My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Last Time on My Little Pony

Wow. My Little Pony is back!!!!!!!! The newest incarnation of the animated series based off of the popular line of dolls immediately caught my attention by featuring some old classical characters like Twilight, Apple Jack and Spike.

Lead by Lauren Faust, who was also behind the scenes of Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, the series 2 part opener deals with an evil force trying to bring eternal darkness to the world, a nod to the original TV pilot in the 80s which also featured Twilight, Apple Jack and Spike prominently. Twilight is sent out on a journey with the other main pony girls, Apple Jack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinky Pie to rescue their princess, Princess Celestia, from her evil sister Nightmare Moon.



What this new series does that I find genius is that is pays homage to it's roots while also taking the series in a new direction. There's still fun songs and there's grand adventures just like how it was the 80s. The ponies are treated as geniune, strong and fully realized characters. Apple Jack is now a butch farm girl with a huge farming family. Rainbow Dash could have easily been a throwaway girly girl type character, but here she's represented as hot headed and passionate about flying across the sky with the bestest pegasi out there.  Even the "cute" characters like Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinky Pie (my personal favorite) are more about their comedic timing than their foofiness. Our main character in the series, Twilight (Tara Strong), has the possibility of growing into a character who no doubt will be led on a heroes journey. Possibly.

While this first outing was an awesome adventure with interesting characters and interaction, I fear that future episodes won't be as epic and will take the "slice of life" approach that plagued the My Little Pony Tales TV series in the 90s and the 1st reboot of the Strawberry Shortcake franchise. I can only hope that with Lauren Faust at the helm that the show becomes as awesome as Powerpuff Girls. I especially hope it does well so Lauren Faust can get with Christy Marx to get the gears on Jem's comeback rolling. Come on ladies. :-)

My Little Pony - The Complete First Season - Watch the original classic before catching the newer version