Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray review

As someone who’s already a fan of Uma Musume and Oguri Cap, I expected to love this anime from start to finish.Unfortunately, I only enjoyed it up until halfway. The best way to summarize my feelings about this series is simply: wasted potential. The series focuses solely on Oguri Cap; however, there's only so much you can watch of a single character before it starts to lose its appeal. There's a reason why sports anime focus on groups rather than individual characters

The series starts off strong with a fun cast of characters. Jou, Oguri’s trainer, brings passion that balances Oguri’s more stoic personality. Berno Light rounds out the dynamic with being the middle ground voice of reason. There’s also the cliche trio of delinquent girls who eventually become friends. And then there’s March Fujimasa, Oguri’s rival. It's right after all these characters bond that the story starts to fall apart.
My favorite part of the series was watching these characters grow through one another and come to terms with the paths they want to take. Oguri finds new motivation after being confronted by March. March realizes she can’t win every race and, for the first time, discovers someone she genuinely wants to keep up with. Jou struggling with the fact he isn’t a good enough trainer for Oguri and commits to studying so he can truly support her. As for Berno... She’s just sort of there. I really wish we got to see more of her own desire or growth, but she exists only to hype up Oguri.

It's after they begin to pursue their own paths that the series starts to fall flat. The focus becomes entirely to Oguri and whether she’ll win or lose her races. On paper, that seems reasonable. It is a racing anime centered around her. But in practice, there’s not much else going on. Oguri is your typical airheaded protagonist with natural talent, and the story leans too heavily on that rather than showing actual development. I was expecting the second half of the series to focus on her training arc and personal growth, but instead, it’s skipped over for the sake of adding more races. While the races themselves are fun to watch, the outcomes were far too predictable due to the heavy-handed foreshadowing. Overall, the series is a fun casual watch if you’re already a fan of Uma Musume, but beyond that, it lacks substance.