Bronies and the like

Hello fair sirs and madams
Today I'm going to give a brief view on the my little pony : friendship show that has become very popular on the internet as of late
"Note. I consider myself a Brony and wish no offense to any Bronys reading"

The newest iteration of my little pony has been created by Lauren Faust, an animator who worked on such shows as the Powerpuff girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Her talent shows with smooth animation and appealing visuals.

Whilst this show would not usually be of much note beyond its child fan base, it has swept the internet with its adorable visuals and intelligent story's. It now has a large fanbase consisting heavily of 18+ males called "Bronys". To many, this would seem abnormal and perhaps even a little creepy due to a large amount of adult males watching a children's show. However, there are many reasons that this show has become so popular.

1. The artstyle: The art style is very attractive with smooth lines and clean colors. Each one of the characters is easily definable by their hair, color and even shape. It was once said (By whom I forget) that a visually strong character should be recognizable by their silhouette. You should have little trouble matching up the characters because they are so well defined. Even the environments are varied with everything from bustling towns to barren swamps being used. These areas keep with the art style and manage to be unique and memorable.
2. The Animation: The animation style is very cartoonish with over the top motions and gravity defying tricks. This works well with the bold and bright artstyle. Each scene holds many animated objects and upon close inspection, each has been paid full attention to. This keeps areas from looking stale but doesn't detract from the important parts of the scene the viewer is intended to focus on.
3. The vocal cast: All of the voices in the show are very powerful, conveying a variety of emotions without sounding forced. Each pony's voice is unique and, as with the silhouettes, can be easily told apart. A fine example of the voice acting would be when the pony "Rarity" begins to whine at a predicament she finds herself in. At the beginning, Rarity is using her normal voice which is heavily British and ladylike. However, when she decides to whine, the voice changes into that of a bratty child throwing a tantrum. The switch happens seamlessly and still manages to be recognizable. The whole voice cast for the show is similarly brilliant and works well with the visuals of the charters.
4. The story's: The story's are kept mostly separate so people can watch the show without having to have seen many earlier episodes. The plot for each episode usually entails a problem that the main group encounters. The episode then entails one or more of the pony's figuring out the solution. Usually at the end of each episode, the main character (Twilight sparkle) will write a report to her teacher about what she has learned about friendship. These conclusions are usually life lessons that focus on teaching children. However, even with this child-centric focus on lessons, the show does not focus on them too heavily. The lessons rarely feel like they intrude on the story and instead feel like something drawn from it. This keeps the show from becoming annoying with constant pushy messages.
5. The passionate fan base : This show attracted a large amount of attention on the popular image board "4/chan" upon its release, with people posting funny images they made from stills of the show. These images became very popular and people started to draw their own, making the art style more and more defined. Eventually, the show became widely popular on the internet and a meme was born. Soon fan-fictions and fan art started appearing across the internet on various forums and art sites. Due to its relativity simple but expressive art style, artists across the internet (Myself included) have found a lot of fun just drawing pony's in situations that we want them in. Also, because of how well the setting has been defined, fan fiction is also very popular with a wide array of story's appearing across the internet.
6. Its non- condescending nature : One thing that has given the show appeal with older audiences is in the way that the show communicates with its viewers. The show never seems to speak down to its audience. Obvious elements are not explained and characters don't have to announce their feelings or thoughts for the veiwers to pick them up. Instead, the show allows the visuals and voice acting to tell us all we need to know. This shows that the creators give the audience some credit and allows them to think for them selves. This non-condescending attitude makes the show infinitely more appealing to older audiences in the same way that Disney cartoons are.
   

These elements have made the show very popular with young girls but also more importantly, with adult males as well. Due to the show being as well crafted and non condescending as it is, Bronies across the board have found the show to be very entertaining and well worth a watch.

So if you are like I was and a little hesitant to watch the show, Don't be. Go and watch a few of the shows and if you enjoy it enough, perhaps get involved with the community. There are many sites that showcase fan art and story's that come from across the internet such as Equestria daily and Ponygoons. If you wish to watch some of the episodes, the series can be watched on YouTube which strangely enough allows all the full episodes to be shown on without any copyright complaints. Whilst the series is chronological, you can watch any episode in the series and pick up character names and personalty's very quickly. My personal recommendation for a starting episode would be "Ep 04 - Applebuck season" as it shows off all of the characters fully and is also very enjoyable.

So what are your thoughts on the new My little pony show. Have you watched it? if so, why do you watch it and if not, why? Comment on below and I look forward to your comments.

Thank you kindly for reading fellow gentlefolk, And may you have a pleasant evening.

So let's start with some personal experience

This weekend I visited the MCM Expo in London. Whilst I am not a huge Anime/Manga fan, I found a lot to enjoy and Decided to share a few experiences here.

The first thought that comes to mind was the quality of my Lodgings. I was told by the small group that I was traveling with that we would be staying in a hostel and the first thought that came to mind was a dingy wooden room with dripping pipes and mattresses on the floor. An outdated view to be sure, and this weekend certainly proved that. We hired out rooms at a hostel called "The generator" with a room for 6 people. From the outside the place looked almost like a nightclub, with glowing lights and almost industrial steel framework. And whilst these aesthetics did not change massively on the inside, It still felt inherently welcoming. The room itself was 3 bunk beds with a sink and cages beneath each bed for personal items. The room itself was well kept and comfortable in most aspects. Whilst I did not care for the small sink in the room, The bathroom/shower room more than made up for it. Overall, the time I spent At the hostel to be entirely pleasant and worth the money.

Upon Arriving at the expo Itself, I found many different things to interest me such as Vintage and rare game stalls, Selling older and harder to find game boy and PS2 games. Whilst most of these interested me, I decided to conserve my money for other things. Whilst I intended to wait until the second day to spend my money, I spent all but £10 on such things as a starcraft T-shirt, A new balisong bottle opener and Heavily discounted World of warcraft figurines. £5 a figure, even with only a few different types, forced my hand with my spending. I ended carrying home a large amount of figures and other trinkets which really became heavy after a while. On the final day, I bought a small plush from the card captors anime and 3 mangas, all of them related to blizzard games.

Around the Expo, There were many different attractions that I enjoyed looking at and observing. One such event was gamespot appearing to cover the convention. There I had a long chat with one of the editors on how to break into the gaming journalism circuit. One such piece of advise was to start a blog and voice my opinions. which is why you are reading this right now good sirs and madams. I also was able to play street fighter 2 championship edition on an arcade machine with a friend, which was incredibly fun as me and him both have an outstanding rivalry on street fighter 4 and other fighters.

I also managed to meet up with many different cosplayer across the weekend, with such memorable costumes as

• The white mage
• Bayonetta
• Snake
• Jack sparrow
• Various tohou characters
• Halo ODST characters
• Earthworm Jim
• The castle crasher nights
• Agent 47 (Hitman)

Overall, the costumes were fantastic and the people wore them very well. I myself had dressed up as gaming's premier gentleman, Professor Layton. I received a fair amount of people wishing to take my picture and even a few hugs. However, Upon traveling around the convention for a while I bumped into somebody cosplaying as luke from the game without a professor Layton to go with. She asked me If I could pose for a few pictures, which I agreed to and had a wonderful time making various poses for the cameras. Upon finishing, I thanked them and left with my friends.

Overall, I had a lot of fun at the expo, And whilst I haven't covered everything that happened, I have given you my fondest memory's. So, Did anyone else reading this attend the expo? If you did, please share your thoughts and opinions on the event down below, I would love to read them.

Thank you kindly for reading fellow gentlefolk, And have a pleasant evening.