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.

While I loved MLP: FIM (since the older MLP was one of those shows I used to loved as a lil girl and felt FIM was a good show I could use to bond with my then toddler son circa 2014), this spin off is so stupid. It reminds me to freaking TTG. FIM was one of the best episodic western cartoons I've seen in a very long time. However, this spin off is just horrible. Those aren't my brave mare six, just some mockery of them.

As a fan of the original show, I was quite sad to see it go and wished they could have continued it with a tenth season. When this show was announced, I was skeptical because of how much of a downfall comedic reboots have been since Teen Titans Go!. But, I decided to give it a chance since many of the staff of past MLP shows and movies in the 2010's would be working on this show. My thoughts on MLP: Pony Life are definitely better than what I was expecting. I definitely couldn't call it the Teen Titans Go! of MLP because Teen Titans Go! is bad in so many ways.

My thoughts on the first two episodes: Both episodes had some funny jokes and the animation that had a very energized flow, which is common for comedic shows. The Mane 6 are their usual selves from the original, but there are a few changes like Applejack being able to break the fourth wall and Fluttershy's "dark side" being front and center more than the original. There's also much greater focus put on there more comedic sides of their characterizations from the original like Twilight's crazy overreactions, Rarity's drama, Celestia's goof ball moments, and I actually think that's one of the things that makes Celestia stand out more in the original. The voice acting is phenomenal as usual, and the characters do sound like they usually did in the original show.

I do have a couple of critiques of this show so far. One is the running time. I felt like the first episode was rather rushed with Pinkie's dilemma about being under pressure, and I think the episode could have spent more time to focus on that with her coming to grips of just being herself with a more better pace so that viewers who can relate to messing up under pressing could relate to it more. With a twenty minute running time like the original instead of eleven, I do think that could have made better pacing. Another critique I have but hopefully this will be addressed in later episodes, is that fan favorite characters from the original like Discord, Princess Luna, and "The Great and Powerful Trixie!" aren't in this show. I really hope they will appear in later episodes because they really helped established an identity for the original, and they always had so many great moments.

My overall thoughts: I think it's just okay. Not bad as a start, it's way better than Teen Titans Go!, it will obviously not surpass the original because of how much of the original established among itself with its world and characters, but I do think this show is nice enough to serve as a coping mechanism for a very great show that helped give the 2010's cartoons an identity with its comedy and likable characters. I don't really think it needed to exist since we can simply watch reruns of the original as it had over 200 episodes which is pretty impressive and good for binge watching , but I still think it's good enough and it may probably improve later on hopefully.

People have, ever since the inception of the franchise, debated over whether or not the first few My Little Pony-iterations were actually good. However, it doesn't seem to matter if you were a fan from the beginning or if you found yourself in the 'brony'-end of the spectrum; everyone seemed to agree that My Little Pony Tales (AKA Gen 3.5) was absolute garbage.

Now we have a new 'in-betweener' show, and it seems to go in a similar direction (AKA, it's not very good). After finishing the long-running critical success that was My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, it only makes sense that Hasbro wants to keep the brand alive while waiting for Gen 5 to come out. However, setting it in the same universe as Gen 4 was probably not the best creative decision on Hasbro's part, because those horseshoes proved too big to fill.

Personally, I became a fan of Gen 4 around the second season, and while I didn't expect to get sucked in, there was a certain something about the production that spoke to me. Granted, I lost interest around season 6, and that was mostly because the show was slowly replacing charming character-driven stories with talks about diplomacy, warfare, bland backstories, and other tired storytelling tropes that only people without imaginations would care about.

However, as much as the later seasons sucked, at least the good parts were really good; the slow pace allowed the characters a lot of room to breathe and grow, the animation was very fluid and expressive, the colors were muted yet felt earthy and vibrant in tone, and the whole framing device of learning about friendship and all its nuances was a genius way to move the plot and characters forward. The first few seasons even poked fun of itself a lot by showing how a horse-centric society would look like, all while telling amusing horse-puns.

Pony Life is a whole different beast altogether. Running at half the running time of a normal Gen 4 episode, this show strips the whole character interaction and growth bit from the equation and turns it into strictly a comedy show. That in itself is not a bad move, and there are enough differences in mood and behavior to distinguish this from the better show. For what it is worth, the show is very bouncy, it is animated alright and it is intermittently chuckle-worthy for a younger audience.

However, in terms of the technical aspects, the show feels very sloppy. The muted earthy color schemes and depth of field have both been replaced with more stark colors and flat shapes. Everything's framed on the same level, making the world feel flat and poorly composited. These would probably be very minor offenses had the show been its own thing, but it is a continuation of a show that did all these things a whole lot better; it is not living up to its superior predecessor.

All in all, it is just kind of meh. It isn't awful, but it isn't very good either. It will probably be fun for your kids, but a bit exhausting for anyone else who watches it for too long.

I would be much more harsh, but honestly, its hard to get mad at, its terrible, but harmless. Its best to ignore it and not see it as canon.