Doctor Perseus Reviews: The Friendship Games Animated Shorts · 4:16am Sep 26th, 2015
Well, the time has come. Tomorrow marks the release of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Friendship Games. As with what happened with Rainbow Rocks, Hasbro created a series of animated shorts to tie into the upcoming film. Since the film is releasing tomorrow, I figured today would be a good time to review the shorts. So let's go ahead and start with...
The Science of Magic
This was a fun short and one that I was very happy to see. I'm just as interested as Sunset in figuring out how magic works in the human world. I very much liked how Sunset was more of the hands-on student. While Twilight is the type who learns best from reading, Sunset is the type who learns best from action. Her experiments with the human Mane 5 were a lot of fun. And I'm sure I could delve into my inner 13-year-old to make a dirty joke about Rainbow Dash shooting magic rainbow stuff out of Sunset's computer but I'm not going to. I'll just leave that for the folks over at /mlp.
Pinkie Spy
This was also a fun short. It's always nice to see Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie play off each other. Of course, it's a little predictable with the whole "the person trying to shut up the noisy person is the one to get caught" routine. But it was still fun to see it play out with these two. There's not a whole much else to say aside from simply enjoying Pinkie Pie's antics and Rainbow Dash's reactions. There aren't any notable human counterparts of background ponies in the group of Crystal Prep students we see so there's not much to talk about there. Pinkie Pie's costumes were great though. Loved the dog burglar outfit the best.
All's Fair in Love & Friendship Games
Seriously. The creators aren't even trying to hide that they ship Lyra and Bon Bon as well. While in Equestria it appeared that Bon Bon was the weirdest of the pair, EG's Lyra and Bon Bon appear to be equally strange. I loved seeing their various random competitions. My favorite bit had to be the quick parody to old-school fighting games. I definitely agreed with Micro Chips's reaction to the whole spectacle. It's no surprise that they made the team together but it was interesting to see them have such strong competitive sides.
Photo Finished
Another short to highlight a background-ish character. It was fun seeing that EG's Photo Finish is just as eccentric as her pony counterpart, if not a bit more so. I especially liked how she was, in the end, able to capture such great pictures in spite of her appearing to mess everyone up. And poor Vice Principal Luna didn't stand a chance at the end. 
Overall, this was just a really fun short.
A Banner Day
And here we come to the final short and the one that probably experienced the most backlash due to starring a certain infamous character. But I must say that I really enjoyed this short as well. Albeit small, Flash's character received a bit more fleshing out here. I liked how he, Micro Chips, and Sandalwood interacted with each other and how, in the end, their differing ideas meshed into a nice combination. I must also take note that Vice Principal Luna seems to be in charge of the preparations for the Games given that Principal Celestia was absent for all five shorts. Good for you, Luna.
And those were the Friendship Games animated shorts and I think they acted as great tie-ins for the upcoming film. I am eagerly looking forward to seeing Friendship Games. But don't expect my review of it tomorrow. Tomorrow's already booked for my double review of MLP's Made in Manehattan and Doctor Who's The Witch's Familiar. If I end up seeing it tomorrow, my review of it will come by Sunday at the earliest.
So what did the rest of you think of the Friendship Games animated shorts?
Yeah, when I saw the Lyra and Bon Bon short, I was like they're not even being coquettish about it. The LyraBon is as all up in your face as it can be without being explicit.
So like with the Rainbow Rocks shorts, how would you rate the Friendship Games shorts from favorite to least favorite and why?
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1. The Science of Magic (just loved seeing Sunset's experiments and seeing EG elaborate more on the curious nature of magic in the human world)
2. All's Fair in Love & Friendship Games (seeing Lyra and Bon-Bon have a crazy showdown was just a lot of fun)
3. A Banner Day (I liked seeing how the three characters bounced off each other and I enjoyed seeing a bit more fleshing out in Flash's character)
4. Photo Finished (Photo Finish was a lot of fun but it got a little repetitive)
5. Pinkie Spy (Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were fun together but there's not much else to the short aside from that)
What are your thoughts?