The End (or: How I Learned to Get Over the Big Gay Horses and Watch Other Shit) · 11:28pm Oct 12th, 2019
So. The show that's done a bang-up job of defining the last eight years of my life, for better or for worse, has finally come to an end. It's been... a rocky ride to say the least. Since the very beginning the fandom has been absolutely awash with controversies and outbursts of varying degrees of intensity. And depending on who you ask, the show may or may not have started going downhill to the point of being unwatchable after certain points in time. I'll even admit to being one of those people the same way I'm a filthy genwunner in Pokemon.
(actually it'd be more accurate to call me a genthree-er, but that's beside the point.)
Even though I haven't been following the show in a long time, I still love a lot about it. A lot of it is more conceptual now than it is actually represented by the show. I love the characters and the archetypes they represent. I like the idea of problems being solved by collaboration and compromise. I like the idea of a magical fantasy world that's at peace, and yet interesting and dangerous and magical things still happen that require attention without throwing the whole world out of balance. I like the idea of a show where we only get a very small window into the wider world and the rest of the world seems mysterious and intriguing (even though that was kind of dropped after Season 4 from what I understand).
And, of course, I still love the fanfiction. Despite the fact that I find the show has slipped in quality over the years, I still manage to find fanfictions that improve upon the source material and make it significantly more interesting.
I'll admit, despite my distance from the show... seeing it finally go out is sad. This show has defined a good chunk of my life (as well as a fair portion of my written library).
...BUT
While it would probably be my natural inclination to get all melancholy and mopey as I lamented over all this shit we'd lost and how it all went so horribly, horribly wrong (seriously, the saga of MLP is like a real life manifestation of a Greek Tragedy), I'm going to take this time to focus on the living rather than the dead.
Since MLP is coming to a close, we'll have to get our kicks from other places. For me, I've gotten most of my entertainment since dropping MLP like a hot potato out of countless hours poured into games like Fallout 4 or Skyrim, and a significant amount of time spent over on Spacebattles reading fanfics about completely different series.
But there have been some shows that have either come out (and some already-finished shows that I've discovered) since dropping MLP that give me that same sense of wonder and interesting characters to enjoy the way MLP did. So instead of moping about the 'loss' of MLP, I'd like to highlight a few series that I think, if you enjoyed MLP for any of the same reasons I did, you might like as well.
So as we draw the curtain closed on our favorite hoers show, here are my recommendations for shows that you, yes YOU, should go and watch. Especially you, Wendell.
(That probably isn't your name but if there are any Wendells that see this blog it'll have been worth it to give them a jolt.)
No further stalling. Let's do dis shiet.
Tangled: the Series (a.k.a. Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure)
This is a show that grew on me really quickly. I've always been one of the "Tangled is Better than Frozen" guys, and I was really happy to revisit the characters from the movie.
Back in the 90's, it was actually really common practice for Disney to release series based on their movies. You had series based on The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tarzan, Timon and Pumbaa, Hercules, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and my personal favorite, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Most of these series were pretty good, and a couple were only kind of middling, but they're all at least worth a look.
In the 2000's, however, this practice was dropped almost immediately. You had Lilo and Stitch the series (which was good) and you had Emperor's New School (which was not). There would be a couple of later attempts to make movies based on Disney films, such as Tron: Uprising and the Lion Guard, but overall it seemed that making shows based off Disney movies was a thing of the past.
And then Tangled the Series showed up, and I have to say... if other shows based off Disney movies can reach this level of quality, then I would be down for revisiting this old trend.
Tangled the Series reminds me very heavily of the first two seasons of MLP. The first season especially rings very similar, as the whole first season takes place in a single kingdom (city state?) with a core cast of recurring and supporting characters, who all mostly seem to solve their problems through interpersonal cooperation after 22 minutes of wacky hijinks. Rapunzel herself is a precious cinnamon roll, Flynn Rider (who they now insist upon calling Eugene) is fun, and newcomer Cassandra is basically what you'd get if Rainbow Dash and Applejack did the DBZ fusion dance.
Also, the King is voiced by Clancy Brown.
The show opens right after the end of the movie with Rapunzel settling into her new life as a princess. Feeling cooped up in the palace, she goes on a bit of a joyride and ends up touching a magical somethingorother that she really should have known better than to touch because holy shit that thing looked evil seriously Rapunzel, why would you touch that thing? The next morning, all her magical hair has grown back after being cut off at the end of the movie, except instead of having the ability to heal people, now it's super strong, completely unbreakable, and she can control it like Medusa from Marvel Comics.
She then proceeds to... do absolutely nothing for the next 24 episodes. The first season is a slice of life comedy, you see, so nothing much really comes of it... until it's revealed in the season finale that she might have accidentally unleashed the apocalypse by touching the thing that she CLEARLY SHOULD NOT HAVE TOUCHED.
The series takes a turn in Season 2 when, after some apocalyptic magical gobbledygook, Rapunzel and her friends are forced to go on a journey across the magical land of Corona and beyond to save the world. The series is still pretty good, but it has some major tonal inconsistencies. The ongoing story starts getting pretty heavy across the course of season 2, and there are moments where shit gets really real and the characters are heavily affected... only for the next episode to be a "wacky problem of the week" episode and everybody is suddenly perfectly okay again and having wacky fun and nobody is pissed of at each other for the difficult choices they just made... only for the next episode to be back to the ongoing plot and everybody is mopey and sullen again.
Also, there's this one really stupid arc where they get stranded on an island for like 5 episodes and nothing fucking happens and that just sorta... resolves itself offscreen somehow?
Honestly, Season 2 had some serious ups and downs, but it's still well worth your time. Season 3 just started and I haven't seen the premiere yet, but I'm hoping that it'll improve upon the adventurous foundations of Season 2 and fix its more inconsistent tendencies.
Ducktales (2017)
This is one that you probably don't need me to recommend, but I'm going to do it anyway.
I was actually never that huge of a fan of the original Ducktales. I've watched some of it, but for whatever reason I just never got that into it (I was much more a fan of Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers).
However, the new Ducktales series is an absolute blast. The characters of Huey, Dewey, and Louie are significantly more fleshed out than they were in the original series, and Webby is no longer an annoying tagalong and actually has a purpose. The world is a fresh and interesting place, presenting a normal society with a great deal of magic and mystery underneath the surface.
Also, Scrooge McDuck is voiced by David Tennant.
Honestly, there's very little I can say that hasn't been said elsewhere on the internet. Good characters. Good worldbuilding. Good ongoing story arcs. Good character development. Good humor. Watch it. Season 3 is coming out soon, and I want to get a Season 4 out of this.
Adventures of the Gummi Bears (1985)
Let's stop talking about new shows for a little bit, and instead talk about something a bit more classic.
The Adventures of the Gummi Bears is often considered to be the original Disney Afternoon show, getting its start all the way back in 1985, even though it originally premiered on a different channel.
Rumor has it that the show was conceived when Disney CEO Michael Eisner noticed his son eating a pack of gummy bears. When Eisner asked about the mysterious candy that he'd apparently somehow never seen before, his son let him know that they were his favorite candy ever...
...so naturally he did the logical thing and went into work the next day and demanded that somebody make a show out of gummy bears.
Of course, the staff asked the logical question, "How the fuck are we supposed to make a show about fucking gummy bears?"
The executive basically said, "I don't know, that's for you to figure out. Do whatever you want. Go nuts."
Can you imagine a whole studio of creative writers and artists and directors basically being told that they had free reign to make whatever they wanted with virtually no restrictions other than the fact it had to be about bears? It's practically the holy grail for any creative person.
So naturally, we ended up with an epic high fantasy show about bears with the ability to bounce really high. Also dragons, monsters, wizards, evil knights, ogres, trolls, magic, ancient secret societies, lost kingdoms, sea serpents, potions, curses, medieval warfare, giant spiders, and basically just a whole bunch of crazy Tolkein, Lewis, and D&D inspired stuff, distilled to make it more kid friendly.
...with bears.
The show follows Zummi bear, Grammi Bear, Tummi Bear, Annoying Little Shit, Angry Drunk Uncle, and Loli Furry Jailbait, along with their new friends Cavin the young squire and Princess Calla, whom they meet by accident after having remained hidden from humanity for hundreds of years. They go on adventures and quests across the Kingdom of Dunwyn, looking for any clues as to what might have happened to the ancient city of Ursalia, the capital of the Great Gummi civilization, which mysteriously disappeared 500 years ago. Along the way, they are constantly harried by the evil Duke Igthorn and his army of ogres, who wants the Gummi Bears for his own nefarious purposes.
...Okay, my pitch makes it sound a little more epic than it might actually be, but it's still absolutely worth your time if you haven't already seen it.
Also, the theme song is a fuckin' banger.
I don't know who sings this theme song, but god bless him. He puts the fucking passion of a world-class opera singer belting out an aria into this song about bouncy bears. That's the kind of dedication I like to see.
Seriously. Look up this show if you can. It's so much better than it has any right to be.
Re:Zero
Okay, let's get away from the west and put our sights on the east. Let's get weeby up in here. And while we're at it, let's stop looking for light and fluffy shows and let's take a look at something dark.
Re:Zero is an isekai anime. You know, one of those things where a normal, everyday human gets transported to a fantasy land via some random mechanism and becomes the greatest hero in all the land.
...so basically, your average Human in Equestria story. It's actually pretty funny to me how the HiE trend in fanfiction eventually manifested as a popular trope in official media.
Except, unlike with most isekai anime where the main protagonist immediately becomes the strongest being alive and a beloved hero of the land, the main character of Re:Zero, Subaru Natsuki, has exactly no special abilities, no charisma, is completely penniless, and has nothing to his name except his unwavering (and often unjustified) positive attitude, an infatuation with a half-elf princess, and absolutely no idea of when it's time to give up.
Well, that's not entirely true. See, Subaru did gain one special power when he came to this new world. He can't die. Or, more accurately... he won't stay dead.
Subaru is basically caught in the worst of all Groundhog Day loops. Every time he dies he goes back to a previous "checkpoint," which frustratingly undoes a great deal of the good he's managed to do, and the checkpoints have a terrible tendency to take effect only after his most horrendous screw-ups.
Also, you know what they say... It's not paranoia if the world really is out to get you... And this world absolutely is. The world is filled with horrible, evil, wretched things, and, for various reasons, most of them have set their sights on him.
We learn about the world at the same rate that Subaru does. There's little in the way of massive exposition dumps, which is contrary to a lot of isekai animes. Instead, we usually learn the most about the world in the aftermath of Subaru committing some kind of horrible taboo, only for it to have to be explained to him just how badly he screwed up and why.
The world is fascinating... and also pretty fucking awful. There seems to be a grand total of seven actually decent human beings in the entire world, and even then, most of them are still damaged, crazy, prejudiced, secretly some kind of otherworldly fey creature, or fucking doomed to a fate worse than death in some way or another.
Subaru, for once, is an actually really likable anime protagonist. He's not smug or prideful or the ultimate badass... in fact he's actually something of a goofball. At the same time, though, he's not some kind of messianic "paragon of humility" or anything like that. He's a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but he's capable of learning and he's not an idiot. He makes bad decisions, sometimes even catastrophic decisions, and while his ability to go back in time helps him to anticipate and fix them sometimes, other times he has to work hard to deal with their consequences.
Also, he doesn't become some kind of super jaded badass who will kill himself to fix a tiny mistake. They establish that dying sucks a fat one and he hates going through it. In fact, at times he becomes downright paranoid and phobic of dying, it's so terribly unpleasant.
When the show opens, Subaru's positivity (even in the face of crushing reality) and constant over-exuberance comes off as grating and a little bit cringey... but the show humanizes him very quickly and later scenes when he's dealing with the horrible existential torment of his situation and having complete mental breakdowns really do a lot to make you feel for him. And some of them hit a little too close to home when it really dawns on him just how useless he is.
Also, there's cute maid girls in it.
The series has been renewed for a second season, which I'm pretty sure is coming out this year, though I don't believe we have a specific date.
While we're waiting, though, it's actually very reminiscent of a pony fic called "Hard Reset."
Hard Reset is an amazing fic about Twilight going through much the same thing, and it was once the top fic on the whole site. It's absolutely worth your time. Go give Re:Zero a watch, and then once you finish the first season, read Hard Reset to help tide you over until Season 2 comes out.
Conclusion...
Well. That about covers everything. It's been a wild ride and it's sad that it has to come to an end. I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon, but I expect that the site will see a slowdown in traffic.
As for me, I'll still be here. I don't know if I'll ever manage to finish any of the fics I started, but I'm not quite done trying yet. Applejack Marvelous Chapter 9 is kicking my ass, but I recently managed to finish another chapter of Miss Fluttershy's Draconequus Maid, so that'll probably be going up relatively soon.
Catch you horsefuckers on the flipside.
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Ohmygosh, I loved Buzz Lightyear of Star Command!
I know I'll have to poke my head out of the horse hole eventually. Eventually. I mostly stopped watching TV back in 2006, during that disastrous semester in a dorm when I had no choice but to break the habit. (Naturally, my Internet time increased proportionately.) Since then, MLP's been the only show I've really dedicated myself to.
Still, thanks for the recommendations. The Gummi Bears were indeed awesome.
Now we wait to see how Gen 5 turns out.
I'm still hoping to see more of "Super Smash Brothers : Disharmony".
5137695 Do we have to?
Watching the entire finale instead of just a few pieces and skipping through what looked insultingly stupid like I did in the leak online was FAR more painful than I thought it would be.
Not one goddamned thing made sense. It just tore continuity into little pieces, set the pieces on fire, then took a big crap on the ashes.
5137695
i don't think so