00:00How did this game about racing anime horse girls become a viral hit?
00:03Come on, Gold Ship! Put it into high gear!
00:06I need all you got right now!
00:08The Kentucky Derby's on the line!
00:11The game is called Uma Musume Pretty Derby,
00:14and it's been a popular multimedia franchise in Japan since 2018,
00:18when the first season of the Uma Musume anime aired.
00:20Uma Musume is about horse girls who are reincarnations of famous Japanese racehorses.
00:24The girls attend Trace and Academy to train as both racehorses and idols.
00:27The first season of the show focuses on Horse Girl Special Week,
00:30based on a real racehorse who won 10 of his 17 races.
00:33Although it started as an anime series, the video game is the most well-known piece of media.
00:38In the game, players are tasked with training their horse girls and competing in races.
00:41The game is built around a gacha mechanic,
00:44where hundreds of possible horse girls can be unlocked through pulls of a gacha machine.
00:48The game was released in Japan in 2021 and became a big hit.
00:52On June 26, 2025, the game was finally released in English,
00:55ushering in a whole new wave of fans and a massive boost in popularity in North America.
01:00Fan art and memes, based on the game's more popular horses,
01:03have been going viral across social media as players pick their favorite racers to idolize.
01:08Uma Musume has also become a massive hit with streamers and Let's Players,
01:12entering the list of the top 25 most-viewed games on Twitch in early July
01:15and inspiring more than a few viral clips.
01:18One popular clip from streamer Niko shows just how intense the races in Uma Musume can get
01:22as Niko yells at his horse and spanks himself with a roll of paper,
01:25mimicking a jockey using a crop on his horse.
01:27Several posts have gone viral, hoping that Uma Musume adds the racing horse,
01:31Skibidi Riz, to the game.
01:32Skibidi Riz is a real racehorse bred in Kentucky.
01:35He began his career in 2025 and raced six times between March and July 2025,
01:40although he won none of the races, with his highest placement being third.
01:43Uma Musume has become particularly popular with VTubers,
01:46who have been dedicating their streams to horse racing.
01:48In one wholesome viral clip, VTuber Cleo runs alongside her horse
01:52as she wins a race, leaving the other horses in the dust.
01:55There's also a meme going around where artists redraw photos of real horses
01:58as Uma Musume characters and depict Uma Musume girls doing things that horses might do,
02:04reminding everyone that these anime girls are, in fact, reincarnated racehorses.
02:09Ultimately, Uma Musume is proving to be many gamers' latest addiction
02:12as they work to hone their horse girl's stats, get those big wins,
02:15and maybe get a viral streaming clip out of it in the process.
02:18We'll see you next time.
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