Opening Impressions: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 5. Horses, Cults and repetitive arcs.

I did put this up as a Strawpoll, something that will be a common thing for stuff like this. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 5. If you’ve read the review of the last four season, then you’ll know what I’m going to say, nothing much has changed. But to be fair, by the fifth season, the only thing that’s going to change is the situations. At time of writing, all I’ve seen is the first three episodes, a two parter that introduces a new villain, and a world building episode.

I'm not going to post the into as its exactly the same as Season 4 (and, more personally, I don't like the intro)

The characters are mostly the same, but there is one slight change I want to bring up before I get into the new villain. During the review of the last four seasons, I brought up that Pinkie seems to be a bit to childish, never really having a grasp of the situation. I think this season gets that balance just right, still with a sense of humour, still a bit silly, but actually understands the situation.

So the new villain: Sunset Shim I mean Starlight Glimmer. Before the season aired, and when the poll looked like this was going to happen, I had a look at the promo teasers and when they showed off this story arc, my first thought was “They can’t be this blunt about this, normally they handle this stuff more subtly”. Turns out, they did go for the blunt approach to cults, thought policing, some people have made the SJW comparison, I personally don’t see it, even if the “True Equality” thing is looked at. The only thing missing is the way of handling finances and you could have had a Cold War propaganda video about Communism (nothing really changes does it?). Do I think Starlight is an interesting villain? In theory yes, but I’m not sure yet about the execution. She’s the first villain to not be killed off as a villain since Discord (this is also counting the quickly reformed villains), so there’s a strong chance she’ll be returning. If that’s true, then this may be the first long standing villain in the series, which would be interesting to see.

Like with Digimon Fusion Season 2, there isn’t a lot to say. More to say as the pacing is slower, leading to some actual development, but still not much. I’ve got something for the people who hate the series though tonight, its only fitting to publish it during a Dark Knight. See ya.