It's been 10 years · 4:29am Oct 10th, 2020
It's hard to believe that 10 years ago, Friendship is Magic started. What started out as just another entry for the MLP series soon exploded into popularity with what it had to offer. It introduced us to the land of Equestria, the new generation of ponies being reincarnated or introducing new ones, the various creatures we'd get to see from dragons to griffons, and all the crazy adventures along the way. Even after all these years, it's amazing how FiM ended up being something that was initially overlooked and became a massive hit. It's something nobody could've predicted at all would happen. In a brand that's been known world wide for being heavily marketed towards girls, FiM has forever changed that and now the bar has been raised high to future shows.
I admit I didn't see the show when it first appeared. I was unaware of a new show for MLP, but even if I did hear it, I wasn't that interested. Soon though, I started seeing artwork pop up for the show on DeviantArt and it seemed like every day there was more and more of it showing up. Still, I never got around to seeing what the big deal was. It wasn't until I was on vacation a few months after the show's first season had shortly concluded. I was on YouTube and saw a video recommended for an episode of FiM called Griffon the Brush off, the first episode of the show I saw. I was shocked by what I watched that day. I was expecting more or less some stuff that was either mediocre or just bad, but instead I found it to be a fun episode, had a solid moral, and the characters were really good. Before I knew it, I was going through the show's entire first season and I had a damn good time watching the show. Sure, I had some issues with the first season (particularly I wasn't really fond of Twilight as I found her getting written to look more or less cold), but it was the first season, so it was going to suffer growing pains if it meant it was going to get better. Still, I was impressed and I was looking forward to the second season.
Keep in mind too that this was at a time when I felt animation was at a very low point. CN was struggling to get out of its CN Real state. Nickelodeon was nothing but a mess that overplayed Spongebob constantly. Disney was focusing too much on bad live action shows. This was a breath of fresh air after such a long stretch of one bad show after another. Here was a show that felt like it had love, effort, passion, care, respect, and appealed to all ages.
We've seen so much throughout this show in all the years. New places to see. New memorable characters that are now huge fan favorites and are pretty much guaranteed to be in future generations. New creatures that are entertaining and awesome (dragons, griffons, hippogriffs, changelings) and some not so good (yaks). Great action scenes and battles. Comedic moments that made for some instant classic jokes. All this and so much more.
Sure, towards the end of the show's run it did run into a lot or issues. The final season felt like it could've been so much more and I was disappointed with the Grogar twist. Still, through it all I'm glad I saw this show until the very end. I've met and talked to a lot of wonderful people who are fans of the show. Even though the show is over now, that hasn't slowed down anything from the looks of things. Fan fics are still being written. Artwork is still being made. Crossovers are still going on. Even the comics are continuing on the show with its 10th season.
You know, if you said to anybody ten years ago that FiM would be this popular, you'd probably be laughed out of the room and be mocked for it. Now, it remains a classic cartoon that'll be cherished for years to come and the show that changed MLP forever. Will G5 be as good as this show? Hard to say, but it definitely has its work cut out for itself. Whatever the future of MLP brings, let us hope it's a bright one and hope the legacy of this show goes on.
Happy 10th anniversary, FiM, and thanks for all the memories.
Yee...
I'm sure our fandom will keep going on and on.