Friday, Feb. 27, the United States premiere of “Uma Musume: Pretty Derby – Beginning of a New Era” (2024) is coming to Strosacker Auditorium. As part of the CWRU Film Society’s third-quarter lineup, they will host three showings at 7 p.m., 9 p.m. and 11:59 p.m.

“Uma Musume: Pretty Derby,” the game, is set in a world in which no horses exist. Instead, these horse-girl hybrids race each other in the competitive circuit. The horse girls are based on real-life Japanese race horses, both in name and personality.

Based on the video game of the same name, “Uma Musume: Pretty Derby – Beginning of a New Era” (2024) tells the story of Jungle Pocket’s journey to become the fastest horse girl, encountering a polar-opposite rival, obsession and the difficulties of horse girl racing along the way. This novel premise is part of the reason the property garnered a cult following.

It is from this cult following that the idea for the screening emerged. Second-year Film Society member, Say Mead, said the idea came from the club’s interests, “People like anime, so everyone would just start referencing ‘Uma Musume.’ And it just became, like a funny little inside joke.”

It was a happy accident that Case Western Reserve University was part of the premiere. After interest in the movie was shown, third-year and Film Society Director Eddie Rodriguez reached out to the distributors to request a showing for their fourth quarter. “I emailed the distributor while asking if we could show it in April,” said Rodriguez, “And they were like, no, but you can premiere it instead.”

From there, the Film Society was able to adapt its previously planned showings to accommodate the premiere. Instead of removing any films from their lineup, Saturday will instead have a double feature. “Uma Musume: Pretty Derby” coupled with this weekend’s showings of “Killer Bean Forever” (2008) and “Parkour Civilization” (2024), creating what Rodriguez dubbed “Brainrot weekend.”

As funny as the concept of an anime horse girl movie premiere sounds, its showing also holds a deeper purpose. “We are trying to improve the diversity of our programming,” said Rodriguez. This premiere marks an effort to bring overseas films and diverse directors to the CWRU community and further enrich the campus zeitgeist.

To hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, when asked about their final thoughts on bringing a premiere to campus, Rodriguez said, “I am bewildered [the] Film Society is premiering a movie about anime horse girls racing, as in regular horse racing.”