Umamusume Pretty Derbyis coming back with yet another anime project, this time with horse girls from the 99s generation of Japanese horse racing.
Media mix franchiseUmamusumeis still one of the biggest IPs in Japan a bit more than one year after the game version was finally released. Cygames, known forPrincess ConnectandGranblue Fantasy, released theUmamusume Pretty Derbygame on June 30, 2025. That was four years after the project got first announced in 2017 and long after the first TV anime adaptation. However, the wait was worth it as the horse girl racing game boasts incredible production quality at all levels, and it quickly managed toclimb up to the summit of mobile games, and stay in a high place.
Uma Musume’s success in the Japanese mobile game industry can most notably be explained by how it filled a niche that was pretty much abandoned since the PSP era: the raising simulator, as pretty much only Konami is still into it with thePowerful Pro Baseballseries, with the newesteBASEBALL Powerful Pro Baseball 2022out since April 21 in Japan on PS4 and Switch. While horse racing has an image in Japan of mainly being popular among Old Men With Disposable Income, absolutely everyone in Japan loves cute girls, and everyone likes raising their Favorite’s stats and seeing Numbers Go Up.
New Umamusume Anime Project Revealed with First Main Characters Key Visual
Cygames announced this new anime on July 22, 2025, and confirmed this will be a new animation project “different from the TV series”, so this is notUmamusume Season 3. Additional details like a release date will be announced later on.
Moreover, this new anime will focus on three particular horse girls: Narita Top Road, T.M. Opera O, and Admire Vega. The real horses they borrow their names from were active as part of the late 90s early 2000s generation. The anime’s story will follow these three as they aim for the top of the Classics and clash with each other.
These three are already available in the game version. Cygames has alsorecently announceda global version forUmamusume, so the franchise is bound to expand beyond Japan. Check out the reveal trailer for the new anime below, and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
