woah

3 reasons i love umamusume air groove

Because to be honest I would have skipped her based on looks and short blurb alone (I am sorry!!)... But when the mobile game came out I planned to still do everyone's careers and I did Air Groove's and well... now she has my heart!

Reason 1

I feel like it's such a small part of Air Groove and everything she is but it was genuinely the first thing that comes to mind when I think about what made me fall in love with Air Groove. She's quite a serious and dedicated Umamusume who's always running around attending to her duties as Vice President of Tracen's student council as well as being an active role model for younger students (such as Mejiro Dober, etc.). But in the New Year's Resolutions event, Air Groove realises that you/her trainer1 hasn't done any celebratory/holiday activities and she's like 'I'm making you do something festive now'. You learn that Air Groove takes celebrating holidays very seriously because it provides variety to our lives and thus helps us have a fulfilling year (alongside being a big thing at Tracen too). And I think it's kinda moe but also fitting to her character as someone who does things sincerely. Learning about her mother later on in her career and how she's more energetic and peppy as opposed to Air Groove's more serious personality is also very cute and somehow I think that might partly explain this trait of hers.

Reason 2

Another event from Air Groove's mobile game career that I found fascinating and drew me in to her more is the Ideals For Whose Benefit event with Dober. Basically, Dober is struggling with her training and Air Groove notices this and goes over to ask Dober about what she strives for as a racer, offering her own goals of chasing after and surpassing her mother and being a guide for all Umamusume as an example. Dober says that her main goal at the moment is really to not be an embarrassment to the Mejiro family, but confesses that she has no 'ideal', or someone to chase after. Here, Air Groove says "Chase after me, Dober... If you don't have one of your own... Let me be your ideal." I found this striking because I feel like Air Groove's choice of words (especially the 'if you don't have one of your own') acknowledges a temporal aspect that does not come up much in the Umamusume world. It kind of doesn't really help my case when Dober does go on to take Air Groove as Her (forever) Ideal2, but when a lot of Umas never really touch on a time limit to their goals and ideals, thus implying that, alongside a contained depiction of Umas and their goals, it'll be forever3, much less any sort of regular passage of time that we have in the real world4, I thought it was veryyy interesting. Not even to mention how by having her say that, Air Groove's writer/s reveal much about her personality as someone considerate and understanding as opposed to, say, Rudolf (who has a similar goal) who I think is more dominant and uncompromising about it.5

Reason 3

Ok this is so fan service-y (although reason 1 is also fan service-y...) but it's the Take Good Care of Your Tail event where Air Groove imagines you/her trainer with a tail like Umas and she's like 'I'd make sure to give you a strict talking-to about proper tail care' with a smile on her face. Shoot me, IDC.

Air Groove!!!

I could probably say a lot more things about what I like about Air Groove, but I also think a lot of it is visible here (...). But she is sooo good and unfortunately seriously underrated in the English speaking Umamusume fandom as I see it, so I wanted to write up a little something about her and why I love her. I hope you can see a bit of Air Groove's charms here!

  1. In the mobile game the player is the trainer but I just put her trainer to. Why not. Just in case you aren't Air Groove trainer (but then why aren't you...???????? lol).↩

  2. In Air Groove's career event Your Ideal (I have not done Dober's career I confess), Dober wins a race and in a post-race interview is asked about her ideal, which she answers with Air Groove (in a declaration to challenge her at the Queen Elizabeth II Cup).↩

  3. E.g. Symboli Rudolf leading a new generation of Umamusume racing or other similar ideal-idealee (??) relationships like Pocket Jungle and Fuji Kiseki.↩

  4. Probably a lot to be said about gacha/live service games and how they handle time in their media (where a lot of times characters never age/age in certain circumstances) while also relying heavily on real world time (for updates, etc., which often acknowledge our real world time in game, such as Halloween or New Year's events). I know it's really just a suspension of belief thing but I feel like there has to be something interesting to be said about the dynamic. Anyways, with Umamusume, no matter how many new characters are introduced, Rudolf (as of now - I know some gacha games like to introduce new eras where lots of things like ages change) remains President of the Student Council so she can forever chase her goal (and the student body can help her at that). Pokke and Fuji I think is even easier with or without this time consideration since the admiration would remain regardless whether Pokke overtakes Fuji (which she basically does in BOANE tbh) or Fuji retires, etc.↩

  5. I did do Rudolf's career but that was ten thousand years ago and I know a lot of people are Rudolf scholars so like let me know if you have differing thoughts.↩