My Little Pony – Friendship is Magic Cartoon (English)

December 8th, 2011

Today, we’re talkin’ ponies.

At New York Comic-Con several people I consider to be good friends insisted I simply must watch the new My Little Pony – Friendship is Magic series. These are people whose opinions and sanity I trust so, when the opportunity presented itself, I began to watch the first episode. While I watched that first episode I live-blogged on Twitter, which was pretty hilarious all on its own, as people started to react to my comments.

Zac Bertschy of ANN called it spot on, when he said that everyone would tell me that I had to watch at least 6 episodes to really get into it. (Meta commentary FTW!) I admit that a few episodes in, I was begining to question my friendships with those aforementioned people. But indeed, around Episode 6, something happened. The dialogue, which always had a bit of snark, turned extra snarky. When they trotted a Pinky and The Brain reference out, I realized that we had been given a series as close as were are gonna get to the old Bugs Bunny cartoons that were written simultaneously on two levels, one for the kids and one for the adults to enjoy.

The lead pony, Twilight Sparkle is, well gosh, she’s me. She’s short-tempered, bookish, too smart for her own good and can’t stop researching stuff. The rest of the ponies are likable, with some really weird personality quirks – Pinky Pie is especially confusing until you realize that she’s not so much a ditz, she’s just a really out-of-the-box thinker. But, what’s really drawing in the Yuri fans is tomboyish Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash isn’t really, specifically tomboyish, except insofar that she’s active and confident in her flying skills to the point of being brash. And she’s got the rainbow as her mane and tail, so duh, she’s obviously gay!

Ratings:

Art – Kind of creative, really. The unicorns use their magic to move stuff around, so there’s no question of need for hands – 8
Characters – 8
Story – Variable. On the most moralistic episodes, it can be an eye-rolling 4, but on the good episodes, it gets up to 8
Yuri – 0, but don’t think I’m not trying
Service – (O_o)

Overall – 8

Unless Twilight and Rainbow get together as a couple, I’m not calling this a “Yuri” series or anything, but for mindless fun, unfortunate morals of the story and a large serving of nasty humor, I guess I recommend My Little Pony – Friendship is Magic.

7 Responses

  1. Helen says:

    I have to admit, I don’t know why people are so quick to say that Rainbow Dash is a lesbian but it’s still a rather cute little series.

  2. moritheil says:

    “These are people whose opinions and sanity I trust . . . “

    I laughed, hard. Not having followed My Little Pony, I’m curious as to why you say there are unfortunate moral implications to the show.

    Re: Rainbow Dash, I’ve also always believed it’s something to do with her rainbow colored theme and hair which vaguely resembles dyed punk hair.

  3. Anonymous says:

    It’s not really Yuri because the series is never going to go into that level of relationship with any of them, but with a primarily-female cast (main and supporting) there is plenty of opportunities for Yuri-colored glasses to find something to focus on.

  4. Candy says:

    A bunch of friends that I end up at anime conventions with every year suggested I watch MLP FIM (that and all the fuss about it, I’m the type who will check something out before I finalize my judgement on something). Least to say I LOVE the series (kind of knew I would before I watched it too).

    Where you’re Twilight sparkle I’m Pinkie Pie so I’m glad you mentioned her not being so much of a ditz XD. It makes me happy!

    It’s a good series and good series can bypass stereotypes (though I expected to like the series I feared it’d be like it’s predecessors in lameness).

    Rainbow Dash is my second favorite pony as well and it has nothing to do with the assuption that she’s the lesbian of the group. This series suffers kind of like Sailor Moon did with it’s mostly all female cast. Since we have only real females to work with most fans pair them together (not a bad thing but when Makoto has through out the anime mentioned boyfriends galore and in fanfiction suddenly is a lesbian it seems a bit off). I’m even guilty of shipping her and Pinkie pie in my little world sometimes.

    Welcome to the herd XD.

  5. Anonymous says:

    If Rainbow Dash is a lesbian then Twilight is bisexual.

  6. Haze-man says:

    This is my favorite show currently on the air. I love how it progresses.

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