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Franchise / My Little Pony (Generation 4)

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Franchise logo from 2016 to 2021.

The fourth incarnation of the long-running My Little Pony franchise, officially known as the Friendship Is Magic or Equestria Universe of My Little Pony.

Collectors unofficially refer to this incarnation of the My Little Pony franchise as "G4", which began with the airing of the cartoon series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic developed by Lauren Faust, debuting in October of 2010. The series became a surprise smash hit, gaining a huge Periphery Demographic online fandom. At its core Friendship is Magic has the fantasy & adventure elements of "G1", Slice of Life stories started by Tales, and much of the cast are re-imagined "G3" ponies.

You can read more about the series on its own page.

Hasbro, being at first surprised at the rise of the Bronies and then delighted at the outstanding success of the series, has started to give FiM the full Merchandise-Driven treatment, giving it its own Expanded Universe, ranging from a series of comics published by IDW Publishing, several chapter and picture books, a mobile game, and even an alternative film series where the ponies are humanized. Most FiM stories take place in the magical land of Equestria, a Fantasy Kitchen Sink, and usually revolve around the six "mane" characters: Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy. There are, of course, many more ponies (and a lot of non-ponies) than that. As the subtitle of the cartoon series suggests, there's a strong emphasis on teaching The Power of Friendship, from how it enriches everyday lives to how it can defeat the ancient forces of evil with rainbow lasers.

Hasbro announced in February 2019 that the franchise would be rebooted once again with Friendship is Magic concluding in its ninth season. The fifth incarnation, tentatively known as Generation Five, launched in 2021 with My Little Pony: A New Generation, a 3D CGI animated movie co-produced by Paramount and Boulder Media and released by Netflix. The movie, alongside subsequent material, is set in a similar world as Generation Four, albeit set some time after the events of ''Friendship is Magic''.

The main series eventually wrapped up in October 12, 2019, Discovery Family showing a full day of the season 9 episodes before ending in the three part finale (at prime time no less). With this, it became, perhaps fittingly, the last of The Hub's original programming to end.

Animation

Main Series

Equestria Girls

Comics

Books

  • Official guidebooks:
    • The Elements of Harmony: The Official Guidebook: Covering both the fiction of the franchise and its development and success over the first three seasons.
    • The Elements of Harmony: The Official Guidebook Volume II: Covers the fiction of the television series from Seasons 4 through 6.
  • The Journal of the Two Sisters: A Defictionalization of the diary of Princess Celestia and Luna, along with the diary written by the Mane Six during Season 4.
  • The Wonderbolt Academy Handbook: The in-universe handbook for the Wonderbolt Academy, featuring a diary by Rainbow Dash and a few scribbled notes of hers in the margins.
  • The Daring Do Adventure Collection (October 2014)
    • Daring Do and the Marked Thief of Marapore
    • Daring Do and the Eternal Flower
    • Daring Do and the Forbidden City of Clouds
  • Equestria Girls chapter book series:
    • Equestria Girls: Through The Mirror: (October 2013) A novelization of the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls spin-off movie.
    • Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks: (April 2014) A novelization of the animated shorts and prequel to Rainbow Rocks.
    • Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks: The Mane Event: (October 2014) A novelization of the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks spin-off movie.
    • Equestria Girls: Sunset Shimmer's Time to Shine: (May 2015) An original story about Sunset Shimmer trying to understand how magic works in the human world and struggling to find her place in it.
    • Equestria Girls: Friendship Games: (October 2015) A novelization of the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games spin-off movie.
    • Equestria Girls: Twilight's Sparkly Sleepover Surprise: (May 2016) Picking up where Equestria Girls: Friendship Games leaves off, this original story follows Twilight Sparkle as she leaves Crystal Prep Academy behind for her new school, Canterlot High.
    • Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree: (September 2016) A novelization of the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree spin-off movie.
    • Equestria Girls: Magic, Magic Everywhere!: (June 2017) A novelization of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Magical Movie Night.
    • Equestria Girls: A Friendship to Remember: (December 2017) A novelization of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Forgotten Friendship where the Humane Six suddenly forgets Sunset Shimmer is their friend and only remember her as the jerk she used to be. Sunset teams up with Trixie to try to get to the bottom of this and get her friends back to normal.
    • Canterlot High Stories:
      • Rainbow Dash Brings the Blitz: (April 2018) Rainbow Dash attempts to join a Blitzball league, but the coach Comet Chaser will not allow girls. She and her friends challenge his boys, and if her team wins, he must allow girls to join.
      • Twilight's Science Fair Sparks: (June 2018) Twilight Sparkle joins a science fair and is partnered with a Crystal Prep boy named Rising Star. As they work on their project, her friends begin to suspect Rising Star is up to no good.
      • Pinkie Pie and the Cupcake Calamity: (October 2018) Rarity becomes the new cashier at Sugarcube Corner, but she and Pinkie Pie do not see eye to eye. When a big, corporate bakery moves in and starts stealing Sugarcube Corner's customers, the two must work together.
    • Make Your Own Magic – The Starswirl Do-Over: (February 2019) A Gamebook where the girls go to a music festival, but Sunset Shimmer finds herself in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, so she and the reader must make the right choices to break it.
  • Canterlot High Tell-All: A highly illustrated guide to Canterlot High, from the point of view of the Equestria Girls characters.
  • Wondercolts Forever: The Diary of Celestia and Luna: An in-universe diary of Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna, written when they were students at Canterlot High.
  • My Little Pony chapter book series:
  • The Princess Collection:
    • Princess Celestia and the Summer of Royal Waves (April 2015)
    • Princess Luna and the Festival of the Winter Moon (October 2015)
    • Princess Cadance and The Spring Hearts Garden (May 2016)
    • Twilight Sparkle and the Forgotten Books of Autumn (November 2016)
  • Ponyville Mysteries:
    • Schoolhouse of Secrets (July 2017)
    • The Tail of the Timberwolf (July 2017)
    • Riddle of the Rusty Horseshoe (October 2017)
    • Peryton Panic (January 2018)
    • Cursed Crusaders (April 2018)
    • Journey to the Livewood (June 2018)
  • My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) chapter books:
    • The Stormy Road to Canterlot: (August 2017) A prequel to the film that focuses on Tempest Shadow's Start of Darkness.
    • My Little Pony: The Movie: Junior Novel: (August 2017) A novelization of the film.
    • My Little Pony: Beyond Equestria: A series of chapter books that serve as a continuation of the film's story.
      • Pinkie Pie Steps Up: (January 2018) Starring Pinkie Pie and Songbird Serenade.
      • Rainbow Dash Rights the Ship: (February 2018) Starring Rainbow Dash and Captain Celaeno.
      • Fluttershy Balances the Scales: (April 2018) Starring Fluttershy and Princess Skystar.
  • Under The Sparkling Sea: A picture book, featuring hand-painted artwork, about the characters visiting the underwater kingdom of Aquastria.
  • Welcome to Equestria!: A young reader's book about Cadance and Shining Armor touring Equestria.
  • Welcome to the Crystal Empire! : A young reader's book about Twilight touring the Crystal Empire.
  • Welcome to the Everfree Forest!: A young reader's book about the Mane Six and Spike studying and creating a guide to the Everfree Forest.
  • Welcome to Rainbow Falls!: A young reader's book about the ponies visiting Rainbow Falls while preparing for the Equestria Games.
  • Good Night, Baby Flurry Heart : A picture book about Shining Armor and Cadance trying to get their baby daughter to sleep.
  • The Dragons on Dazzle Island: A sequel to Under the Sparkling Sea, in which Spike and Fluttershy attempt to convince a group of dragons who are crowding Dazzle Island and preventing ponies from mining its gems to move.

Video Games

  • Adventure Ponies!: A Web Game based on Friendship is Magic. A Platform Game done in 8-bit style.
  • My Little Pony (Gameloft): An app from Gameloft based on Friendship is Magic.
  • Equestria Girls: A toys-to-life mobile game developed by Hasbro themselves in 2015.
  • My Little Pony Puzzle Party: A mobile game developed by the defunct Hasbro-owned game studio Backflip Studios. Featuring gameplay based on another mobile game, Peak Games's Toy Blast. Was released on October 2016 globally, and was delisted May 2017.
  • My Little Pony Harmony Quest: An action/puzzle app game, and the first one by Budge Studios.
  • My Little Pony Rainbow Runners: An endless runner app game.
  • My Little Pony Pocket Ponies: An arcade-style app game.
  • My Little Pony Color by Magic: An coloring page app game, and the final game by Budge Studios.

Web Videos

  • Pinkie Pie Pranks! (2019): A stop motion short done in claymation where Pinkie Pie pulls pranks on all of her friends.
  • Hello Pinkie Pie (2019-2020): A series of 3D shorts where Pinkie Pie hosts a talk show.
  • Stop Motion Shorts (2020): A series of stop motion shorts done in claymation meant to promote My Little Pony: Pony Life.

Other

Tropes that apply to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in general

  • Animesque: Mix the previous generations with Anime Tropes and Moe in a blender, and bake it in an oven made of the Internet.
  • Broad Strokes: Because the show and the various Expanded Universe material are made by different people, the continuity between each of them takes an "only if we feel like it" approach. Thus they will often ignore each other, or if they don't, retcon each other to make their stories work. The only hard rule is that the show takes full canonical precedence over all other material.
  • Constructed World: Equestria is clearly a part of its own world that has nothing to do with our own with its own magical elements, pantheon, and mechanics that differ from ours. It is far more complex then anything seen in previous My Little Pony shows, or most girl-oriented media for that matter.
  • Extra-Strength Masquerade: The Equestria Girls sub-franchise takes place in an Earth-like setting and places a lot of emphasis on hiding the existence of magic from the world at large. By the end of the first film, Canterlot High's student body and faculty witness a climactic magical duel that can be seen from miles away. Despite this, no one at Canterlot High has spilled the beans and only four outsiders have noticed something strange was going on, and of those four, three of them were already in on the masquerade. As the sub-series, more and more people find out such as the students of Crystal Prep but the trope is still in effect as Human Twilight is only person to notice that wasn't directly affected by the events.
  • Human-Focused Adaptation: The Equestria Girls sub-franchise. It's about colorful human versions of ponies going to high school in an Alternate Universe. The main Friendship is Magic universe lacks humans though, like "G2" & "G3" before it.
  • Merchandise-Driven: However, unlike the previous toy lines, which had the toys made first and had the shows based on the toys (or in the case of "G2", had no show at all), this incarnation has the toys based on the content of the show.
  • The Multiverse: There's actually a few different "alternate worlds" that have been explored in the franchise thus far, usually accessed with a magic mirror. The worlds given promience so far include:
    • Equestria Prime: The mane setting of Friendship is Magic and the IDW comics.
    • The Human world of Equestria Girls, which is also a High School AU
    • A Story Arc of the comics features a straight up Mirror Universe where the Friendship is Magic villains are peacekeepers, while the Mane Six are a gang of criminals and the Princesses are maniacal villains.
    • One episode reveals that Discord can open portals to alternate dimensions whenever he wants. One of those dimensions is apparently populated by sock puppets.
  • One Person, One Power: Every pony in Equestria has his or her own "special talent" that can range from a proficiency in tasks such as candy making or popping balloons, to somewhat more powerful abilities such as the strength to "applebuck" trees or talk to animals, to outright superpowers such as the ability to learn and easily use all forms of magic or the ability to fly at supersonic speeds. Each talent is represented by a symbol on a pony's flank called a Cutie Mark. However, despite the fact that every pony is born with a special talent, the Cutie Mark only reveals itself when said pony discovers what this talent is, and it is his or her job to discover it and their place in life while in their youth.
  • Palette Swap: Not only do the current (as of 2011) line of figurines resemble more toward pre-FiM versions, but various background characters (sometimes not even existing in the series) are palette swaps of the main characters, if their packaging graphic is anything to go by. For instance, look up Dewdrop Dazzlenote , Feathermaynote , Flitterheartnote , Lulu Lucknote , Plumsweetnote , Snowcatchernote , Twinkleshinenote  if you're already familiar with the main Friendship is Magic cast. Some other examples show attempt to differentiate however, such as "Cupcake" being a wingless version of Fluttershy, or "Sunny Daze" being a non-unicorn Sweetie Belle, or even "Minty" as an Applejack mold sans the hat.
    • The "blind bag" minifigures even went so far as to have Fluttershy - one of the Mane Six! - as a Pallete Swap of Rainbow Dash. (Which is somewhat amusing after the events of the third season episode "Magic Duel"...) She finally got her own unique mold in a set released in mid-2013. Several other characters who've appeared on the show, though, are still recolors at the blindbag scale, such as Cheerileenote , Trixie Lulamoonnote , and Lyra Heartstringsnote .
  • The Power of Hate: Coming with friendship and love being big themes in the franchise, the champions for harmony frequently come into conflict with the forces of chaos, despair, and selfishness.
  • The Power of Friendship: It ain't called Friendship is Magic for nothing. Not only are most problems solved when the ponies work together, friendship is literally described as the most powerful type of magic in the setting.
  • The Power of Love: Friendship's close cousin is also a very powerful force in Equestria.
  • The Time of Myths: Important events - namely Discord's defeat, the disappearance of the Crystal Empire, and Nightmare Moon's sealing - all happened "1000 years ago" and are regarded as mere legends and folklore in the series proper. In Chrysalis's Fiendship of Magic comic, Spike even snarks that it must have been a very busy year.
  • Universe Compendium: The Elements of Harmony: The Official Guidebook, covering up to the end of season 3. Volume II covers Seasons 4 through 6.
  • Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The more adventure-based parts of the franchise indulge in this heavily.

Alternative Title(s): My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic

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