Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray

Tokyo is the home of national-level horse girls and the next generation of running prodigies. Jou Kitahara, a rookie trainer with big dreams and modest expectations, does not expect to find talent in the quiet town of Kasamatsu—until he meets an ash-gray-haired girl with a wild, unconventional stride.

As a child with bad knees, Oguri Cap spent much of her early life in pain, struggling to stand. But through relentless perseverance, she overcame her limits and found liberation in the very thing that once seemed impossible: running. While the other horse girls at Kasamatsu chase victory and fame, Oguri runs without ambition, driven only by the joy of movement.

Fujimasa March, a rising regional star, commands attention with her discipline, talent, and tenacity. For her, running is a matter of pride. But when a school-organized race brings her face-to-face with Oguri's raw, unpolished stride, March's confidence begins to waver. In turn, something in Oguri shifts after racing March. For the first time, a spark of ambition ignites within her—a desire to win that will take her beyond the confines of her hometown to the grand stages waiting on the horizon.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Oguri Cap Main

Takayanagi, Tomoyo Japanese

T.M. Opera O Supporting

Tamamo Cross Supporting

Oozora, Naomi Japanese

Symboli Rudolf Supporting

Tadokoro, Azusa Japanese

Super Creek Supporting

Yuuki, Kana Japanese

Maruzensky Supporting

Lynn Japanese

Belno Light Supporting

Seto, Momoko Japanese

Fujimasa March Supporting

Ise, Mariya Japanese

Dicta Striker Supporting

Hanamori, Yumiri Japanese

Gold City Supporting

Kousaka, Saki Japanese

Itou, Masahiko Producer

Chikamatsu, Takuya Producer

Arai, Kouta Producer

Seita, Jouji Producer

Reviews

Jun 29, 2025

KANLen09

Recommended

Uma Musume: Cinderella Grey — Finally, something that's off the usual trodden path of the field...that's even better than the mainline series itself?

Horse Girls, make them female and give them a demihuman representation, and you have quite the double trouble awaiting you on the racetrack.

Since Spring 2018, with the arrival of P.A. Works's adaptation of Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, one of a handful of IPs from one of the best modern game companies, CyGames, the series may have started in Japan all those years ago. But with every new iteration of the anime series, which has now brought about a large franchise, fans of Uma ... Musume are going bonkers left and right, with the latest development being the official English version of the game that has been recently released for smartphones on June 26 of this year (2025) (it's fairly new as of this review) so that international fans are not left out of the Uma Musume craze.

Most importantly, in the context of the anime mentioned above, is a manga series that's part of the Uma Musume franchise but one that has its deep roots within the Japanese racehorse history books. This is the spin-off series of Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray, which features Oguri Cap and her claim to fame in Japan that's situated between the time of the late Showa era and the early years of the Heisei era, from 1987 through 1990, produced by Junnosuke Ito, illustrated by Taiyo Kuzumi, and written by Masafumi Sugiura, scriptwriter for Season 1 of the mainline series that has been serializing since June 2020.

While I'm not going to do an overview about the real horse reference in question (you can read that for yourself on Wikipedia), the criticality of Cinderella Gray is where the series lies in the many veins of the Uma Musume universe. To be specific (as a pseudo-spoiler alert), you will recognize some of the horse girls who appear in this anime as the generation before the mainline series, but if it's in the vein of Oguri Cap, it's pretty much a prequel to the mainline series, being somewhat way back before Uma Musume's Tracen Academy was even a blip in the eyes of others.

The story starts off at Kasamatsu Academy with its own home of horse girls, though if they were to compete competitively, it would only be on a regional level as compared to Tracen Academy aiming for the national and international levels. If you need a direct comparison to how Oguri Cap is like in this spin-off series, think of her similarly towards Season 2 of the mainline series where Tokai Teio takes centerstage, and the talented horsegirl that has a goal to make herself big, at least on a national stage. In Cinderella Gray's case, Oguri Cap has only one important mission to do: run as fast as possible and outdo her competitors, even if the country bumpkin herself doesn't see favour with the rest of the Kasamatsu Academy's horse girls. Namely, their version of the BNW girls of Biwa Hayahide, Narita Taishin, and Winning Ticket, through the likes of Norn Ace, Mini the Lady, and Rudy Lemono, alongside her good horsegirl buddy friend Belno Light and the trainer that makes all of her dreams possible: Joe Kitahara.

As with every Uma Musume iteration, trying to push your limits towards the likes of national horse girls is a very tall order, but much like Tokai Teio's spirit, Oguri Cap does things the same, keeping her mother's dreams in mind as she makes it out to the local Kasamatsu Academy to refine her steps, one race at a time. And though she comes off as aloof (which gives some comedy space to her character), even under the pressure of the group of bullies who would try and sully her, she only has her ardent supporter of Belno Light help bail her out of trouble and take care of her everyday needs, like a helpless mother figure to her otherwise monotonous horse girl daughter. But still, the heart of Uma Musume is readily there, as Oguri Cap soon proves herself under the training of Joe and amasses local wins enough to make it to the famed Graded races in Japan, eventually meeting with her generation's bigwig rivals of Tamamo Cross, Super Creek, and Inari One (though they too appeared briefly in Season 1 of the mainline series). It's classic Uma Musume through and through.

No doubt that with a CyGames IP, both P.A. Works and Studio Kai have experimented much with the mainline series, and they did an admirable job, considering that their animation arm was established but not ready for full-time anime production at the time. And come 5 years later, with PriConne's adaptation being the very first primetime anime production back in Spring 2020, after the mainline series' Road to the Top movie, CyGamesPictures is back with a vengeance, tackling their own IP franchise, and Cinderella Gray defintely benefits from an in-house, home-ground playing field of an immense production and great animation. No doubt that the studio has done well with the underrated hit of Apocalypse Hotel this Spring season as well, so it shouldn't really come as a surprise when the interconnected IP gets pretty much the same treatment as well. Really some great work that continues to seed the great image of CyGames and their animation division.

The OST, I think, is top-notch, but given the work records of music composer Kenji Kawai, that's pretty much a given. And while I find that [Alexandros]'s OP here was decent, knowing their track record on Ao Ashi's 1st OP makes me feel that there's something holding the rock band back that feels incomplete. But not a bad effort at all. Even Oguri Cap's VA's ED performance is alright; there's not much to say about that as an above-average song.

As the first spin-off in a rather huge franchise, Cinderella Gray just adds another layer to the Uma Musume complexity that's to be expected from the stories of real-life Japanese horses, but given CyGames and its flair that just makes the marriage of history and modernization all that powerful. And yet, this is only the 1st half of the split-cour adaptation, so expect more things to come when the anime comes back in Fall.

Uma Musume: Never doubt the competition, because you ARE the competition.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jul 25, 2025

epicninjask123

Mixed Feelings

Cygames has quietly become an underappreciated powerhouse in the anime, video game, and multimedia zeitgeist. While I couldn't tell you how many intellectual properties they have under their umbrella nor otherwise how wide of a net they cast, I've seen enough of their handiwork to trust their company logo with a good, often great, and sometimes downright exceptional experience: GranBlue Fantasy Relink, Shadowverse, and Princess Connect being some of their finest. And in short, Umamusume Cinderella Gray is another notch on their ever-expanding belt.

But, it could have been more.

(Edit: I wrote that part about Shadowverse before learning about its monetization changes. Oops.)

I started watching this ... anime as it was airing, partly based on my own confidence in Cygames's handling of their IPs, plus all the incredibly positive reception it had been getting. And its first impressions genuinely meet those expectations. This anime has some solid production value, it's clear that a lot of time and energy was spent into spotlighting the Umamusume brand and making it shine, literally and figuratively. The protagonist they chose to center the story on, Oguri Cap, is cute, quirky, and endearing, a perfectly solid choice as this iteration's gacha waifu heroine. The first episode hooks you with its world and characters and primes you for a rags-to-riches story with a character we all genuinely want to succeed and be happy.

And Cinderella Gray wastes no time in telling this story. Oguri Cap goes from race to race, with minimal downtime in between. This... isn't exactly a good thing in this case. The near-episodic formula of Oguri learning about the race and her opponent, only to go on and win said race, simply doesn't have enough meaningful divergence. By the midpoint of the series, the episodes become a muddy slurry analogous to a horse race track on a rainy day. And as this doesn't stop the horses from trudging forward, so too will the anime. It's rushed. It goes by too quickly, and it doesn't feel like Oguri herself has climbed a huge mountain, but instead played through a retro game with fast-forward constantly enabled.

Unbeknownst to me when I started this anime, Cinderella Gray is a two-part story, dividing the show at the 2/3s mark. This was not a good decision. This anime desperately needs another element in the background to support and enhance its main character and her struggle, because as it is, it feels like Oguri Cap - and by extension, the anime as a whole - is simply going through the motions. There were so many opportunities to slow down, explore parts of the Umamusume world and characters between major races, to set up and build up to a final climactic race. In some respects, this is what the second part of the story does, and it has a suitably bombastic and powerful payoff, but the overall anime needed more of this, especially during the midsection.

I feel like this would be a weird point of comparison in most other animes, but I genuinely believe Cinderella Gray should have leaned more heavily into its gacha origins to have a better impact. These games ride or die on the strengths of their waifus, and how endearing they can be. By putting all of the focus onto Oguri Cap, Cinderella Gray cheapens her victories, because we don't know the full weight of her individual victories and rivalries. New characters are repeatedly introduced as potential rivals only to be curbstomped in a race within 15 minutes, so it just begs the question, why should we care? It's frequently established just how capable Oguri is, but there's only so many times we can see her finish in first before it becomes blasè. Supposedly each new race brings higher stakes and stronger opponents, but with how little Oguri struggles, this doesn't reflect itself to the viewer. Most of these one-off rivals aren't shown to have any real personalities or motivations - we're simply told that they won a race or two before racing Oguri, but we have to take the narrative at face value here because Oguri almost always trounces them. There's very little drama or tension in any of these individual races. This could have be mitigated if Oguri had character development throughout the show - and she does, albeit very subtly, yet it's not enough to completely offset the disappointment.

By the end of this anime, I couldn't help but make all the comparisons to another anime based on a Cygames property, and possible candidate for the best anime based on a gacha game: Princess Connect. Princess Connect splits its main character focus between multiple characters, the four members of the Gourmet Guild, but by treating them as a collective it keeps the story focused, as Cinderella Gray does on Oguri, except with added variety because of the guild members' divergent personalities. But then each episode shares its focus with another character or group from the gacha, telling a vignette that lets them shine and gives their relationship to the Gourmet Guild more depth, even if it's fleeting. This comes at the cost of a slow-ish story progression, taking two seasons to tell a fantasy plot that could have fit into one if the focus wasn't on the wide cast of characters, but this plays more to the strengths of the world and characters established by the gacha game, and the overall anime itself is better for it.

This distinction ultimately exacerbates Cinderella Gray's biggest flaw: by rushing past the worldbuilding and diverse cast of characters established by the gacha, it leaves behind a hollow plotline that feels like it could have been so much more extravagant and colorful. I say this as someone who had zero experience with either franchise's gacha game before watching their respective anime. Princess Connect showed me everything I needed to feel invested as if I had. Cinderella Gray dashed past all of that in its dogged pursuit of the finish line. Perhaps fitting for an anime themed after horse racing. Much less so for one based off a gacha game.

Now, I have a soft spot for animes based on video games, gacha or otherwise, and I'll continue to seek them out despite their less-than-stellar quality. These are shows where I know I'll rate them higher than the average - an average that's admittedly deserved - based purely on my own enjoyment. Umamusume Cinderella Gray shares a lot of faults with all of those adaptations, I'm rating it the same accordingly, yet somehow I'm falling on the opposite side of the MAL score average this time. Don't misconstrue anything I've said here, this show is still good, Oguri Cap herself is good, and if you want a nice fluffy story or are already a part of the Umamusume fanbase, then you will like this show. But it's multiple lengths shy of the Cygames Triple Crown I was hoping to witness.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 30, 2025

Chuy_diazz

Not Recommended

Funny

The worst decision I made this season was trusting the fandom that told me this was a good way to get started in the world of Uma Musume.

A small disclaimer because I know this has a lot of fanatic fans, and I don't want to get into trouble with them: I'm not familiar with Pretty Derby anime, gacha, or real-life horse racing. This is my first time trying to enter the world of Uma Musume. Weeks before the premiere, I consulted with fans, and they told me this was a great starting point because it was a prequel.

The only thing they got right was that ... it's a prequel. Because this anime isn't friendly to new viewers. From the start, the anime assumes you already know how this world works, horses and racing. So it skips any explanation and goes straight to the races. So when I watched that, I thought we'd have a spokon of races filled with emotion and intensity. That was my mistake, for having expectations of something that never came. One of the biggest problems I see with Cinderella Gray's script is that, by being tied to predetermined outcomes, it takes away the element of surprise. Now imagine having nearly 10 races in 13 episodes, none of which surprise you because the script itself tells you who's going to win.

Cinderella Gray is a true spokon and has a very defined formula, as it strictly follows it. It doesn't seek to innovate or reinvent it; it simply seeks to find a way to tell a story in the simplest way possible. Oguri Cap never has a real rival until the end of the series. You have to endure 11 episodes of Oguri Cap being the best to reach the last two episodes, where she can finally meet someone who will push her to the limits of her physicality. Except, as I said, the narrative of the race already tells you who's going to win because they focus the entire last two episodes on Oguri Cap's rival. As Spokon, there's a lot of room for improvement because the weakest part of the script is not taking advantage of the rivals to make the protagonist shine, and vice versa. With such a large roster of horse girls to choose from and exploit, the cast is quite repetitive. We're going to see the same girls competing against each other more than once.

The script lacks space for anything other than racing. I understand that racing is an important part of this world, but as an athlete, Oguri should also have space to let us see her train of thought between races. To see strategies and how she can improve in the next race. Oguri Cap is the typical airheaded protagonist who doesn't think much about what she's doing but has the natural talent to perform well in this world of sprinters. So they rely heavily on Oguri's talent to avoid delving deeper and developing the character in general. There are subplots about historical events that changed the racing world, but they're only touched on superficially because, as I said, the anime expects you to already know all this.

It's a lazy script because it requires the viewer to fill in the blanks they left. If the viewer is new, they'll be left staring around, not knowing what the hell is going on. Without a doubt, Cinderella Gray is the worst season to start out in the world of Uma Musume.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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