My Little Pony: Pony Life

Am a fan of 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'. Sure all of the nine seasons had at least one misfire, but when the show was at its best it was fantastic and made for one of the best animated shows in recent years. Was actually not expecting to love it so much but it is a fine example of not judging a book by its cover or something with prejudice (with it being a show that breaks the stereotypes of the show being a toy commercial excuse or just for girls in primary school).

Was really hoping that 'My Little Pony: Pony Life' would be good, even if it was not quite that show's level. It didn't look great at all and neither was the marketing particularly, but after 'Friendship is Magic' bettered all expectations there was the feeling "what if the show turned out to be better than it looks and sounds". It saddens me to say that 'My Little Pony: Pony Life' was a huge disappointment and as bad as others have cited it as. Have gone against the grain quite a number of times with my opinions, but not this time sadly. This is also coming from somebody who has never had a problem with the 'My Little Pony' franchise, while being mindful that its appeal is not as wide ranging as 'Friendship is Magic' turned out.

'My Little Pony: Pony Life's' only redeeming quality is the voice acting, though all did better elsewhere. Everybody nobly made the most of what they're given, with well beneath them material, and give energy and nuance to character writing that is anything but.

However, so much is wrong. In fact, everything else fails and at worst disastrously so. The animation has a very rushed and careless look, no vibrancy or imagination here and it just felt indicative of rushed production and not particularly high budget. The music is never dynamic with the action and is quite cheesy at times. The theme tune also grates.

The storylines have no soul or charm, and almost all of them are very thin, predictable and overly-simple. The writing is very childish and goes too far on the cutesiness, complete with an over-reliance on limp, never imaginative and non-sophisticated slapstick. The moralising can be tacked on and heavy-handed and are not near as relatable as those in 'Friendship is Magic'. After that show did such a wonderful job at providing plenty for people of all ages and genders and breaking away from the ignorant target audience stereotype people have for anything 'My Little Pony' related, 'Pony Life' dumbs down and reinforces it.

Which is going to make it hard for older viewers to enjoy likely and even younger viewers may find it too juvenile. The character writing is far from complex, none of the characters are interesting or easy to relate to (even at times not having much personality). Instead they are all shallow cliches and have excessively overblown character flaws, am aware that a number of episodes of 'Friendship is Magic' were guilty of this but not to this extreme an effect. The chemistry is very disconnected and they don't come over like friends.

Concluding, very poor. 2/10.

The more i watch this show it seems the more i don't like it as much. Voices have change. Took a little too long for characters to come in. Some characters seem more dull than others and it's just okay now.

Okay lets think when discord showed up. They kinda tried to ship fluttershy with discord. Voice actors have changed. It's just.. Weird

Which at least i remembered watching that show.

this gen (not sure if it's supposed to be gen 4.5 or 5) however, isn't really that interesting to me. things are fast paced, art style of the animation looks like an inspiration of gacha life, and the reboot itself flopped.

First, let's clarify something here, this show isn't about ponies anymore; they were thrown out of the window in the first few minutes. The characters look and behave more like cats... weird pig-nosed cats, but I digress.

Pony Life is a vacuous and fairly pointless show but then I suppose it is distracting enough and it is worth a look if you want to be overwhelmed with nonsense for half an hour and have no demands for anything that could be considered "good" in the traditional sense of the term.

And to be honest, it's not the most awful show ever made but it's still an incoherent hyperactive mess slapped together without any coherent message, purpose, character development, story or context whatsoever... with the added "benefit" of having potentially harmful affects on its younger viewers.

For example, there wasn't even an explanation as where those potions come from and why the "ponies" are so eagerly chugging them for no apparent reason. It seems that when they get bored, they drink potions that in turn, do something random. The problem is, so far the effects are always completely irrelevant to the plot.

Speaking of chugging potions when bored. These "ponies" don't' seem to know or even care about what they are drinking. It's hard to not see some sort of uncomfortable parallel between this and alcohol/drug abuse and parents trying to teach young children to *not* drink unknown chemicals that can be found under a kitchen sink.

In summary, Pony Life is at best, mediocre. There are much better shows out there that are actually worth watching and where the writers and animators actually put efforts into them.

My daughters love FIM and the movies. When I saw this, I showed them and the look on my 7 year old's face said it all. The new animated style is terrible. My girls would love for the series to return as it was before, but their interest in this is lacking. Too bad, looks like another show will have to reap the marketing rewards for this one.