous. And then Trainer Man realizes he forgot to give her her number, so he asks suzuka to bring it to her, and she does so. And she also tells her, like, she can tell she's nervous, so she's like it's about whether you see the pressure as scary or fun. So just think that you're having a fun time and also do the best you can for your moms.

Same thing I told you. Again, it depends on your viewpoint. If you see this anime is scary or fun.

This one is.

Yeah, you can't talk your way out.

I'm having fun.

So she goes to race, and they're off. There's this other girl, queen Barry. She's incredibly aggressive, and the announcers say that she's never lost. And while they're racing, she's, like, kicking up dirt at Special Week's face. And Queen Barry isn't first, and it's time special Week decides it's time to sprint, and she catches up really quickly. And just as Queen Barry moves to bump into her, like, bump her off of the trash, she jumps ahead. So she comes in first, and the crowd goes wild. And while this is happening, the other girls on the team are like, I want to have my debut. How come I haven't had my debut yet? And I'm like, yeah, you had your debut yet. You've been going to this school longer than she has. You've been on this team training for longer than she has. What the fuck, trainer man?

I've been here for six years. I should have graduated already. Let me race once.

Get a streak of different colored hair, then you'll be a protagonist.

But they have cool hair accessories.

The one's just wearing, like, a harness around her head and, like, ears. She's got ear covers for her human ears, but not her horse ears. It's weird.

This part actually really frustrated me. I was like, what the fuck? This isn't fair.

Yeah, I assumed they would have already raced earlier in the school years or, like, earlier.

Yeah.

What makes this girl so special? They're all horse girls.

The thing that makes her special is whenever she's running, this is always a great sign in a sports show is just when the protagonist decides to do better and then does she just can. She's like, okay, what if I win? I'm running so fast. What if I run faster? Zoom. Zoom engages nitro, okay, launches again, and then later on, she'll be like, oh, it's not enough. I still need to overtake the person at first. What if I decide to go faster? Okay, zoom wins. Okay? We see this over and over again, and she just decides when to win. What if I just shift gears and.

Then does also, I don't know why it's, like, this long, but in this race, when I see her, like, go from behind, go around the outside, and then come back, it reminded me. I'm like, oh, this is just run with the wind, but for perverts, I.

Kept thinking the whole time, I was like, this could just be this could have just been a fucking track show, but they had to make it horse girls.

Yeah, I was thinking that too. Row with the wind. At least there's, like, it's good.

Obviously it's good.

Yes.

But this came from a mobile app.

Like I said, it's preferrs.

Yeah. So after the race, trainer man talks to a lady in a business suit, and he's like, hey, how about my new girl? And she's like, all she did was win one race. Shut up. And then she also says to hold hold Suzuka's reins tight.

We do this in the previous episode. She is the coach of the other team.

Yeah, she has a lot of suzuka left. She's better.

So after that, it's concert time, and the trainer guy is like, oh, shit, I forgot about this. Special week. Just stands there. She doesn't know the words. She doesn't know the dance.

I didn't think she'd actually win, but.

Yeah, that's episode two.

I forgot to mention when she's talking about her mom, we get like a little flashback of her mom training her in like, the countryside. Her mom's an idiot, and I love her.

She looks like winery full metal alchemist.

Just full of heart and dumb of ass. Like, we see her just like falling over all the time while training her. I'm like, she hasn't spoken a word. And she's my favorite character.

Bring her back.

Bring her back. She's great.

We need more. So yeah, we start out episode three, day after the race. And they're reading the newspaper and they sing like, yeah, the debut racer special week wins and then fucking sucks. Being an idol.

You have to be both.

You have to be both.

So then we get the opening and then it's just a montage of all the team members are getting their debut races. And they're all everyone on this garbage team that isn't respected. And apparently no one has raced on before. Just everyone is winning. Yeah, this trainer had the best team, but just no one got their debut race, so they didn't win. So they seemed bad. So I don't know what's going on there.

It's weird to see like a sports anime where all of the athletes on the team are both competent and very skilled and also kind of loved. Like, the people are cheering for them. So they're not underdogs then. We're just watching a team.

The only underdog thing about them is that they're here for fun because yeah, it's fun to race. And all the other teams are out to win, but they got a plucky attitude, so they're the protagonists.

Cooler.

So yeah, we see this montage. The trainer is like, okay, we're catching up to the big team. Got to work on your idol performances. So let's go to karaoke. I guess. So. We see tayo, the other girl, I forget what team she's on. It doesn't matter. But she's there.

I don't think she had one.

Yeah, I don't think she picked one yet.

Yeah, but she's there and she's going to teach them to sing because idol. Yeah. Okay. The class president was like, yeah, help these fucking idiots out.

Honestly, that would be a fun twist though. Like, if she was like a horse girl who just wanted to be an idol.

She only wants to win so she can be on stage.

Yeah, we could keep the rest of the same. Just pretty oblivious in real life and just accidentally lucking her way into wins, but then actually caring about the idol performance that we skip over for the most part every time.

It's the weirdest part, too.

Yeah, the weirdest part that they also don't think you need to see. I don't know why they included it. Whatever. We get a karaoke montage. This episode is mostly montage, so it'll.

Go quick, real quick. In the beginning of the episode, there was a girl in Special Weeks class saying, like, oh, congrats on winning. Yeah, I got hurt in my last race. And we see her abandoned on her leg. I said, oh, no, they're going to put her down. They got her. Put her down. You hurt a leg wasn't at the beginning of the episode. That's where I took a note on it.

Yeah, it doesn't matter, whatever. But yeah, more montage. They're walking home, and the trainer is like, yeah, I think Special Week is the one to go for the Triple Crown because you're the protagonist. Cool. And needs to win the upcoming race for the qualifier thing. And she's like, okay, yes. Here is where we see a broken leg girl, because in the class, she's like, yeah, I don't feel special. I don't feel like a winner. And I just look into all these races. And then this classmate with a broken leg, which if you know anything about horse horses, she's lucky to still be alive.

Yeah, it's spelled death for most race horses.

What if she's like, I got to retire. I'm going to the jello factory. I've got a new job there. And it's like.

The student council president is taking me out back late. It's a special ceremony. I'm so excited.

Yeah, it happened during the race, and then they invited me into a tent in the middle. Just real quick, what one?

Special Week went to talk to the president. It's like, hey, Special Week, do you know what that is on my wall? And she's like going.

This is for your own good.

You better win.

But yeah, this girl is like, hey, if you haven't gotten major injuries, you're very lucky. So, yeah, you're doing great. Don't worry. Others feel like shit too. So, yeah, the trainer is going over the next race and says it's a good test for the first Crown race because it's basically the same race track, and there's like a big uphill section at the end, so it's tricky. You got to save your energy. Does it matter? Does it change how she's going to run? No. So we go to the race, they're at the starting line, and we see the champion. cn sky is the presumed winner, and she's just super chill. She's there having fun. So it's good. Hey, man, what's up? Yeah.

Special week. I hate the more you say, the weird, I guess. Yeah.

She steps up to the starting line and the crowd goes nuts. And CNN Sky is like, oh, you're, like, really popular. That's great. And Special Week is like, fuck your mind games. I'm not falling for it. Just all she's like, genuinely trying to make a connection of like, hey, welcome aboard. It's good to race against you, especially he's like, fuck you. I'm going to destroy.

Yeah, especially considering the other girl, like, in the previous race with the ipad was like, super aggro. She's in your class. Like, you know her.

You have chemistry together. But the race starts. It's the same. She starts in the back and then gradually makes her way to the top. They get to the uphill section. It's a little bit harder, but she turns on the wind protagonist juice and win. Cool. So she wins. And seeing sky crosses the line too, but she's unfazed, just chilling. Totally cool. All right, so the team invites her to the victory party, and they go back and celebrate the qualifying round. So she's officially in. She won the race leading up to the first Triple Crown race. So they celebrate. teo officially decides to join their team because whatever, we get a little fun. Yeah, the flashback of free time to the president being like, hey, just being an athlete sucks. Let me do the fun one. You know how I'm like a high school girl and just want to chill? This fun having team is winning everything anyways. I might as well get on their team. While they don't realize they're the best.

There'S literally no downside. It's fun. And they win.

I'm still going to be a champion no matter what. It's fun. So, yeah, she's talking to the president still. And it's like, us racing together is the goal, you and me. So, yeah, it has to be some sort of, like, relationship thing there because whatever, who cares? So another training montage of them practicing. So whatever we see purvey trainer and the business woman trainer are in the teacher's lounge or whatever, and she's just like, ignoring him. And she's like, oh, no, you made the choice to come back here after all these years. So he has some history. Who cares?

I am curious if they are teachers because we did see one teacher, but like, I don't know.

I'm sure they work for the school since they're school teams, I guess they're.

Like, technically more coaches of like, okay, we're running through your training. I don't know if they're actually going to have office hours in classrooms and stuff.

Parents teach a conference with a sleazy side cut, dude.

Yes. She's like, oh, you got to push them or they won't win. It's like, hey, idiot, have you been following the races? We win. We're playing twister, and we're blowing you out of the water. chill out. They're prepping for the next race. They're on the eve of the race, and the trainer gives Special Week a new uniform. And great. It's a cute little schoolgirl uniform. Great. Quality to run in, going to be so comfortable, easy. But she's so grateful to be part of the team that she doesn't acknowledge that it's very small leading up to the big race and setting up our protagonists to be in a too small schoolgirl outfit. I am so glad to be talking about this show.

And also they focused on it so much and then it doesn't matter. I was like, her skirt going to fall off during this race. Is everybody going to make fun of her? And then nothing happens.

Yeah, that's what I was saying too.

Yeah. I don't even want to theorize the thought of going into future episodes of this show, but we'll see. So yeah, she's going into the race. She's introduced. She is like the expected winner because all she's done is win so far. So the crowd is going nuts, but she's still grabbing at her skirt because it doesn't zip up. But yeah, so they start the race holding back her energy and the sea. And sky starts to take the lead, but for some reason she can't catch up. And I think this is the implication of like, oh, it's too small, so she can't unhinge her jaw in the running and just let loose like she normally does.

Dislocate all of her joints and just.

Car wheel through, turn her legs into spaghetti mode so she can just run fast. But yeah, she can't catch up. So she finishes third. Oh, no, actual stakes. Finally in the third episode of the.

Show, she still plays third, though. That's still top three. That's still good.

Yeah, still a medalist. But yeah, she can't manage to win and seeing sky wins, but also still super chill. So, yeah, later on she's walking home with her roommate or forget her name, and she's like, oh, I forgot my stuff. I'll be right back. But we see the roommate follow her and watch as she goes to the screaming well, the screaming hole.

For the.

First episode, but there is just a hole in the ground that all the people who lose their races go and scream their bloody murder into. Yeah, this is just the school shame hole. So she's crying like, my mom was watching that race and she saw me lose for the first time. I don't know why she wasn't watching my other races because clearly there are 30,000 people in the stand, so it's kind of a big deal. But she starts screaming and then the trainer walks up and he also starts screaming. He's like, I let you down. I didn't train you hard enough. whoa is me. But you and me, we're going to use this loss. We're going to channel this into victory at the Derby. And that's where we end episode three.

I also, like, sick that they clearly wanted the coach and trainer to be smoking all the time, but they're like, wait a minute, we might have kids watching this kids are the ones that spend all the money on the phone games. Change all the cigarettes to lollipops. Done.

He's just a fun guy who likes to eat his lollipops and watch horse girls train.

Yeah. Love an adult man hanging out with sexy teens who also loves candy. Good stuff.

Oh, boy.

Yeah, this was bad, and I hated every second of it.

Are we there yet?

No.

I'm so tired.

Yeah, I feel like we talked about the show for as long as we can. Just to briefly sum it up. Yeah, it's kanti Collection again. But horses, the races don't matter because she wins unless plot reasons. And yeah, it truly does not matter.

I feel like, weirdly enough, I feel like this had more heart than cantie collection. Not that it's any good. It still sucks.

Yeah, but you know what I mean?

It's still an anime, which is surprising because of how expensive animation is that is made to just sell a product, which is the game.

I don't know. Yeah, the relationships feel better in this.

Yeah, that's about as much thought as I want to put into that. But speaking of games, I have a game for you because I thought this episode would be a lot shorter. But we really had to talk about these horse girls.

We got more opinions about horse girls than battleship girls.

Yeah, but yeah. So I have a game for you, too, to play. I would like to we got some hints at horse race. Wow. None of those were actual sentences, let me tell you. So we got a taste of some Japanese racehorse names in the actual names of these characters. So I want to play a game with you. I want you to test your anime knowledge and your horse knowledge. We're going to play a game called Main Event, where I'm going to give you a name. You have to tell me if this is the name of a Japanese racehorse or a racing anime.

I fucking knew it.

Oh, shit.

Oh, God.

So, like, I knew I found a list of Japanese racehorse names, and I just happened to pick none of the ones that were used in the show. So I recognized them from pulling this list together. I was like, I'm going to have to repeat some I happen to not. So these are hopefully not clear racehorse names because they could also apply to just racing in general. So are you ready to play Main Event?

No.

Yeah, I am.

I don't have a choice.

All right, perfect. Well, first up, we have Gecki Sue, reuben Baker, ruben kaiser. Excuse me.

Okay, that changes everything.

That's got to be a horse name.

That's got to be a horse.

I'm so sorry. This is a racing animus stop.

Hold on. It's not that I don't believe you, but I got to see this.

Yeah, I left the list up. I can give you, like, a brief synopsis. I just need to yeah. This is a 1977 anime. It's Formula One. Basically, Boy and his father are racist, so yeah.

Wow, what a bad start.

Yes. This is not going to be easy.

I thought it would be. I'm shocked.

I only know initial D. I don't.

Know anything else that was on the list. I specifically didn't pick it because I knew you knew that watch did. Okay. Next up, neo Universe.

Oh, damn it.

I think that's an anime, actually.

Like, it could be Bow. It could so easily be Bow. I'm going to go horse just to change things up.

Okay. This is a horse. Yes. So next up, we have Prince of stride.

It can be boneer than I thought it was.

I was like, oh, these are going to be so obvious. They're going to know some of these anime. They're going to, for some reason, know some of these horses. But no, these are all perfect names.

Because the horse names can be literally anything.

I'm going to say this one's an anime.

This one's an anime.

You both got it. This one's an anime.

Okay.

I was like, stride. This sounds like a horse thing, but no, it's not. It's an anime.

We just went two horses in a row.

Good horse name.

No, we did anime at first. Shit, I already forgot.

Yeah, no. Order Chaos. Next up, we have red Desire.

Oh, that's a horse.

See, I'm thinking it could be, like a car. Like, it could be, like, a Vast and Furious. Like, that's the name of vin diesel's car or whatever. So I'm going to go anime.

D gets this one. This is a horse.

Yes. Red desire the horse.

All right, well, next up we have my personal favorite, jungle Pocket.

Come on. What animal? Yeah. I feel like in my mind, I'm like, that has to be a horse. But I'm going to say it's an anime because who knows?

Who knows anymore? I'm going to go horse because I can't imagine what that anime would be.

Yeah, Brendan. You got it. This is a horse.

I mean, I guess there could be a racing anime in the jungle. We saw tarzan skating on trees like donkey Kong racers. Give it to me.

Well, speaking of donkey Kong, our next one is Monkey turnkey bowling.

Anime.

Yeah, anime. It's anime.

I'm going to anime as well.

You both got it. This is an anime.

Oh, my God.

This one I went is about, like monkey do racing. Let me pull up. Yeah. This one monkey turn. It's boat racing. I don't know why it's monkey boat racing.

There's, like, a technique called a monkey turn, and it killed the protagonist's father. Why is this guy's hand, like, severed from Jesus? Okay, it was a wild animal.

Well, next up, mayano Top Gun Horse.

Oh, 100% horse.

Yeah, I'll say horse.

Yep.

You both got it. I thought this one would be a.

Tricky one because who names a fucking horse Top Gun.

Legally, you can't name an anime that.

Yeah, fair. Damn. It wasn't factoring in copyright. That was ian. Well, it's close copyright.

Strike it's back.

Yeah. Currently, Brendan, you have 5d. You have four. So we're neck and neck. We're in the final turn only.

What if I just win? What if I just choose to win? That's how horse racing goes, right?

Well, then that is true. Turn your brain on of the show.

You can just put your brain into higher gear.

All right. Next up, Wing arrow.

Wing arrow. I am astounded. We've had this many racing anime, like, more than one, so I have no idea how many there can actually be.

I say horse.

I will say anime.

D gets it. This is a horse.

Yes.

It's tied neck and neck.

Oh, boy.

All right. Just another excellent one. goddamn horse.

No, wait, that can't be an anime, can't it?

See, that's why I said horse. But now it's so obvious, so it's.

Got to be like I'm just saying anime.

Yeah, I'm going to stick with horse. I'm going to stick with Mike.

D takes the lead.

What is this anime?

I don't know. It looks like a dirt racing anime.

Damn.

Just called goddamn.

The SEO one. That's mostly garbage. How do you look up goddamn anime? Oh, my God. Yeah, it's like off road. Yeah, jeeps and shit.

Okay, last one. We can tie it up. We're so close. Okay, last one. Ride Back.

I feel like it's just obvious enough to be a horse. When I say just obvious enough, I mean completely on the nose.

See, I thought goddamn was an obvious you couldn't name a show that and dugy just wanted to acknowledge that there's a horse out there named goddamn.

I'm going to say this is a horse.

I will also say it's a horse, which I will say it's an anime just in case, because if I also agree it's a Dynzie, I'll say it's an anime.

Then we tie it up. This whole thing is a tie. This is an anime. This is a robot racing anime. It's kind of like a segway motorcycle, but it's a robot named Ride Back, and I'm adding it to the list because this looks cool as hell.

We might find something new in this. Wait quietly. This thing.

Okay, I got to look it up.

This seems kind of wild.

Should we do a tiebreaker? Okay, let me see.

She kind of looks red, though.

Okay, here's how we will determine the tiebreaker I'm going to find. There are so many just excellent names I didn't add to the list. I will give you the name of a Japanese race horse closest without going over. Tell me the year they won.

Okay, that's fun.

This will be our tiebreaker because it's pretty objective. It could go to any one.

Yeah.

Let's say terrible fears. Okay, here we go.

All right.

This horse's name is xeno rob Roy.

What?

Xeno Rob Roy?

Do you have a horse?

Coincidence?

Did you name a horse after yourself?

Okay, when did they yeah, just to help with parameters. This is within the last 20 years.

Okay.

Last 20 years. Oh, okay.

Oh, see, I was going to say, oh, my God, that's not even true anymore. Within the last 30 years.

Okay.

Yeah. So I will go with my answer of 1998.

Okay. I'm going to go with 2000.

Got it on the nose. Brendan, you are? I kind of gave it away by the passage of time. Just shocking me to my core. Thousand is not 20 years ago anymore.

But you love it when you're watching a game show and the host goes, fuck, no way.

This antique car that I owned. Oh, shit. Now, well, thank you for playing Main Event with me. These are some just wild names we just needed to acknowledge.

So fun.

So I don't know what's weirder. The horse names are the anime names because, like, the horses give you whatever. I get that there's an anime going, god damn. goddamn, god damn.

Oh, boy. Well, I'd like to tell you that we have better stuff on the horizon. I can't say that for sure because I forgot it was de, reminded me it was my pick. And I was like, yep, I will do that. And then we started recording. I was like, fuck, I didn't pick a show. Let me pick something from the list at random. So we are going to be watching a recommendation from ribbon Quest. We're going to be watching marmalade boy ooh.

All right. Is it about paddington?

After a week like this, I need some gentle vibes cleanser. If there's a show you the listener would like us to watch that I seemingly pull at random, you can send those recommendations to us. Our email is rweetheret@gmail.com. Or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at arwidariat on both. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrick. dugan and listen to my fiction podcast at code location.

You can find me on Instagram at honey. Period D on Twitter at honey d eight. And honey dart or twitch at honey. D and honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. You.

Can find me on Twitter. abts. Brendan, I really don't do much on there. Don't recommend it. But that also stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is a video game podcast I do. And also don't really recommend don't fuck.

Thank you to camille ruley for our artwork. And thank you to Louis zong for her theme song stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

I can't tell you how badly I want to watch ping pong right now.

I apologize for nothing.