The final episode has finished airing and is being rebroadcast to rave reviews!　The director and producer talk about the behind-the-scenes production of the "Uma Musume Pretty Derby" anime!

The TVanime "Uma MusumePretty Derby"has just finished airing its final episode.Looking back on the past,we intervieweddirector Kei Oikawa,producer Junnosuke Ito ofToho,producer Mahide Hashimotoof P.A.WORKS , andcontent producer Akihiro Ishihara ofCygames .

By reading this interview, you will surely be able to enjoy the re-broadcast of "Uma Musume Pretty Derby" that started in July!

The cast members were going through the recording process with their feelings for the famous horses.

─ Since the producers from each company participated in this interview, please tell us about their respective roles in this work.

Akihiro Ishihara (CP): I am a content producer at Cygames. I am in charge of setting up the worldview, characters, and script for "Uma Musume," which is spreading to various media.

Junnosuke Ito (hereinafter "Ito P") I am in charge of animation, but I am also a personal horse racing enthusiast, so I think I am also in charge of the research from the horse racing aspect of the entire work (laughs).

Mahide Hashimoto (hereinafter "Hashimoto P"): I am in charge of the actual production at the site where the images are created.

───What do you think of the response after the broadcast and the reaction from the fans?

Director Kei Oikawa (Director Oikawa): I feel a great response. Thankfully, we have received a lot of positive feedback from viewers. Not only anime fans, but also horse racing fans seem to be interested in the anime, and that makes me happy.

─ ─ Since the anime "Uma Musume Pretty Derby" is modeled on real races and the lives of racehorses, it is unique in that there was an atmosphere of anticipation and waiting to see what would happen next, such as "Something terrible is going to happen to Silence Suzuka in the next episode.

P. Ito: That's the way it is now, but we didn't know if the atmosphere would really be like that or if people who like horse racing would be interested until we tried it. That's why I was very happy to see horse racing fans and animation fans enjoying themselves while predicting the development together.

Hashimoto P. Since we are making animation, we want a lot of people to watch it, and since the motif is racehorses, we hoped that more people would become interested in horses and horse racing through our work. Actually, there were not many people within P.A.WORKS who were familiar with horse racing. But with this work, the number of people who talk about horse racing has increased. In fact, the other day, I saw an elementary school student with a school bag on his back talking about something like, "Simbolirdorf is fast! I saw them talking about something like that. I wondered if the elementary school students were talking about that at this time, maybe they had seen (the anime).

Ito P. That's a good story (laughs). I, too, was happy to hear an athletic guy who didn't seem to have much connection with anime talk about the good points of "Uma Musume" on his way home from an izakaya.

CP Ishihara: The fathers of the voice actors who participated in "Uma Musume" watched the work very much and told me something like, "I liked it here this time. Of course many people have seen the work, but I really feel that people who had not seen anime before have seen it.

Director Oikawa: It seems that even people from overseas are watching it and laughing.

─ I feel that the voice actors themselves have a lot of feelings for these famous horses that they didn't know about in real time.

CP Ishihara: The horses themselves are not being played by the voice actors, but the characters are just that, characters. Therefore, I would like to carry the responsibility of playing a great horse not only for the voice actors, but also for the animation, scenario, and everyone else. However, since they are in the public eye, I feel that they also want to learn about the horses they are modeling for, since they will be speaking in public.

Ito P. I told the cast about this during the first greeting at the post recording session. I think this work is sometimes talked about as a genealogy of anthropomorphic horses, but the crucial difference is that I want them to be aware that the people involved with each famous horse and their fans are still alive and well. Keisuke Nagai, the owner of Silence Suzuka, and the people at Inahara Farm, the producer, are all doing well, and the staff at the farm of Special Week, who passed away the other day, were taking loving care of him. This is true for Gold Ship and all horses. That is the biggest difference from anthropomorphizing Japanese swords, battleships, and other historical objects. That is why we always talk within the company about feeling the responsibility of handling such an existence.

How we depicted the tragedy of Silence Suzuka

──I think it is a very delicate material to depict the Autumn Tennou-sho when Silence Suzuka suffered from a bad prognosis and her subsequent resurrection as if it were history, when using a real racehorse as a theme. Please tell us your reasons and thoughts for choosing it as the subject matter, including why you brought the relationship between Special Week and Silence Suzuka into the axis of the story.

CP Ishihara: Every racehorse that became the model for Uma Musume has its own drama, so I assumed that any horse could be the main focus of the story. In particular, the Uma Musume models that are currently out there are all top-notch racehorses. Among them, I chose Special Week as my main because he was not a horse that "won and won and won" in terms of his racehorse life. So his life is full of ups and downs: he won but lost, and when he thought he won again, he lost again.

It was also encouraged by the fact that it was a generation with many attractive rival horses, such as Elcon Dol Pacer and Glass Wonder. That is why I decided to depict Special Week as the main character in the first place. In fact, Special Week and Silence Suzuka are not related in historical races. I thought it would be best to take a break from the races and depict how the Uma Musume would go through life as a girl in that world. When I thought about it, I chose Silence Suzuka as the object of the main character's admiration.

Of course, many people still have mixed feelings about Silence Suzuka's ending, so I knew I had to be careful how I treated her. So, how to portray Silence Suzuka as a story was a point of contention from the very beginning of the script meeting.

Ito P.: We discussed the relationship between Special Week and Silence Suzuka and how to depict Silence Suzuka's Tennou-sho (autumn) as separate themes. As Mr. Ishihara mentioned, there is little acquaintance between the historical Special Week and Silence Suzuka, but we began to create a story by assuming a relationship between them.

Since Special Week and Silence Suzuka are one year apart in age, there is a possibility that they may have run together. They were ridden by the same jockey, Yutaka Take, and Special Week won the Tennou-sho (autumn) the year after Suzuka's accident. We decided on this combination partly because of the connection that Yutaka Take said at that time, "Silence Suzuka may have pushed me back.

We then had a lot of discussions on how to depict Silence Suzuka's Tennou-sho (Autumn). The biggest if was Special Week meeting Silence Suzuka, which led to the if of Special Week helping Silence Suzuka, and I think it was because we had discussed the two themes together, and it was an interesting and entertaining experience for us who were making it. I myself watched that race of Silence Suzuka when I was a child, so I was conflicted about whether I could play that scene or not, including changing the ending.

However, when I heard from fans that they thought the story of Silence Suzuka was conveyed through this film, and that they felt saved by the ending, I was glad that I did it.

───As a director, what were you conscious of in depicting the vividness of Silence Suzuka's existence and the accident scene?

Director Oikawa: We talked about how we didn't want to show only the sadness and tragedy of that scene. We wanted to make sure that horse racing fans would not be too heartbroken.

CP Ishihara: Even at the end of the episode, we show her smiling face and make her feel that there is more to come.

Director Oikawa: In the first place, there was talk of not depicting the scene of Silence Suzuka's accident and just ending the episode with a record time. I could feel that Mr. Ito was really conflicted about that scene as a person who loves horse racing, so I remember I suggested that the scene could be developed in such a way that the horse would be flagged for injury before the race and then win without incident on the race day.

Ito P. It is the least stressful or least demanding on the viewer to say that there was no accident, but I am not sure if that is the best way to tell the story of Silence Suzuka. It is a scene that makes me want to turn away, but I thought that it was because we depicted this scene that the theme of Silence Suzuka was meaningful.

CP Ishihara: It was very difficult to find the right balance between being concerned about how the fans would perceive the story and not being overly concerned about their reactions. It was the most difficult episode because I didn't know what the reaction would be until the episode was actually aired.

As for episode ─ ─ 7, the historical fact of Silence Suzuka's poor prognosis had been spread among anime fans, so I think the viewers were prepared for it to some extent before watching the episode. So, despite the "incident" of the heroine's accident, I felt that the reaction was more "I'm glad there is a possibility of revival and that there is a continuation of (Silence) Suzuka" than a negative reaction.

Director Oikawa: That was really the case.

P. Ito: I don't want people to end up watching the anime with a painful feeling. I am glad that people understood that, because I put in a lot of direction in both the script and the music to make them feel at ease.

CP Ishihara: We spent a lot of time discussing the music. It takes 7 to 8 hours to dub every episode, and this one was really long too. ...... (laughs).

The staff also collected materials on their own!

─ ─ After making one cool episode, I would like to hear about the difficulties that each of you had in production.

Hashimoto P. The drawing staff told me 100% that there were a lot of parts. For example, Daiwa Scarlett wears a tiara even in daily scenes.

Director Oikawa: I can't help but complain about the difficulties in the drawing process (laughs), so I'll talk lightly about it: I went to horse race tracks in Fuchu and Hanshin to take pictures as material for the drawing. One Saturday, I found a place in the spectator stands in Fuchu where I wanted to take pictures of Silence Suzuka and Special Week watching the race, but it was evening and I couldn't take any more pictures that day. I went back the next day, but there were many visitors on Sunday. The uncle had taken up the spot where Spes and the others were and didn't move all day. We had no choice but to go back the next week and shoot (laughs).

Ito P. Isn't it interesting that the gate is an automatic door?

Hashimoto P. That one (laughs). The gate that Uma Musume enters before running the race has a staff member in charge of opening and closing it, and it was depicted in the starting scene of the first episode, but later in the episode, we found a cutout of it being closed automatically during sound.

Director Oikawa: Is this an automatic door? I was told that it was an automatic door, but in each episode, it seemed to be closing on its own, and I thought, "Oh, no. But the staff opened and closed the doors at an angle that was hidden from the camera (laughs).

Hashimoto P: If you're not careful, information on the actual race can be omitted.

CP Ishihara: There are things like the color of the numbers and various other things that are appropriate for the grade of the race.

HashimotoP At first, there was no one in the company who was familiar with horse racing, but I could sense Mr. Ito's love for horse racing, and I wanted to respond to that love somehow.

P. Ito: At first, I explained the basics of horse racing. I told them that horse numbers are limited to 20, and so on. Everyone has learned a lot, and it's much smoother now.

───The scene where Seiunskayai was reluctant to enter the gate is impressive. Isn't it difficult to find a balance between the horse-like nature of the horse and the rational girl-like nature of the Umamusume?

CP Ishihara: For Seiunskaya, the first volume of the package (BD-BOX "Uma Box" 1st corner) comes with a booklet called "Uma Book," which includes a novel that explains a little bit about why Seiunskaya did not want to enter the gate. Of course, the main reason is that she didn't like it in the historical races, but since they are Uma Musume, I have given them some logic in that area.

P. Ito: No one knows how racehorses really feel. So I think it's okay for us as fans to interpret the race as we see fit.

───The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe features the Longchamp racecourse in France.

Director Oikawa: The PA's set designer was very talented, and he prepared the materials for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe very well.

Ito P. Yuya Fukuzawa, who is in charge of setting production, invested a lot in horse racing and collected materials.

Hashimoto P. He was a legendary horse race winner who had won about 10,000,000 yen until the 9th race, but came back after losing it all in the last race (laughs). (Laughs.) He was not familiar with horse racing before he got involved with "Uma Musume," but he went to Hanshin, Nakayama, Kyoto, and various other racetracks to take pictures.

──Do you have any memorable moments in terms of the cast's recording?

CP Ishihara: Okino-kun, who played the trainer, injured his leg while working on the stage. The conversation I had with Hana-san at that time was about how difficult the injury was. She said that she could understand how Silence Suzuka felt, so in a sense, she was a person with something...! I was like, "Oh, my God, he has it! I put a lot of effort into the acting, but both Kazuki and Okino-kun, who played Special Week, performed enthusiastically, and Takano-san, who played Silence Suzuka, was very worried about how he should play the role, and he thought about it a lot while performing. So every recording was tight, with a break of 3 minutes before the next one! It was like that. But I think the hard work and passionate performance paid off in the film.

─ ─ In terms of promotion, I was surprised that Yutaka Take became the promoter of Uma Musume. Do you have any episodes related to the rider, Yutaka Take?

CP Ishihara: Since the rider lives in Kyoto, I and Mr. Ito went to a studio in Kyoto to record the voice-over. It was the first time for him to do post-recording, so I gave him some acting guidance, and he was very cooperative in participating in the commercial.

P. Ito: I used to watch from the seats of the racecourse, but it was a strange experience to have Mr. Yutaka Take at my side as he talked to us in his own voice. But I was really nervous to have Mr. Yutaka Take watch Special Week's race (laughs).

─ ─ Finally, do you have a message for your fans?

CP Ishihara: We still have 14 to 16 episodes worth of new anime stories to be included in the 4th volume of the anime package, so please continue to support us.

Hashimoto P I would be happy if through this work, horse racing (of course, there are many ways to enjoy it) has become one of the holiday options for people who have never heard of horse racing. The work is full of gags, races, and live performances, and I think that each episode is a refreshingly different experience. I would appreciate it if you could watch it as many times as you like, even from the middle of the reruns if you haven't seen it yet.

Ito P. In the dream race depicted in the last episode, it was interesting to see Nalitabu Ryan and Biwa Hayahide, Vodka and Daiwa Scarlett, and Marzenski and Glass Wonder. But rather than the outcome of those races, I would be happy if you enjoyed the way the characters faced the day. There is also the trainer who stands by them. We all struggled to figure out how to portray them, and I would be grateful if you could watch the reruns or BD-BOX with the trainer's feelings again.

Director Oikawa: The reliable staff members worked really hard to create this film. I would be happy if you could witness the passion-filled images.

The TV anime "Uma Musume Pretty Derby" is currently being rebroadcast on TOKYO MX every Monday from 23:00 and on BS11 every Monday from 24:30.

(Reporting and writing by Kiri Nakazato)