It is not often that a mobile game receives a promotional anime adaptation to specifically hype up the launch of the game. This was the case when the anime Uma Musume Pretty Derby aired in April of 2018 to promote Cygames upcoming game by the same title. The anime was met with immense popularity and by September of last year, only five months after the anime’s release, preregistration for the game had already hit 350,000 people according to the official Umu Masume Twitter account.

【事前登録者数35万人突破！】

トレーナーの皆さまのおかげで事前登録者数が35万人を突破することができました！ これを受けて、ガチャ1回分のキャロットストーンとゲーム内アイテムを提供開始時のプレゼントに追加いたします！ 今後もご声援よろしくお願いいたします！#ウマ娘 pic.twitter.com/EsAudrg9g1 — ウマ娘プロジェクト公式アカウント (@uma_musu) September 14, 2018 Tweet from September stating they have had 350,000 people preregister.

On top of this, they had deals with Goodsmile for a series of Nendoroids, promotional soundtracks, and even a YouTube channel run by their character, GoldenShip, in the same format as virtual YouTuber Kizuna Ai. The anime was getting praised by popular AniTubers (YouTuber’s who cover Anime/Japanese related topics) such as The Anime Man who has nearly 2-million subscribers. He praised the show in his video, “Uma Musume is a GENIUS Anime. No Really, I’m Serious.” for uniquely tapping into the huge popularity of both horse racing and idol culture in Japan. He stated about the anime, “I will be extremely surprised if this doesn’t end up becoming the next Kantai Collection – It just has all the right ingredients to make it successful and tap into those niche yet massively successful Otaku-Subcultures in Japan.”

Unfortunately, this may have been far more success than Cygames could have anticipated. Cygames mysteriously delayed the game for ‘quality improvements’ without giving a date other than 2019. The original notice was posted on the site stating:

“The game “Uma Musume Pretty Derby” is scheduled to start delivery in the winter of 2018 and has been developed, but we will postpone the delivery schedule with the aim of further improving the quality. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to everyone who is waiting for the delivery. About the latest information in the future, we will tell about it sequentially on the official portal site and the official Twitter.”



– Translation from the official site

Aside from this, there was a great deal of radio silence on what these ‘quality improvements’ would be. The drip of any news on the game turned into only things such as merchandise deals, promotional t-shirt sales in Japan, and other various things that had little to do with the actual game. Well, that was until as recently as June 28, 2019. In another notice posted on the site today, some of these quality improvements were made clear.



“Thank you for always supporting “Uma Musume Pretty Derby”. In developing the game, I brushed up some character designs. Along with that, we have changed some visuals of this portal site. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to everyone who is waiting for delivery. In the game “Uma Musume Pretty Derby,” we are developing our staff in order to deliver the highest quality. The latest information will be announced on the official portal site and official Twitter in the future. Please continue your favors toward “Uma Musume Pretty Derby.”



– Translation from the official site

【お知らせ】

ゲーム開発におきまして一部のキャラクターデザインをブラッシュアップを行い、それに伴い公式ポータルサイトの一部キャラクタービジュアルを変更いたしました。

下記URLをご確認ください。https://t.co/syMATlLGYr#ウマ娘 — ウマ娘プロジェクト公式アカウント (@uma_musu) June 28, 2019 Tweet from the official twitter conveying the changes to character designs within the game.

They even showed many changes made to key visuals of characters within the game!

The key difference in the update here is Suzuka’s hair and tail detail.

Above is Silence Suzuka, one of the main characters from the anime. The key change with her visual is the amount of detail in her hair and tail. They didn’t just update Suzuka either, they nearly updated every character’s key visuals. These changes range from more detail in hair, facial expression changes, eye size, body size, and shading. You can find all of the updated visuals here.

What does this mean for the fate of the game?

Unfortunately, there still has not been an update stating when the game will release. While you can still preregister, the game is simply listed as pending release in 2019. While this may give many hopes, it has been listed for 2019 for quite some time. The hope may lie in that these key visual updates are final polishing points for the game to be released. However, at this point the game is still MIA.

What about the anime? Will there be a season 2!?

Well, as I stated earlier, the anime was made to promote the game meaning their futures are likely tied together. Back when the anime finished airing its final episode, Bunka Tsuushin did an interview with Tonosuke Ito, producer of the anime. The final question of the interview to Ito was: “Will there be a second season?” Ito responded by saying, “If it gets popular, we feel like we’d want to return for a new series. After this, the release of the game is pending, and there are many other developments.” The latter half of Ito’s statement makes me believe that though they would love to return to do a second season, the main focus right now is on the game. This interview was many months ago and considering the fact that the game is so behind schedule, it is hard to say what the future of the anime will be.

Me impatiently waiting for the game to drop.

The game will be available for iOS and Android. If you would like to preregister for the game, you can do so here: https://game.umamusume.jp/

All images used in this article are from Uma Musume’s official website and twitter.