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My Thoughts on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
15 years ago
General
http://www.dawnchapel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/miscommunication.jpg After a few months and a zillion pestering friends later, I finally decided to sit down and watch a few episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. After sitting down and thinking about it for a bit, I have finally reached an opinion: it's good, but not great.
First off, the animation is pretty clean. Despite being Flash animated, all the characters have a nice clean, cut look and animate very smoothly on screen. The show definitely has a distinct style that works quite well with the show's theme. So in terms of looks, MLP nails it.
Next is the actual substance. That's where MLP falls somewhat flat. Granted, it's a show aimed at children, and is designed (let's face it) to sell toys. But a little depth wouldn't have hurt. The series starts with some storyline about a villainous "demon pony" (I just can't seem to remember her name) who is trying to rid the land of Equistria (get it?) of sunlight, casting it in darkness forever. That's some pretty heavy stuff for a show about talking ponies. Basically, the story just sets up the stage for the five main characters to meet and become friends and have adventures and yadda yadda yadda. I'll admit I was impressed with the way it was handled. But after the Darkness storyline is completed, it just goes to the Ponies having cutesy adventures and learning lessons. Perfect for children, but not for someone older than 11. It's basically seemed like something I could find on PBS Kids.
So to recap: this show's got some definite style, but little in the way of substance, which is expected. However, it definitely doesn't warrant this crazy obsession everyone seems to be having with them. I literally heard someone refer to this as one of the best cartoons ever, even comparing it to Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. No it's not. Foster's had a rowdy, unpredictability to it that made it such a joy to watch. MLP? I literally could predict how each episode would go before I was even half way through. So to recap: It's a show made for kids. Just because Gennedy Tartorovosky's wife is working on it does not mean it's automatically fantastic.
MLP could be a great show later on if they attempt to do something more with it, but for now it just falls on "mildly entertaining". Hopefully, this whole "PONIEZ OMG" phase will end soon. And we can all hop onto the next crazy fad like we always do.
(Feel free to comment and debate politely. Any rude comments will be ignored.)
The development of a MLP fanboy.
Your video is horrifying. This video is horrifying. EVERYTHING IS HORRIFYING
i am horrified.
I wouldn't consider it one of the greatest cartoons ever by any stretch of the imagination, and I think the obsession is creepy as hell and another case of "oh for fuck's sake internet" (See TF2, Minecraft, etc.), but I personally consider it an enjoyable show, and more importantly a HUGE step forward for pre-teen girl's educational programming.
(And I'm not angry about the show. It's unrealistic to expect it to be deep. I will admit the characters are amusing. On a side note, I realized the little dragon guy looks kind of like Spyro)
poooniiiiiies
Wow that is fun :v
Your argument is invalid now...
That series was utter shit after the first three episodes.
As for the pony fad.
Well, if you put too much into these things you'll just get frustrated. Honestly, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is just some good-nature fun, there is no point to it aside from a vehicle for selling toys and teaching some simple life-lessons to children, but it's just a fun show to watch.
Also, unlike most shows for kids, the characters are actually well-defined and have actual personalities(and if you believe what the internet says, lesbian undertones, which the more I watch of the series, the more I can spot them). There is also potential for character development(such as the episode about Pinkie-pie's Parkinson's disease, where Twilight learns that not everything can have a clear-cut and logical answer, and that she just needs to learn to accept that certain things will always remain a mystery), as well as a good bit of adventure(one example is in the Pinkie-pie Parkinson's disease episode, with a freakin' hydra popping up, trying to eat the band of ponies, another deals with a bit of a snooty show-off named Trixie[Who apparently is a fan favorite in certain circles], and a giant bear rampages through ponyville).
But then again, in the world of anime and manga, my tastes go more towards the character driven stories of the Shoujo genre, in adverse to the action driven stories of Shounen, so I guess it's because this pony cartoon probably has a better budget than the recent Transformers series this time around that more people are watching it, in adverse from back in the day, when girls watched my little pony, and boys watched Transformers.
Then again, unlike with Transformers where they can almost always be linked to wars and physical conflicts, My Little Pony is entirely about making your own fun.
But I guess it doesn't matter in the end. Some other fad will replace this one, anyway.
Need I bring up Pokemon and how it started over here?
That is all.