Rosalia Rambles

Tag: Umamusume

  • Redundancy Review: Day 359, “Walking”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning striders and strollers, welcome to Day 359 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Today is a day where I feel very stiff and sore, primarily due to all the walking I have been doing for the last couple weeks. As someone who lives in a very walkable town, most of my errands are conducted with me walking all over the place to get what I need. 

    Though, my affinity for walking comes down to both enjoying the ability to take in the sights, sounds, and smells… alongside the fact I am a cheap bastard where if my options are to take a bus for fifteen minutes or to walk for forty minutes, I will inevitably pick the option that does not involve spending a small amount of money and instead put my legs to work.

    This came into full effect whenever I needed to take a trip to London for something related to work, where I would usually enter in from Victoria Coach Station and need to navigate to a more central part of the city such as Euston or Kensington.

    Most normal people would walk the short distance to Victoria Tube Station and take a Victoria Line train that would take approximately seven minutes to whisk them away to their destination.

    Me, on the other hand, who is both cheap and despises going on the London Underground with all my soul, will invariably decide that the almost hour long walk (or in real terms, anywhere between one-and-half to two miles) is the better idea, however bad it might fuck up my feet, my joints, or in the case of doing this exact thing in the summertime, my overall disposition and appearance when the sweat inevitably kicks in.

    However much I complain about the pain my legs and feet are in though, I do not think I want to change how I operate in the slightest.

    First off, I recognise the fact I am able to walk these long distances with only avoidable pain to show for it is an absolute blessing. Being able-bodied (if severely lazy) is something I do not take for granted and am thankful for every time I am able to breathe deep and pound the pavement to my destination.

    Secondly, and this definitely applies more to when I take this approach to navigating around a city, but there is so much to organically discover when walking around a new location. This especially applies to whenever I would walk around London as part of a work trip, as my usual plan was to commute in via coach/train very early in the morning – both to avoid normal rush hour traffic and because there was no value in me working for an hour in the morning to then spend most of my time travelling anyway – and do my best to navigate to where I needed to be using only tourist maps, seeing what places I could see as I made my way to the meeting venue.

    I also incorporate “getting lost” time into my schedule whenever I have to walk somewhere new, with the planning stage me being looking up how long the walk will take on Google Maps, subtracting about five-to-ten minutes to account for my naturally faster walking speed… and then adding on half an hour to take into consideration the fact I will get distracted and will find a place that catches my eye so I have to spend a short while browsing in there.

    This especially came to fruition when my partner and I visited Manchester on Good Friday for him to have an initial consultation with a dress maker, they had a lot of clients before us so asked us to leave a phone number and they would call us back when they were ready.

    Main benefit for me was that this dressmaker was based in a part of Manchester I had never been to before, so we were able to kill an hour or two by letting my instincts guide me around the city whilst I went “ooo look at that thing” and “hey I wanna go in here”, finding new places to discover and seeing how chain shops in a big city compared to the same I had back home.

    Of course by the time we returned to the dress maker my feet were absolutely shredded and all I wanted to do was sit on the floor for a little bit to let myself recover… and even then my legs felt like they were out of action for the entire weekend afterwards, but again, I recognise all my pain is self-inflicted.

    It is a worthy payoff though, cause I feel my legs are my best aspect – both in how strong they are when I actually put my mind to using them, and how fucking shapely they are because of how much I walk, naturally toning them as I go and making them look fantastic in leggings.

    Now if only I were not a glutton, then I might be able to trim my waistline down just on virtue of how much I roam.

    Think I will be grabbing something from the backlogs for today’s review, partially because I had an Umamusume idea to tie into glutton and legs cause they run, but I ended up getting too distracted and not taking the required screenshots or having the brain power to explain one of my favourite characters.

    So instead, I will be talking about a simple burger and chips I ordered from a small local cafe, about a thirty minute walk from my place: The Tasty Table

    This cost me £9.50, extremely cheap in terms of food, but there are no frills here. No Aberdeen Angus or Wagyu beef, no brioche or sourdough buns, and no triple-cooked duck fat chips. This is a catering style burger patty, with a slice of plastic cheese, served in a floury bap. Add in a bit of mayo for moisture, and you have the perfect brunch as part of a walk to go mattress shopping.

    Whilst it does not look impressive, and I have certainly eaten more flavourful burgers, it is important to partake in the simpler things in life, both to remember how good things can be, and to never forget where you came from. Simple burgers from small cafes are a particular pleasure of mine – I even have a pipe dream of opening my own cafe one day – and I will always savour the most basic ass burgers I can find.

    More of a story focused review today than an actual review, but I am still proud of it. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are doing well. Friday is upon us soon, and for me it is going to be a busy day, but I hopefully have a good idea to try make a good review out of it all.

    We shall see how things go.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 327-328, “Good for your soul”

    Redundancy Review: Day 327-328, “Good for your soul”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning serfs and peasants, welcome to Day 327 and 328 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Yeah, I missed a day again. Yesterday ended up being a bit slow and a bit sad, partially driven by a touch of FOMO from seeing so many pictures of people attending the Hololive English All for One screening in London.

    There was a brief moment where I was considering going to that, but it ultimately ended up not being that financially viable once I considered travel, accommodation, and various miscellaneous purchases along the way – which in hindsight considering I am getting shitcanned at the end of the month, was a smart decision.

    It still stings a little though, being on the outside looking in, seeing so many groups of cool people come together for a shared event made my heart feel simultaneously full and empty at the same time. I have Vexpo this year, but considering my funds are likely to have an asterisk hanging over them for the near future, it seems like that will be my only VTuber related excursion this year.

    Which, to be blunt and selfish for a moment, really fucking sucks.

    VExpo was a damn near life-changing event for me last year, getting to meet several people with a shared interest of mine alongside having the opportunity to meet several VTubers I looked up to and meet ones that I only recently discovered. My survival comes first unfortunately, so it means a good four months or so of rooting for awesome people on the outside.

    In the meantime though, there is definitely going to be a lot I do within the comfort of my local area to help my soul to recover from the tech industry, which does include keeping up with VTuesday segments to show my love of the VTuber space in whatever way I can.

    Additionally, it means putting my energy into things that might not influence profit margins or return-on-investment numbers, but will influence the world in a positive way, whether in the wider world or within my local spaces. I should hopefully have more social energy once things fully process from my mind, which means I can work on projects with friends or just be able to host social gatherings with a bit more spring in my step – I have wanted to host a cheese-based gathering for friends, and sitting around eating cured meat and cheese to celebrate the next phase of my life sounds like one hell of a good evening.

    I guess it all boils down to processing, and everyone processes differently. In a way I have not had much processing time at all due to how hectic my life was balancing my career and keeping up with the schedule I wanted to. Thankful for being able to write the Redundancy Review as a way of debugging my mind bit by bit even when everything feels full and overwhelming.

    Not sure how today’s review topic will go, but there is a certain joy in me talking about weirdly specific topics, and despite having played-

    (it says “Install” cause I primarily play on Steam Deck, and this was taken on my laptop)

    -this much Umamusume over the last five months, I have only talked about it once on the Redundancy Review, and I do not even think I did a good job on that one knowing what I know now.

    Anyway, today’s review topic is the Pretty Derby Season 2 opening credits, set to the song “Yume wo Kakeru!”, or “Run for our Dream!” as it is labelled in the concert theatre in the game.

    Side note, the concert theatre might be one of my favourite features within the game that I cannot help but get irrationally annoyed over because of how limited the pool of vocalists for some songs are – especially in the wake of some later seasons and series of the anime having characters sing those songs whilst they do not have the same track in-game.

    I just want to have my oshi Oguri Cap sing all of the songs, is that so hard to fulfill?

    Anyway, back on track.

    Having now watched basically every single piece of Umamusume media since I first talked about the Miracle Run in Season 2, I can say that whilst it still holds an important place in my heart, I can concede that the later stories are way stronger in terms of writing and pacing.

    That said, I will not concede that Yume no Kakeru is the best opening track in the series. There is just so much joy and energy in the singing that really embodies the feeling of this being a song to sing alongside your rivalry, wanting to try your best and push yourself beyond your limits.

    In terms of visual elements… it is tough to consider. Personally, I think the Season 3 opening nails the slice-of-life aspects the best, as the daily lives of all of the students at Tracen are half the fun of the series, and the short visual gags in that opening bring a much bigger smile to my face now that I have the context of having played the game.

    There are a lot of fun visual elements to the Season 2 opening as well, a few of my favourites including:

    Mayano Top Gun in her prime position of sleeping through the entire season because the real-world horse was not active at the same time as Tokai Teio.

    Team Rigil warming up and T.M. Opera O just… doing T.M. Opera O things instead of warming up.

    And Twin Turbo proving her nature as the ultimate front runner by being so clear of the pack no one can try catch up to her. That little dot on the far right of the screen is her.

    But my absolute favourite visual element of this opening comes right at the end, where young Kitasan Black and Satono Diamond are seen cheering for Teio and McQueen, and these two were the entire reason I decided to talk about this opening because I wanted to use them as the thumbnail picture.

    These two appearing as the “Come on!” cheers play out in the song never fails to put a smile on my face from how absolutely adorable they look.

    If you are at all curious about Umamusume, I definitely recommend it. I am not someone who typically enjoys sports anime but I found myself enamoured from the beginning which only escalated into an obsession after watching Season 2, and well, after I finished Cinderella Gray I ended up going against my better instincts and getting into a fucking gacha game.

    I can definitely recommend getting into the anime over the game – I cannot in good conscience recommend people to get into the gacha game, as much as I will jokingly tease my friends to join my club.

    The anime can be found on Crunchyroll and Tubi with the Road to the Top OVA being available on Youtube. I… do not really recommend getting it through Crunchyroll as I do not agree with their business practices, so explore other options to find the platform that works best for you.

    That should cover everything for today. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you have had an easy day, if you are in the UK I hope you have enjoyed the bank holiday as well.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 210, “Heart of an Idol”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning units and detachments, welcome to Day 210 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Missed a fair few milestones due to not having the energy to write throughout the majority of December, but considering I am reasonably on schedule this time we can commemorate thirty weeks worth of the review… provided my maths is character, I think it is because a Tuesday is a multiple of seven usually and 210 is a multiple of seven, so I am pretty certain I am on track.

    Thirty weeks since possibly the most life-altering event I have encountered thus far, one that fully derailed where I was thinking I was going to go and shunted me onto the path I am currently on, a path that is currently serving me quite well even if I have my doubts about its longevity. It is weird to think that I am rapidly approaching the year anniversary of the titular event, hopefully I can stay on track to mark that as a milestone as well.

    It is VTuesday however, and the first one of those I have got to mark in a while as well, though today it is going to be more of a general discussion about an aspect of VTubing before heading into the review.

    Taking into account the origin of VTubing within Japan, it is almost impossible to talk about the majority of corpos and a significant number of independents without talking about what is often referred to as “idol culture”.

    And no, this is not going to be a screeching mess of an article about how idol culture is burning out massive amounts of VTubers , if just because I do not consider myself educated enough about the culture as a whole to articulate proper criticisms that are not just my own opinion as a relative outsider.

    This is especially apparent when you take a look at my history within idol-related media and find a fair few notable names lacking:

    • Never engaged with Love Live!, neither the game or the anime outside of Nico memes
    • Never engaged with Bandori outside of having a passive awareness of Chu2 and PAREO
    • And never engaged with Idolmaster to even know any of the characters by looks or name

    All I really took an interest in growing up was many other people’s first exposure to what an idol is: Vocaloid, and by extension… Megurine Luka.

    Yeah, no, for someone who started to interact with Vocaloid in their middle teenage years which was over a decade ago now dear god, Hatsune Miku was not actually the first Vocaloid to catch my eye, it was instead the elegant and graceful Megurine Luka I developed an attachment to first. Of course attaching to one Vocaloid almost makes it a guarantee that you will attach yourself to others which did happen to me eventually as well, it is just interesting to me I diverged from the norm from the offset.

    This fascination started with Luka Luka★Night Fever, which I cannot mention without saying rest in peace to Samfree, the producer behind this song. I hope you are resting easy knowing you left an undeniable legacy on this world with your music. From the get go the song is catchy as all hell with fun and energetic dance moves, dance moves which started to develop my interest in the idea of learning idol dances like so many young weebs aspire to do.

    In general, both back then and today, idol concerts are the driving force behind my semi-pipe dream of wanting to learn how to dance. There is something that just enraptures me about seeing the perfect blend of music, vocals, and dancing that makes me want to aspire to move like that myself… then the “pipe dream” part kicks in and outside of loading idol songs onto Beat Saber, I find it hard to find both the motivation and energy to learn, usually falling victim to my inconsistent sense of rhythm.

    I eventually branched out a bit more into Vocaloid, picking up a few other favourite producers along the way, with special mention going to Neru (the producer, not the Vocaloid Akita Neru) for some absolute bangers of songs with absolutely heart breaking lyrics – looking squarely at you Lost One’s Weeping.

    But as mentioned above, an interest in idols did not go far beyond Vocaloid as many of the other popular idol trends passed me by…

    …until Hololive showed up in my life, and everything changed.

    From that moment on, not only did I find a beautiful source of additional idol concerts to partake in, it massively expanded my world to finding other VTuber corpos and independent VTubers who provided similar sources of entertainment. This, combined with the massive boom that VTubing experienced over the early 2020s, made me fall in love with idol performances all over again.

    Although this time, as someone with both a fully developed brain and a reasonable sense of their own gender identity, it made me fixate on the general look and style of idol uniforms as a whole – primarily because I really wanted, and still do, to wear one some day with the even more massive pipe dream of attempting to perform in one.

    For now though, I am more than content to be in the crowd, waving my light sticks around, cheering “HAI! HAI! HAI!” or engaging in the ever so wonderful feeling of doing a call-and-response with whoever is on stage.

    But Hololive is now not the only source of my idol entertainment, as I now find myself fully in the grips of Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a franchise that somehow finds the perfect blend of sports anime and idol anime to make for an absolutely exhilarating and whimsical experiences delivered by your Uma clutching victory from the jaws of defeat before going up on stage to perform in the “Winning Concert”.

    Both in the anime and in the game I find myself singing along and cheering during the various performances, along with me and my partner groaning in despair when the anime decides to skip over winning concerts or dangle the hints of them in our face – special highlight here going to Next Frontier.

    True to their name, idols give me inspiration. I see how hard they work, often in the face of odds working against them, putting in all their effort to put on shows both online and in real life, and I find myself wanting to strive for the same peak in my own life and my own art. This is definitely apparent in the music of one 2.5D fairytale idol, the ever lovely Phoebe-chan and her song “Bloom Again”.

    It has only been recently that I have known who Phoebe-chan is, going back to her headline performance at the VExpo 2025 opening concert… though the funny part of that is my partner and I ran into her a short while before the concert. She was getting ready in the lobby of the hotel we were staying at, and, true to my partner’s fascination with frilly and fancy outfits, he stopped to talk to her whilst I went back to our hotel room, it was only later on that we connected the dots of what happened.

    Her performance during the concert was a mix of heartwarming moments with her original music, talking about difficulties encountered throughout the year and wanting to grow beyond what had happened in the past, followed by absolute meme territory featuring a performance of Renai Circulation with Smash Mouth and Space Jam put into the mix.

    From that moment, and compounding that with the small meet & greet she hosted the day after where we got to have a proper conversation with her and purchase some of her merch, I have found myself a quiet but dedicated fan of her work, resonating with the themes of growth, rebirth, and trying your best to go with the flow that she puts into her music.

    I actually said to her during that meet & greet that I had almost cried during her opening concert performance, as what she talked about resonated deeply with my own experience of losing my job a few months prior. I bought her album at that moment and she offered to sign it, writing a lovely message in the top-left corner.

    “Rosa, let’s meet again!! <3”

    It is a simple touch, but that small signature does help keep me going on some rough days, especially as I would love to see her again at VExpo this year.

    Plus her manager has the absolute badass name of “Steiner”, just such a powerful and cool name for someone to have.

    That… once more went way longer than I expected it to, especially for one once more so off the cuff. All the same, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to find things that inspire you in your life, be they big or small, I hope something brings you joy and helps you find the strength to keep going.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 152-158, “A Not So Good Writing Week”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning puppies and kittens, welcome to me trying to catch up for a week of not writing in a post that covers day 152 to 158 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Yup.

    This week has not been a productive week at all for writing. Taking into account work stress, personal stress, regular depression, seasonal depression, adjusting to my antidepressant medication,  and somehow getting a migraine even though I am not prone to them, there was very little time to sit down and write after completing daily activities alongside decompression time.

    And I feel perfectly okay with this.

    In the past I would have experienced an extreme amount of guilt over this fact, feeling as if I had failed as a writer due to not being able to keep to a regular posting schedule which forms the basis of my writing practice, working towards my goal of being able to make a living out of this passion.

    But I feel good, possibly down to the sertraline kicking in properly removing the sluggishness I had been experiencing as part of the adjustment period, leaving me feeling less physically tired today than I have been during the week. There is still a degree of “existential tiredness” as I call it, less a physical state of exhaustion and more feeling worn out by my current routine.

    That said, yesterday was actually one of my best work days in a while. I was actually able to find my rhythm in my tasks and get a substantial chunk of work done in a day, something I had found a great deal of struggle in earlier in the week. Stuff would get chunked down throughout the week as I was still on shift, but I ended the day feeling behind the curve on what I had set out to do.

    I am still taking steps to change my current situation, there are a handful of jobs I need to apply for over the weekend that sound right up my alley, and even outside of that the fact I have found my rhythm in working again should mean that the days go by quicker than before, pushing me towards more exciting events in my life such as my birthday, Christmas, and the obligatory Christmas break where I can find time to indulge in all sorts of gaming activities as I finally have proper, uninterrupted rest.

    There is still much on the horizon that I could worry about, but, I find myself oddly at peace right now…

    …god antidepressants are great, it has actually been so damn long since I have had this level of stability. 

    Suppose I should actually do a proper review segment today as well to make the most of this energy, and there has been something in the back of my mind I have wanted to discuss on the Redundancy Review ever since my partner and I watched it together on the sofa, the final race of Umamusume: Pretty Derby Season 2.

    Spoilers ahead for Umamusume: Pretty Derby Season 2, so uh, look away if you care about horse girls

    Still with me? Rad, time to embed the clip in.

    Small bit of admin before I get into this, I do not endorse Crunchyroll as a service, especially after they have swapped their subtitle company to one that heavily advertises the use of AI in their transcription services. Localisation is an art form that is extremely underappreciated and the use of AI in this area leaves a lot of nuance to be lost from the delicate fine tuning a skilled human localisation specialist can provide.

    However, this is the best clip I could find on Youtube of the “Miracle Run” as it is called, Tokai Teio’s final race after a series of injuries, hurdles, and setbacks. Throughout this season there are several moments where Teio is told she will not be able to race the same way as she used to, and whilst she has moments of victory, there is still a lot of difficulty in trying to run to the standard she wants to be.

    This is likened and contrasted with the struggles of her friend, Mejiro McQueen, who has developed a muscular disorder that also threatens to end her career as a professional racer for fear of losing her mobility entirely. Teio uses this as fuel on her journey to win the Arima Kinen, a race where fans vote on the participants.

    What the clip does not show is the preamble before the final stretch, Teio is close to the rear of the pack, not being able to make up positions as her trainer, teammates, and fans all wonder if she is now truly past her prime as an elite horse girl…

    …right up until the moment where she starts zooming through the competition, moving up several positions as the commentator says:

    “Tokai Teio is moving up!”

    And pauses.

    “Tokai Teio is moving up?!”

    Everyone was surprised by Teio being able to run like she used to, taking over several similarly skilled competitors, right up until she gets behind Biwa Hayahide, acknowledging the amount of strain her body is under as she flashes back to the challenges she has faced over the season, several moments where she could have quit for good.

    And as she builds up for the final spurt, McQueen, her trainer, and her idol Symboli Rudolf all egg her on to give it her all. Several other fans all encourage her, including the doctor who told her she might never be able to run the same way again,  seeing a legend be made in real time in front of them, as Tokai Teio, someone who has not step foot on a racetrack in over a year, wins the Arima Kinen.

    Being real, the entire Season 2 of Umamusume made both me and my partner cry at a lot of different moments – especially when being presented with Teio’s struggles. There is a moment in the tenth episode where footage is shown of Twin Turbo winning a race for her to dedicate it to Teio in the hopes she would run again, which is followed by all of Teio’s friends encouraging her not to quit as well, eventually leading to the events of the miracle run.

    We bawled our eyes out at that scene, as we both found relatedness in Teio’s struggles of feeling like she was not good enough no matter how hard she tried to overcome her challenges. In general watching Umamusume is way more emotional that either of us realised, we got super invested in all of the character’s arcs across all three seasons currently released in a way that caught us completely off guard. There is a surprising amount of emotion in an anime about reincarnated horse girls racing together.

    As always, need a thumbnail when I am talking about a video, and got this pretty decent screengrab from the clip above of Team Spica and their trainer cheering on Teio. 

    My favourite out of the bunch is Daiwa Scarlet, which is the orange-haired one with the tiara. She has such a cool design and I always find her rivalry with Vodka to be entertaining.

    Good to see I can still write after being out of practice for so long, and that will do it all for today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Thank you very much for reading. Wherever you are I hope you are able to enjoy the weekend and recover from whatever might have brought you down during the week.

    Go watch Umamusume: Pretty Derby through your streaming method of choice.