Episode review: S5E25&26: "The Cutie Re-Mark"

Insert the usual "you know, for kids" joke here

And so, the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic ride comes to an end for another season. With rumours that the hiatus before S6 may be the longest yet, it was particularly important that S5 signed off with something memorable. Interestingly, this season's finale was not written by Meghan McCarthy; instead, Josh Haber took the reins for only the second time this season, the first being "Bloom & Gloom". The hype for this one was off the scale, so could the episode live up to those expectations?

Comic mini-review: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #36

Andy Price did the standard cover this time

Guess what? IDW's schedule is still a mess. How do comics companies get away with this? In some sectors of periodical publishing, you'd go bust if you were this poor at maintaining a reliable schedule. Right now, ComicList reckons that Art is Magic is already out (but Amazon have told pre-orderers that it'll be mid-December) and Art Gallery II has no firm release date at all. Sorry, IDW, but this is just not good enough.

End of rant. Here we are with the third part of the Siege of the Crystal Empire arc. I enjoyed the previous issue, which (perhaps generously) scraped a four-star rating, but this one knocks it into a cocked hat. This is definitely the best – and darkest – instalment so far, and a good deal of that is down to Chrysalis. I do hope she's never reformed; she's a truly evil villain, and that's great. There are some striking and disturbing panels in this issue, not least a "mind's eye" flashback and a reveal of one character's true form. I have to say I'm not sure how Whitley can tie everything together in #37 without rushing things, but I'll reserve judgement there. For now, I'll take this: it's a really satisfying read. This one gets an easy four. ★★★★

Ponyfic Roundup 83: Mr Flibble's Very Cross

BronyScot 2015 seems to have gone very well, which is good to hear. It's a shame it's such a pain to get to Edinburgh from here, or I'd have been tempted to have gone. Well done to the BS crew (who, I suspect, don't actually use that name!). Anyway, another eight fics this week, which isn't bad going by my standards. Don't expect me necessarily to keep up this rate of reading, especially since I've been reading some slightly longer stories of late. Still, here are today's candidates:

Twilight's List by kits
Let Me Tell You About the Hole in My Face by Slavoj Zizek
Madmax x Pacce by roygbiv
A Real Baked Bad by Propellerface

Cancelled by Lucky Roll
The Truth Hurts by Metool Bard
Bloody 'Ell by TaviTwoHooves
Rainbow Rocks by Twinkletail

Most of A Pony Kind of Christmas is now on Hasbro Studio Shorts

( Text link )

This is a little unexpected – I would have found it much less so had Hasbro done this after Christmas, but who knows what goes on in the minds of big corporations? Anyway, the Hasbro Studio Shorts YouTube channel has uploaded most of the songs from the recent A Pony Kind of Christmas album. All official and above board, yay! These are the tracks now available free:

"Days Gone By", "Jingle Bells", "Deck the Halls", "Jolly Ol' Saint Nick", "Last Year I Got Coal for Christmas", "Silent Night", "The Heart Carol" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

That means the songs you'll still need to buy the album to hear are the opening track (also called "A Pony Kind of Christmas") and Pinkie Pie's version of "Twelve Days of Christmas".

I'm very pleased to see the full version of "The Heart Carol". I've liked the short version in the S2 episode for years, and it's great that we now have the full thing. "Days Gone By", an AJ adaptation of "Auld Lang Syne", is also very nice. However, the track I'm embedding at the top of this post is "Silent Night", simply because getting a full Fluttershy solo song is a) fairly rare and b) brilliant.

Episode review: S5E24: "The Mane Attraction"

There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright

With this final episode before the season five finale, it's time to say goodbye to one of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's original writing team. After five seasons, Amy Keating Rogers is leaving for pastures new at Disney. and this is her very last episode. From the preview, it looked like being an Applejack ep, which seemed fitting as the first episode she wrote solo was "Applebuck Season". Late-season episodes are often less than stellar, but would this one buck that trend? After the break for more!

Comic mini-review: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #35

Sara Richard's cover art is always striking

IDW are all over the place with their release dates at the moment: the Art Gallery II has been delayed until early December, while the Art is Magic book now has no definite release date at all, perhaps to avoid a clash with The Art of Equestria. Still, as I'm also all over the place with my comic review dates, I suppose I can cut them a bit of slack this one time! It wasn't all my fault, though, as a comic ordered from an eBay seller failed to arrive. Happily, a replacement ordered from Albion Toys instead came quickly. So...

This is the second comic in the four-issue Siege of the Crystal Empire arc that began moderately promisingly last month. This month's issue is also pretty good, I'm pleased to say. The first few pages deal with Sombra's origins, but thankfully it's not just a straight reprinting of his Fiendship story. Sombra and Chrysalis make a genuinely worrisome team-up, though I really can't believe the likes of Iron Will or Lightning Dust would go along with truly evil plans. Radiant Hope plays a significant role and is... naive, to say the least. Still, it's a solid issue with good artwork, and a fine full-page scene featuring Twilight just nudges this one into four-star territory. ★★★★

Ponyfic Roundup 82: Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it

I watched "Bats!" last night. Then I went back and listened to the song again. Yes, for fun. I'd watch this episode over the one that precedes it ("Power Ponies") any day of the week. I mention this because it's only fair to warn my readers that I may have a very strange sense of what does and what does not constitute a good story. :P Eight fics under consideration today, so let's get a move on:

Griffon it Another Try by Winston
The Next Edward VIII by Gabriel LaVedier
The Only One in Color by RazgrizS57
The New Crop by xjuggernaughtx

Orange Crystals by dramatic_spoon
Mud, Sweat, and Tears by Hyperexponential
The Language of Stars by ObabScribbler
The Cancellation of Prince Blueblood by Georg