I’ve decided to start a project that I’ve wanted to do in some form since as far back as 2014. This project is to review and analyze every single episode from all nine seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (MLP:FiM or MLP for short), a highly successful TV show in the My Little Pony franchise that ran from 2010 to 2019. I shouldn’t have to tell you that the show is notorious for becoming very popular among people far outside its target audience, particularly teenage and adult men. I also shouldn’t have to tell you that yes, I am one of those people who likes the show despite being far outside its target audience (21-year-old man as of this writing). It’s a fact that I’ve had to come to terms with after years of denial.

MLP:FiM is good, like it’s actually good, not even the meme kind of good. It’s fun to watch, it has a good sense of humor, unique and varied characters, cool musical numbers, awesome action scenes (especially in season premieres/finales), lots of overarching story arcs, and most of all, valuable lessons (friendship-related and otherwise) to take away from every episode. Many of those lessons are just as applicable to adults if not more so than they are to children. The show, from my understanding, was designed as something that parents would be able to watch and discuss along with their children, but it ended up with a much wider appeal than that.

I suppose I should also talk about when and how I got into the show. I’ll phrase it as a quick timeline:

• Up until 2010: I knew My Little Pony as just one of those little girls’ shows that nobody who isn’t a little girl cares about (because it was that).
• 2012: I first heard of bronies (male fans of the recent Friendship Is Magic) as being a thing that exists and I found it the stupidest thing ever.
• September 24, 2013: Upon watching a video called BRONYQUEST, I inexplicably gained the urge to watch the show and had reconsidered my initial dismissing of it. I guess something about those clips from the show just clicked with me, like, hey this show might actually have a good sense of humor like other cartoons I like?
• September 25, 2013: Upon pressure from people on some random online forum, I watched the first episode of MLP:FiM from some YouTube upload and instantly thought, hey this show is actually really fun to watch! And so I started watching more episodes (mostly on DailyMotion, an alternative to YouTube that’s less stringent with copyrighted content) while hiding it from my family.
• November 2013: Season 4 of the show started and I was watching through season 2 or 3 at the time. I decided to watch new episodes as they came out while catching up with the old ones.
• The next few months: I continued being a hammy brony online, eagerly watching season 4 and many videos related to it while catching up with the prior seasons. It was around that time when I had the idea to make a series of videos analyzing every episode but that never went anywhere.
• May 2014: Season 4 ended with a finale that I remember being super awesome and cool.
• June 2014: My family, who had found out about me being a brony, hassled me for liking the show until I snapped out of it. I still don’t know what that was about but they eventually apologized for that. However, soon the show was squeezed completely out of me, because…
• July 2014: I got into Homestuck, a webcomic that I totally did not become completely obsessed with or start making a blog post series about that’s still ongoing or otherwise had a major influence on my life. Jokes aside, Homestuck basically sprung out as the next thing I would become obsessed with after being driven out of MLP, so in a way MLP is responsible for me getting into Homestuck in the first place.
• 2015: I started telling myself that I was never a real brony and just thought it was cool and hip to like that show, or that I was exaggerating how good it was, or that I just liked memes related to it, or some other stupid excuses.
• 2016-2018: I hardly thought about the show at all, and on the occasion I did it was just as some random old thing I liked that I may or may not have actually liked.
• July 2019 or so: I heard MLP was on its final season and briefly considered getting back into it but didn’t.
• October 10, 2020: I decided that on the show’s tenth anniversary I should finally get back into the show and watch the start of season 5 on this website (though this website is better). I finally remembered I was a real brony all along and how much I genuinely liked the show, though maybe that’s helped by season 5 being the best season, the one that isn’t afraid to go totally wild and out of the box.
• The next few months: I slowly watched through season 5 alongside some unrelated shows, about one or two episodes per week.
• January-February 2021: I quickly watched through seasons 6-9, two to three episodes per day, and my urge to start a MLP blog post series increased. The show started to occupy my thoughts to absurd degrees.
• February 25, 2021: I finished the show at long last, making real, actual physical tears come out of my eyes.

And that’s how all that happened. I guess that timeline wasn’t very quick after all.

So, why am I making a blog post series analyzing every episode of MLP? Aside from all the things I like about the show that I had listed, the main reason why I’m doing this is because I think it will be fun. Or at least, I hope it’ll be fun. This project could end up being a total flop, but I still want to try it. It’s just yet another ambitious project of mine, what could possibly go wrong??? I mean, this isn’t my first time doing a blog post series going through an entire work of media (though I still haven’t finished my Homestuck posts*)…

* EDIT: This is no longer true. I can now proudly say my Homestuck blog post series is finished! Here’s the final post.

I should note that my MLP episode review posts may have spoilers for all nine seasons, so read at your own discretion. They probably won’t be as spoiler-heavy as my Homestuck posts, but I’m warning you regardless.

A second disclaimer is that my MLP episode review posts may sometimes have profanity or discussion of mature topics. Just saying this because adult male fanbase or not, the show is family-friendly. To be fair, the show does have plenty of references to less family-friendly media, so maybe this warning was a given.

My third and final disclaimer is that my MLP episode review posts may (read: 120% certainly will) contain rambles about complete nonsense that only I care about. That’s what all my blog posts are like, but still warning you in advance.

With these disclaimers out of the way, you can expect me to begin my journey through reviewing every episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic within the next week or two. Not just yet, because I need a cool-off after the show’s deeply emotional finale. Like seriously, even Luck of the Fryrish (my absolute favorite episode of Futurama) didn’t technically make tears come out of my eyes when I first watched it, so you get a feel for how emotional it was. I hope you bear with me as I embark on this crazy project.

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Now that the introduction is out of the way, you can start reading through this post series with my first post. Or alternately, if you want to skip to a specific episode, check out my navigation post.