Umamusume: Pretty Derby movie director talks creative decisions and adapting games to the big screen

• We speak with Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era director Ken Yamamoto.
• Uma Musume: Pretty Derby was the first mobile game he played.

Horse girl racing game Umamusume: Pretty Derby has proven wildly popular since its release, a revenue force to be reckoned with for exactly five years.

What started out as a game project ultimately evolved into a transmedia brand ahead of the curve, with an anime released in the middle of game development in 2018. Cygames’ mobile game eventually followed in February 2021 to immediate success, racing to billions of dollars in player spending in Japan.

Years later, in June 2025, the title expanded into the West.

Now, Umamusume’s first feature-length film, Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era, is heading to the West too, slated for a theatrical release in the US on February 27th, 2026.

The production first released in Japan in 2024, made by Cygames and CygamesPictures. Ahead of its US release, we speak with the film’s director Ken Yamamoto about the creation process, adapting a game IP for screen and anime’s position in the broader transmedia trend.

"The game development staff were involved as early as the scripting stage, and we consulted with them throughout production," Yamamoto reveals.

"As a franchise, Umamusume holds a profound respect for the real-life racehorses and the people connected to them. Therefore, the premise was to follow the historical facts of Jungle Pocket and his contemporaries while adding dramatic flair.

"Within that framework, I was given the freedom to propose several creative directions from the scripting stage, such as how to handle Fuji Kiseki’s role and how to depict the final race."

IPs and adaptations

Adapting an IP is nothing new for Yamamoto. He’s been involved in manga adaptations for screen like Attack on Titan and One Piece, as well as games-turned-anime like Fate/Grand Order and Castlevania.

Whether it’s adapting an IP or creating an original work, he believes the core nature of commercial animation remains the same: "You have characters, and you depict their drama. As such, I’ve never really felt much of a difference between working with manga, games, or light novels.

"That said, with many game adaptations, the original story is often built specifically around the player experience, which frequently requires a total structural overhaul for film."

In Umamusume’s case, Yamamoto suggests each character’s storyline already functions as a standalone narrative, which helped with conceptualising a "singular, cohesive script".

It’s actually the art side he believes to be more challenging in game adaptation, "a common sentiment in the industry". He claims many game characters are designed to look "stunning" as static illustrations, but can be difficult to adapt into motion across thousands of frames.

"I think my experience with projects like Fate/Grand Order helped because I already knew what I was getting into. I was mentally prepared for that struggle. In that sense, those past experiences definitely paid off here," he shares.

After the job as director came to Yamamoto, creating the film took approximately three years. Production work lasted around 2.5 years.

"Despite being based on an existing IP, I felt the project offered a surprisingly high degree of creative freedom," he recalls.

"As I touched on earlier, each Umamusume in the game has her own deeply developed, individual story, and all of these exist simultaneously as ‘what-if’ worlds.

"On top of that, by incorporating drama based on real-life racehorses and their human connections, new inspiration is bound to come as long as the history of horse racing continues. It is an incredibly powerful format capable of generating an infinite breadth of stories.

"Furthermore, because the foundation is sports, you can pivot the tone toward comedy, gritty realism, delicate drama, or even a touch of romance without it feeling frivolous or silly the way a gag episode might in an action series. I believe that’s one of the real strengths of this franchise."

Among the ideas Yamamoto brought to the table, one was to use vehicular sounds in Agnes Tachyon’s scenes rather than the usual, expected sounds of a person running.

She serves as a key character in the movie and was ultimately brought to life through "the hum of a vending machine, the clatter of a train, and the roar of cars passing over a bridge".

Yamamoto notes this concept came to fruition after extensive discussions with Yota Tsuruoka, the film’s music director. Yamamoto had long been a fan of his work and asked him to be involved in the project.

"I feel like he essentially retrained me from the ground up on how to approach and think about filmmaking. For example, in the Hopeful Stakes race where Jungle Pocket runs, we didn’t use any background music at all. Instead, we treated it like a racing documentary. That was actually Tsuruoka-san’s suggestion."

Gamer to creator

Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era follows the story of Jungle Pocket, inspired by a real Japanese thoroughbred who raced from 2000 to 2002. In the film, Jungle Pocket’s mission is to win the Triple Crown series of races. Other characters making appearances include Dantsu Flame, Agnes Tachyon and Manhattan Cafe.

When it released in Japan, the movie drew "a surprising amount of interest" from people who had never encountered Umamusume before and Yamamoto explains that the characters have "a slightly different vibe" compared to the previous anime series. At the same time, he made sure to include Easter Eggs and small details specifically for established fans.

"A lot of buzz from the existing fanbase touched on those details," he adds.

Yamamoto hasn’t attended any overseas showings yet, but he notes that Yuri Fujimoto, who voices Jungle Pocket, recently attended a screening in Thailand.

"I was born in Canada and I lived there until I was 12, so I’m incredibly excited about the North American release," Yamamoto says.

"Unfortunately, the project I’m currently working on is at a critical stage, so it’s unlikely I’ll be able to see the local reception in person. If the opportunity arises, I’d love to see how audiences outside of Japan react to the film."

We ask whether he considered an international audience while working on the Japanese version of the film. Yamamoto answers that he isn’t well-versed in the preferences of anime fans overseas, but had "the impression that battle-focused action series were the primary draw".

"Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking about an international release at the time," he discloses.

But, he believes that anywhere on Earth, "an otaku is an otaku", in reference to the Japanese term: a subculture of people obsessed with media like manga or games.

In fact, Yamamoto considers himself an "ordinary anime otaku". He’s a fan of the Umamusume: Pretty Derby game and was already hooked on it before getting involved in the transmedia franchise.

"I had already watched season two of the anime since I was a fan of director Kei Oikawa’s work on Hinamatsuri. As for the game, it was actually my first time playing a mobile game, but I started two weeks after release and played every day - I became quite addicted," he reveals.

It wasn’t long before Yamamoto was brought on board to direct the film - about six months after the release of the game in Japan. He recalls his excitement at first learning about the project, and shares what was his immediate reaction: "Heck yeah!"

"Back then, I was even daydreaming to myself, ‘Man, we should totally turn King Halo’s scenario into a movie’," he adds.

The transmedia trend

Whether it’s Mario, Sonic or Angry Birds, numerous game franchises are jumping on the transmedia trend with theatrical film releases. What’s more, many aren’t just riding the coattails but are bringing further fuel to the movement, like 2025’s A Minecraft Movie which earned double its production budget in just two days.

Yamamoto suggests that, in Japan, the anime industry is widely recognised as a growing economic force. He believes it’s "somewhat natural" that games would look to anime for IP promotion.

"Beyond just advertising, I find it heartening to see more cases where these projects are being crafted as genuine works of art in their own right. Plus, since I’m the type of otaku who actually plays the games, I simply have a lot of fun watching game-based adaptations and talking about them."

To conclude, we ask Yamamoto about his own career moving forward, and potential interest in adapting more games into anime movies, shows or even live action.

"If the opportunity arises, I definitely want to do as much as I can in any project I’m involved with. While I don’t have any experience in live action, Japanese animation has evolved in part by referencing and emulating live-action cinema, so I am certainly interested. I suppose I’d have to start by learning how to actually handle a camera though," he answers.

"Unlike animation, live action feels like a medium where so much happens in real time on the day, so if I were to take it on, I’d want to make sure I’m properly prepared."

As for right now, Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era is trotting to theatres on February 27th, 2026.

Images in this article are the copyright of ©2024 Umamusume: Pretty Derby Movie Animation Project.

We recently hosted the Transmedia Summit at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2026, delving into game adaptations across entertainment mediums. Learn more at future PGC events.