UMA MUSUME U.S. SEASON / 赛马娘 ~ 美国赛季 ~

On one hand, this is definitely an April Fool’s joke. 

On the other hand, if we were to hypothetically do American horse-girls, this is probably where we’d start.

一方面,这显然是愚人节玩笑。

而另一方面,假设我们真的要开始美国赛马娘的企划,那么这可能就是我们开始的地方。

For starters, several of us are big fans of Cygames and the content they put out. We were largely introduced to Uma Musume last year while looking for something to watch for team anime night, and on a whim we were like, okay, let’s go for this one. What surprised all of us was that it’s very, very, very good. Extraordinarily wholesome characters aside, the entire show is crammed full of references and knowledge about horse racing in general. We were instantly hooked (and yes, we do follow horse racing (mostly American) now. Thanks Cygames. Horsegirls game when?)

作为首次接触赛马娘的读者,我们之中有一些人是Cygames公司及其游戏的忠实粉丝。在去年我们的团队为了动漫之夜寻找作品时,被人热情推荐了《赛马娘》这一作品。虽说是一时兴起,不过无论如何让我们开始欣赏这一作品吧。让我们所有人非常意外的是这一作品非常非常的优秀。除了非常有活力的角色之外,整个动画都充斥着关于赛马本身的梗和知识。而我们立刻被吸引住了(是的,我们现在确实有关注赛马比赛(大多数是美国的)。感谢Cygames。以及,赛马娘游戏什么时候出?)。

So, naturally, I pestered Zero to see if we can get something done along those lines. After all, we celebrate American things. We’ve done American shipgirls. You’ve seen our work on American politics. American horsegirls isn’t that much of a stretch, eh?

因此,自然的,我缠着零火说我们是否可以做类似的东西。毕竟,我们一直希望能有美国方面的东西。在之前我们就创作了美国舰娘。你应该也看过我们关于美国政治方面的创作了。美国赛马娘的话是不是那么的牵强了,嗯?

▲ Seabiscuit / 海饼干

What became a random idea kinda became an elaborate April Fool’s joke. So here it is. Seabiscuit. The American legend. Here’s the tagline from his autobiography.

而这些有些随意的想法逐渐变成了一个精心考虑的愚人节玩笑。也正是你所看到的——海饼干,一个美国传奇。(←来源于它自传的标语)

In 1938, near the end of a decade of monumental turmoil, the year’s number-one newsmaker1 was not Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hitler, or Mussolini. It wasn’t Pope Pius XI, nor was it Lou Gehrig, Howard Hughes, or Clark Gable. The subject of the most newspaper column inches in 1938 wasn’t even a person. It was an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse named Seabiscuit.

在1938年,刚刚结束接近十年的动荡(大萧条)。这一年的头号新闻人物不是富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福也不是希特勒或者墨索里尼。也不是教皇庇护十一世,或者卢·格里克(美国最有名的棒球选手)。1938年报纸头条标题甚至不是某一个人。而是一个矮小的歪腿赛马——海饼干。

Laura Hillenbrand’s book does the horse far better than I can in a single article, but I will say, either the book or the movie based on the book based on the actual horse is great to introduce you to Seabiscuit’s story. Basically, the story is very American. It’s an underdog story with a cinematic ending. Seabiscuit was a horse that had a rough upbringing, but had immense degrees of talent, a will to succeed, and the drive to back it up. He ran far more races than a horse of his age and at his time was expected to do, broke dozens of records, beat a legendary racehorse that, for all intent and purposes, he had no real chance to win at –

… Sounding familiar to ya yet? 

There’s more.

劳拉·希伦布兰德的书远比我在这一篇文章中所要写的好,但我要说的是,无论是基于这匹马的书还是电影,都能很好的将“海饼干”的故事向你呈现出来。基本来说,这个故事非常的美国。一个典型的不被看好的失败者故事并有一个电影般的结局。海饼干成长历经艰辛,而这一切让它有了巨大的才能,渴望成功的意志以及驱动并支持它的动力。它比起同龄的赛马参加了更多的比赛,并且在这一期间。打破了数十个记录,击败了一匹传奇赛马,出于各种意图和目的,他并没有真正过机会去赢得……

……听起来似曾相识吗?

而这还没完。

After winning that race, he suffered through a ton of injuries, each one enough to end any race horses’ ordinary career. 

But through it all? Seabiscuit came back, to pull off the impossible one last time. Through that, millions drew inspiration from his story. We included.

So, after talking it out with the team (a lot of thanks for K9 to do the actual legwork and the bulk of the research here, heh – being in California has its benefits), here’s our take on her.

在那场比赛获胜后,它承受了极多的伤害,每一个都可以终结一匹普通赛马的职业生涯。

但是在这一切之后,海饼干回归了,最后一次的将所有不可能打破。而这一点,数百万人被他的故事所激励。当然也包括我们。

基于这一点,在同团队成员们商量后(非常感谢K9做了很多实地跑腿调查工作和大部分的研究,嘿嘿……这就是身处加利福尼亚的诸多好处之一),我们在这里将她呈现而出。

  • Since we wanted to do an April Fools thing with Pacific characters, the design of this character would be in essence one of our shipgirls. In terms of Seabiscuit’s influence on the American psyche, only the Enterprise comes close. So, naturally, Prisse is the one to take front and center for her. I suspect if we were to redo this one from scratch, we’d likely still keep the short hair due to the physical attributes and description, but her hair color would likely be chestnut brown rather than Enterprise gold. 
    因为我们考虑选用美舰本《Pacific》的角色做一些愚人节的内容,所以这个角色本质上还是我们的一位舰娘。而就海饼干在美国的地位上来说,只有企业号能够企及。因此自然企业就是那个挑大梁的人。不过我怀疑我们是否应该整个重做角色设计,当然我们仍然保留短发、身体状态和特征,但她的头发应该会从企业金变成栗褐色的。

  • Uma musume designs frequently incorporate jockey silks colors into character outfits. For us, we did the same. Here, Seabiscuit’s colors and her “H” emblem are based on the silks worn by Seabiscuit’s famous jockeys. You can look this up easily, but we adjusted the colors a tiny bit to match well, an anime depiction of a character. 

    赛马娘经常将骑手的真丝赛服融入到角色的设计中去。而我们也做了同样的考虑。在这里海饼干骑手服的颜色和她象征性的“H”标志都是基于海饼干那一身著名的赛服。你可以轻易的发现这一点,当然我们调整了一些颜色以更好的适应一个动漫角色的设定。

  • Since again, this is an April Fool’s joke, we thought to directly refer to our source inspiration. We’ve envisioned her to be a pretty upbeat and cheerful girl, very similar to the uma musume protagonist, Special Week. Her expression and pose, therefore, is largely a nod to that.

    再一次说明,这是一个愚人节玩笑,我们可以说的这一设计灵感来源有着直接的参考对象。我们设想他是一个非常乐光和开朗的少女,和《赛马娘》的主角——Special Week(特别周)相似。她的表情和姿势有很大幅度的借鉴。

  • Since this is about horse girls and races, it makes sense to have her race here in American races. The obvious choice? The Kentucky Derby, America’s greatest horse race. My great uncle (the same guy that keeps on pestering me about when his shipgirl’s gonna get posted) says it’s the most exciting two minutes in American sports, and after watching one, I kinda agree. 

    介于这是一个关于赛马娘和比赛的故事,将背景设置在美国的比赛更为合理。显而易见的选择,自然是肯塔基赛马大会,美国最盛大的赛马会。我的叔祖父(和之前那个缠着我要求创作出他所服役的舰船的舰娘是一个人)说,这一比赛是美国体育界最令人兴奋的两分钟,看完之后,我不禁同意。


    ▲ Kentucky Derby LOGO / 肯塔基赛马大会标志

    Now, here we are taking some creative liberties. Seabiscuit never raced in the Kentucky Derby – he would have been too old for that in real life. However, since this is fiction, we just thought it’d be kinda cool to have one of the best horsegirls run one of the best races. After all, it is the first leg of the American Triple Crown, which is what Japan modeled their races on. 

    在这里,我们发挥了一些自由创作。毕竟在现实里海饼干的一生中并没有参加肯塔基赛马大会,因为那时它已经年事已高。尽管,这是虚构的内容,但我仍然认为让最棒的赛马娘参加最棒的比赛是一件很酷的的事情。毕竟这是美国三连冠比赛中第一站,而日本的比赛也正是从这里模仿。

    So, yeah, if we were doing an American horsegirls anime, we’d probably cover the life of Seabiscuit from start to finish following largely a historical route mirroring the races that the real-life Seabiscuit would have won, then insert some kind of hypothetical triple crown race (and maybe have the canonical Japanese horsegirls show up in an invitational), and end on an even bigger happy note. Just an idea, but if anyone from Cygames’ reading, you’re welcome. We’d love to see an American season. 😛 

    所以,是呀,如果我们现在开始制作美国赛马娘的动画,我们可能会覆盖海饼干的一生,而故事开始到结束以她真实传奇故事作为依据,将她的获胜历程完整的以赛马娘的形象做一个镜像版呈现而出,然后插入某种虚构的三连冠比赛(同时邀请有代表性的日本赛马娘出现在邀请赛之中),最终获得一个完美的结局。当然这还只是一个想法,不过如果Cygames中的某人看到并有兴趣的话,欢迎做这么一个内容。我们急切的希望看到美国赛季。:P

So, um, with all that said…

走れ (Hashire, run), E-chan!

(No seriously Cygames please, UMA MUSUME GAME WHEN?)

因此,嗯,尽管如此……

前进吧,小企业!

(不,认真的说,Cygame拜托了,赛马娘游戏什么时候出?)

PS. The “Run for the Roses” is a reference to the … sheet? bed? thing of roses draped over the winning horse. These sorta shows tend to have somewhat chuuni subheadings and titles. Gotta keep with tradition and all. 

以及,Run for the Roses(为玫瑰奔跑)参考来源于……床单?床?总之就是一个披挂在马背上印有玫瑰的东西。这类动画一般都会有些中二病的副标题或者标题。兼顾了传统与其他。