Friendship is Card Games: My Little Pony Comics & Quiz (Japanese Manga) · 11:50am May 3rd, 2020
Before we cover the OEL manga, let’s look at one from Japan. You can actually find most of this one at varying levels of translation on Derpibooru, but that’s no reason not to dig into it. Let’s begin.
Mind you, this is going to be… interesting. Most of the stories are only three or four pages long, so there’s not going to be a terribly great amount of depth.
The first dozen pages are exactly what it says on the tin, presenting the Mane Six and some of their associated supporting characters. There’s also a 4koma for each, a vertically aligned four panel comic that wouldn’t be out of place on the funnies page.
Twilight proudly proclaims that one day she’ll “be a great pony, just like the princess!” Did I mention that she’s a unicorn throughout the whole book? I do love dramatic irony.
Super Serious Twilight
This… this needs to be seen to be believed. Seriously, just follow the link above. Oh, Twilight. 
The sheer amount of bipedalism on Applejack’s page makes me a bit uncomfortable. AJ herself feels like a human in a pony suit going by her posture.
Are They Rivals?
Applejack solves practical problems. So how is she gonna stop some big, mean mother-hubbard who wants to tear her ego a structurally superfluous new behind? The answer: Use an apple. And if that don’t work? Use more apple.
Here, the Wonderbolts are described as “a team of flying acrobats.” Curious. I do wonder how different translations of the show present them.
Also, possible Flutterdash bias on the part of the writer.
Cleaning!?
Yeah, clearing the sky and organizing library shelves are two very different things. I have to think Twilight would only ask this of Dash very early in her time in Ponyville. And only once.
And Rarity just gets her cat and a job description. Not even Sweetie Belle. Ouch.
I Love Rarity!
This is actually a great character piece. Rarity may not be one for outdoor activities, but that takes a backseat to helping her friends. Especially when said friends are in mortal peril.
I’m definitely getting a “shipper on deck” vibe here with the amount of pink sparkles around Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash…
At a Restaurant
Yeah, pointing with hooves doesn’t exactly work. Nor does Dash… Let’s be charitable and call it helping.
Most of the girls have at least some degree of reality in their introductory pages, but Pinkie’s just in a realm of sweets and stars. I approve.
Pinkie Sense
I get the feeling that Pinkie wrote this. Don’t ask me how, but it has her hoofprints all over it.
Let’s try not to think too hard about who Twilight’s talking to.
“You can’t have it yet” seems to imply Pinkie’s already read the script for this one. Can’t say I’m surprised.
Heh. Applejack using her reputation for stubbornness to cover for how she can’t lie out of a paper bag.
Rarity’s in The Zone, Twilight. She can’t hear you over the sound of her own fabulosity.
There’s a wonderful irony in Fluttershy not noticing someone.
Oof. Poor Twilight. This is still pretty early in her friendship studies. After friends so easily came, part of her is still waiting for the “easy go.” Thank goodness for surprise parties.
Also, slice the cake, AJ. Just because you were raised in a barn doesn’t mean you have to act like it.
Interesting to see Sugarcube Corner portayed as a confectionary rather than a bakery. The problem with this sort of thing is that it can be hard to tell which bits are actually in the original test and which are translation artifacts.
Yeah, leaving desserts within chomping distance of Pinkie is rarely a good idea, even if she’s the one who left them.
And Applejack laughs at Rainbow Dash’s pain. 
Well, it is early in the series. Their rivalry isn’t exactly at its friendliest.
And the end result is, of course, a party. A resource optimization party. Bring your favorite inventory management system!
This is definitely an interesting premise: Celestia inviting Twilight and her new friends to a get-together in Canterlot. The Gala might have gone differently if they’d gotten an earlier taste of what to expect in the big city… though I imagine a smaller party coordinated by Celestia would be almost nothing like it.
It does feel a bit out of character for Applejack to focus on the food, but I have to appreciate the sheer audacity involved in bringing so many things to store castle catering.
Also, I have no idea what Twilight’s wearing. Especially the star on her horn.
And… somehow Gala dresses ensue. Despite Rarity wearing a different dress prior to the last-minute glow-up. Okay then.
It’s always interesting to see Fluttershy’s talent in action from her perspective. Does she just have an intuitive understanding of other animals, or do they actually communicate in words as far as she’s concerned?
And Twilight faces an issue many intellectuals do: No one’s paying attention to her objectively correct and irrefutable opinion.
Yeah. Flutterrage never ends well. And what with her being a pegasus, it’s hard to tell how much of that lightning at the end is meant to be figurative.
So… Where’d the buffalo come from? Did Applejack ask one to come to Ponyville to help with the rodeo.
(Also, great little reminder of cultural gaps: The comic needs to take a moment to explain the concept of rodeos. It makes sense that the intended audience wouldn’t have heard of them.)
Between Applejack not being that good at lassoing things and dismissing her hat, this feels awfully out of character. Though the idea of a rodeo awarding a hat rather than any other prize is honestly kind of hilarious.
Yeah, between the stress eating and Rarity’s notable absence, I can’t help but think that she and Applejack switched personalities for this one… to a degree. Not sure how good Rarity’s pastry marksmareship is.
I have several questions about what led up to Dash vs. Discord. Not least how nopony else noticed but Pinkie.
Lovely inspirational moment… undercut by the goofy reality. That’s not a complaint, mind you. I shouldn’t be surprised by Discord doing something like this.
Also, nice to see AJ be a bit more supportive.
And now Applejack’s channeling Dash. There’s such a thing as going too far, Southern Horse.
Oof. Yeah, I can see this happening early in Twilight’s time in Ponyville. It’s one thing to establish connections with other people. It’s quite another when they want to interfere with your reading time.
It is nice to see AJ didn’t go fully pig-headed on this one… Indeed, I’m kind of surprised she was first to extend the olive branch. I get the feeling a fair amount happened outside of the library before this.
This is one of the larger comics in the book, and it… Well, let’s just proceed with the overview.
Okay, Dash smacking Twilight out of the way in her urgency is pretty funny.
An interesting ecological issue. You’d think there’d be more than one titter tree in the area, but we have to have a conflict somehow.
… And Rarity tries to seduce a tree. There’s a D&D joke in there somewhere, but I thought Pinkie was the bard.
Applejack tries to appeal to the tree with apple jam, which is a bit like trying to wake up a coma patient by rubbing ground veal in their face.
And Pinkie goes for pure noise. They… they do realize it’s a tree, right? I’ll grant that trees can sense light, chemicals, and vibration, but in ways very different from our senses of sight, taste, and hearing. At the very least, I’d expect Applejack to understand this, though for all I know, the jam works on apple trees. (That said, they may see it as a threat.)
Very elastic trunk on that tree.
And then Twilight cast awaken, because that’s a thing she can do. 
I’m honestly not sure what’s worse, her endowing a tree with sapience or drawing out an awareness that all trees have. Either way, this is a nightmare if you think about it too much.
Huh. What if the Giving Tree got fed up one day? And when some of the services it provides involve creatures eating its children and drinking its vital fluids, I can hardly blame it for getting fed up.
And then Twilight gave the thing a pair of bird feet, because this all makes perfectly logical sense. I do appreciate how the rest of Ponyville is looking on in shock and awe.
Let the record show that there is an official My Little Pony story where Twilight freaking animated the Golden Oaks Library so it could be a tree’s girlfriend. This is a thing that happened, and we need to talk about it more.
Also, Twilight is willing to move out for the sake of the happy couple. That titter tree was wrecking homes long before Tirek. (… Oh.)
And apparently omniscient Celestia out of nowhere. This feels like an especially trippy Season 1 episode.
I do appreciate the tiny text on Fluttershy’s yays.
Twilight’s already getting desperate for new space if she considers that a room.
Yeah, this comic was the reason I decided to review this one. It’s freaking weird, and I love it.
Shining, it’s your wedding day. Why the long face? To say nothing of a stark height difference compared to the couples’ usual stature.
Dang, Twilight. I know you can see Canterlot from Ponyville, but you don’t have to warp space to get a better look at your home town.
Okay, all joking aside, the happy, blushing roll was adorable.
And Twilight can apparently also perform divinations with a mirror. And she has incredible faith in the spell’s reliability. Has she used that one before?
And yeah, that’s a reasonable reaction to Twispike.
I wonder if Twilight ever wrote a friendship letter about this lesson. Maybe she sent one to Cadence instead.
Ah, zap apples. Finicky things.
… Wait, wait, wait. “Zap apples are found in the deepest parts of the forest”? Is Apple Bloom harvesting wild zap apples? By herself!? I hope that’s a translation error. I also hope what appears to be a bush full of zap apples is just a weird bit of perspective.
Nope. Timberwolves. This may not look much like the Everfree, but apparently Apple Bloom’s expected to follow in her grandmother’s hoofsteps regardless of the risk to life and limb.
At least Applejack was in earshot.
I do love the idea that Granny and the timberwolves have an understanding. I also love the image of a timberwolf in a bonnet, though for entirely different reasons.
Ah. Seems like Apple Bloom took the task upon herself. That makes a lot more sense.
Not much to say about this one. Some days are rough, but your friends can help you get through them. Also, good use of Pinkamena as an expression of sorrow and self-doubt rather than murderous rage.
In all, this is certainly a mixed bag, It’s important to remember that it’s targeted at a younger audience than most of the IDW comics. Still, some of these have a lot to take in. And a lot I can work with. Let’s look at the cards:
Lifelong Bond 2W
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
When Lifelong Bond enters the battlefield, you may pair enchanted creature with another creature you control.
Enchanted creature has soulbond. (You may pair it with another unpaired creature when one enters the battlefield. They remain paired as long as you control both of them.)
Enchanted creature and the creature it’s paired with get +2/+2.
Rapid Refinement 2W
Instant
Choose one or both —
• Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
• Support 2. (Put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to two target creatures.)
Rarity can make anypony suitable for any occasion.
Mirror Seer 1U
Creature — Unicorn Wizard
Whenever Mirror Seer or another Unicorn enters the battlefield under your control, scry 1.
“Trapping the future in glass is like swatting a fly with your tail. It’s possible, yes, but it would be a lot easier if the target would hold still.”
1/3
Perfectionist’s Remorse 1UU
Instant
Morbid — This spell can’t be countered if a creature died this turn.
Counter target spell.
“Accidents may happen, but they shouldn’t happen to me.”
—Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of Magic
Sapsucker Beetle 1B
Creature — Insect
When Sapsucker Beetle enters the battlefield, you may move a counter from another target creature onto Sapsucker Beetle.
“As much a vampire as any blood drinker.”
—The Titter Tree
2/2
Cost of Isolation 2B
Enchantment
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player loses X life, where X is 3 minus the number of creatures they control.
Ponies are a social species. Enough time alone is dangerous to both mind and body for them.
High-Speed Collision R
Instant
Target creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don’t control and to itself. Excess damage that would dealt to the creature you don’t control is dealt to its controller instead.
Rain of Pots 1RR
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast Rain of Pots, discard an artifact card.
Rain of Pots deals 4 damage to each creature.
“Not again.”
—Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of Magic
Dazzling Dancer 2R
Creature — Unicorn Rogue
R, T: Goad target creature. (Until your next turn, that creature attacks each combat if able and attacks a player other than you if able.)[
The glitter in her dress is nothing compared to the twinkle in her eye.
2/1
Bucking Buffalo 3R
Creature — Ox Warrior
Kicker G (You may pay an additional G as you cast this spell.)
Haste
When Bucking Buffalo enters the battlefield, if it was kicked, it gains indestructible until end of turn.
Nothing stands in a buffalo’s way for long.
4/2
Ridiculous Contest 3R
Sorcery
Put target permanent you control and target permanent an opponent controls on the bottom of their owners’ libraries. You and that opponent each manifest the top card of your libraries, then turn it face up. Then if both of those permanents are creatures, they fight each other. (Instants and sorceries stay face down.)
Thunderous Vengeance 3R
Sorcery
Thunderous Vengeance deals 2 damage to any target.
Gravestorm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)
Upset Fluttershy at your own risk.
Invigorated Boughs 1G
instant
Until end of turn, target land you control becomes a 3/3 Elemental creature with haste that's still a land. Untap all land creatures you control.
Overload 4GG (You may cast this spell for its overload coast. If you do, change its text by replacing all instances of “target” with “each.”)
Rain of Cupcakes 1G
Sorcery
Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature.
“How can it be a party if somepony doesn’t get a treat?”
—Pinkie Pie, Bearer of Laughter
Manahowl Timberwolf 4GG
Creature — Elemental Wolf
Whenever you tap a land for mana, add one mana of any color.
Every zap apple season begins with a timberwolf howl.
3/3
Insulated Bonnet 3
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature has hexproof.
Prevent all noncombat damage that would be dealt to equipped creature.
Equip 2
Strange crops demand strange tools.
Peaceful Play (gw)
Instant
All blocking creatures and blocked creatures gain indestructible until end of turn.
“A little roughhousing is all right as long as I don’t have to patch anyone up afterwards.”
—Fluttershy, Bearer of Kindness
Cupcake Shuffler 1UB
Creature — Pony Rogue
When Cupcake Shuffler enters the battlefield, remove all counters from any number of target creatures. For each counter removed this way, put a counter of that kind on one of those creatures.
”And you get one, and you get one, and you… uh oh.”
2/2
Ponyville Pieslinger 1BR
Creature — Pony Warrior
When Ponyville Pieslinger enters the battlefield, create a Food token. (It’s an artifact with “2, T, Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 3 life.)
(br), T, Sacrifice an artifact: Ponyville Pieslinger deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker.
Fastest hooves in the Midwest.
2/2
Tome Roper 2BR
Creature — Pony Rogue
When Tome Roper enters the battlefield, target opponent exiles a card from their hand at random until Tome Roper leaves the battlefield. You may play that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell.
3/2
Awakened Library 5GU
Creature — Treefolk Wizard
When Awakened Library enters the battlefield, if you cast it from your hand, draw a card for each land you control.
You have no maximum hand size.
Wisdom and knowledge are very different things, and all the more potent when combined.
4/4
Wow, no part of the canon cares about Applejacks hat.
It's interesting that the three most extraverted characters are the ones get a comic dealing with their insecurities.
Oh yeah, I remember seeing this when it first showed up. Delightfully weird! And the tree story definitely stuck in my head - you can't forget something like that. And it takes Tirek's destruction of "Lady Library" to a whole new level of horror.
On the other hand, imagine Twilight's trauma if the trees decide to get a little frisky.
Unlike the writers on the actual show, the manga remembered that Sweetie Belle has parents.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: Gravestorm only happens once, when the spell is first cast. As such, Thunderous Vengeance won't count the dead creatures that were killed by itself unless you cast it again somehow.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: A manifested instant or sorcery will be a creature when the card checks whether a fight will happen. More hilariously, if your opponent kills your targeted creature but not their own then the rest of the spell will still happen, but if they kill both (or kill yours and make theirs hexproof) then the spell fails to resolve and nothing gets manifested. Oh, and if one of the relevant libraries is empty you still manifest the other. And I almost gave that a strikethrough because cards are being returned to those libraries before the manifestation when I remembered that, again, only one of the targets needs to stay legal for the spell to resolve. Seriously, official events have people whose sole job is to know this sort of thing and inform players when they inevitably end up with Opalescence and Humility on the same board.
Man, it's been a while since I looked at one of these. I don't read the comics, but this segment comes with links! Still, if you thought THIS was weird, you clearly haven't watched enough anime. Personally, I got a kick out of Pinkie's 'cake goes here' box dress.
Also, Ridiculous Contest is a very fun and unique design.
There needs to be a timeline where those two trees live happily ever after!!!
"coughs"
Also, protective AJ is super-cool AJ
Awakened Library needs Maro's butt. The card, not the person.
Peaceful Play is the most interesting fog I've seen in a while.
Because the artist isn't constrained to what already exists in Flash, throughout this book, Twilight's pink highlight always stays on the left side of her horn. But the red-orange-yellow in the front of Rainbow Dash's mane frequently changes order.
I know that Pinkie can be tough to write, but she is incredibly one-dimensional here. It seems like the only thing ever on her mind is a party.
Strange, given that Discord is a good guy. There's a very narrow window of time between "Keep Calm and Flutter On" and "Magical Mystery Cure."
At the beginning? She's talking to you, the reader. And by saying that she's introducing you to her best friends, she's making it abundantly clear that the reader isn't one of her best friends. Better that you hear it now than get strung along.
Applejack's gift to Twilight on her "50th day after her birthday" party is two apples. That's somehow more insulting than no gift at all.
I would have thought that on Pinkie's Cake goes here! "dress," there would be an arrow going from the word here directly to her mouth.
Things got a little awkward when the hat was won by Dock Holiday. That pretty pink hat clashed with his coat and mane colors.
Oh, right, this was a thing that existed. Especially the tree part. Definitely odd, definitely entertaining. I wonder how you came across it, it's not exactly all that well known or talked about.
Sometimes I wonder whether we've nuked Japan one time too many or not enough.
Ahh Japan. I cannot help but be reminded of:
It's interesting how all the different branches of canon had their own interpretations of who should be shipped with who. Equestria Girls shipped Rarijack, the show was pushing Appledash, and now the manga apparently has official Flutterdash? It seems like the stewards of canon are just as divided as the fandom are.