Age of The Nerd
In 2013 Hasbro Studios did a pretty risky thing with one of their biggest franchises. They decided to take My Little Ponies and humanize them in a movie called My Little Pony: Equestria Girls. In that film one of the characters, Twilight Sparkles, discovers a mirror which allows her to travel into an alternate universe in order to recover a crown that was stolen from the Crystal Empire. Upon her arrival she is horrified to learn that she has turned into a human. This was a risky move for Hasbro because being magical ponies was their schtick.
Though there isn’t any four-legged characters walking around, I’m assuming it was a hit with the My Little Pony community because Hasbro decided to bring the Esquestria Girls back a few more times since. Now the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls have an all-new show which just premiered on Youtube. I had a chance to catch a good chunk of the upcoming 45 episodes still yet to air and there’s quite a bit to be said about the series.
Being that I was never a fan of the My Little Pony franchise, I try to look at a series like this as if it’s something that I think a younger family member would enjoy. With that being said, I think that this is something the 5-12 age group would enjoy.
The episodes are a little over 2 minutes each so they are more of a shorts type of format. Usually I’m against animated series being under 20 minutes but seeing as this streams on Youtube it makes more sense to have the short format. It goes back to the days of the black and white shorts that would play before a feature film. Within the little over 2 minute episodes, each character has an episode where they are under the spotlight a bit more than the others. There’s even some more music based episodes. Now just because the episodes are short don’t think that you can binge watch them just yet. A new episode is released every Friday so until the whole season is released, you won’t be able to binge.
The cast from the other My Little Pony series are back which is a good thing for fans of the franchise. Familiar voices back are Tara Strong, Ashleigh Ball, Andrea Libman, Rebecca Shoichet, Tabitha St. Germain and newer additions are Andrew Toth and Ali Liebert, along with a few others.
Going back to the Hasbro taking a risk have the ponies turn more human-like. This is probably a really smart idea when it comes down to merchandise like toy lines. Another popular franchise around the 5-12 age group is Mattel’s Monster High franchise. The Equestria Girls are almost complete opposites of the Monster High characters but EG also have their own uniqueness like Monster High and gives that 5-12 age group more options.
If you’re a fan of the traditional MLP and especially love that they’re ponies, then this might not be the series for you. Without being ponies it’s almost like the Equestria Girls are almost like superheroes with their special abilities because the abilities are still there and the familiar looks carry over to this series as well. If you love everything MLP then you would most likely want to catch My Little Pony: Equestria Girls as soon as you can.
[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/7ncUGiGFQBs”]INSERT VIDEO HERE[/su_youtube_advanced]
