>>280294247
Season 1 is the most soulless season. It's simply a pure gacha ad. The very premise of Suzuka continuing her career in America instead of going through the fatal injury is basically promoting career aspect of the game. It's there to sell you the "alternative path" -- the one you can build. And then to cap it all off, they have a grand race where horses from multiple generations come together and race off. A pure fanservice slop scenario. Which is honestly okay, because that's what the game is all about. But it's not an intriguing story to say the least.
Season 2 turns the "dream" of it all over but cleverly retains the hopeful side by adapting a true story, having Teio go through her(his) career ending injury yet win the Arima Kinen despite the handicap, something that actually happened in real life and dubbed 奇跡の復活 (miraculous revival) Teio never managed to run like that afterwards just like she admits herself in the show but god damn if it wasn't a performance of sheer will and this ended up being the season that made the game popular.
And then season 3 finally introduces the concept of "hitting your peak" to represent the end of the real life horses 3-to-5 years old Classics runs. The harsh reality of uma musume's measly small time careers are finally put into spotlight. Meaning your times in the big leagues are over, so you get sent to the retirement league. Obviously real horses don't have that but "retirement league" is not a foreign concept in the field of sports, most well known examples being Messi in Miami or Ronaldo in Saudis. Sure the writing of season 3 was subpar, but it had so much more emotional maturity than season 1 with its worldbuilding that I have to commend it.