That's a wrap!

I finally wrapped up My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic five years after the show ended. S9 never arrived on Netflix and I didn't want to watch it on Prime because Jeff Bezos doesn't need any more of my money. Somehow, the last season ended up on YouTube and I binged right away!

Season 8 wasn't my favorite--the school of friendship really felt too much like a Harry Potter fan fiction crossover with ponies but there were some good episodes. Season 9 felt like a mixed bag as well--it's always weird when the writers make the ponies do something out of character and zap years of character growth. Although it lacked the charm and humour of earlier seasons, the villian story arc was pretty good and I was surprised the show actually touched on Daring Do and Dr. Caballeron stealing artifacts while Ahuizotl bemoaned his inability to protect his culture.

The last episode was sweet and satisfying, so that's all I really could ask of the series after so many years :-)

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Wangan Midnight

After watching Initial D, we started another series called Wangan Midnight, based on a manga and also loosely based on the famous real life Mid Night Racing Team. One season of the anime was made, which can be watched on YouTube.

I didn't enjoy the series as much as Initial D and noped out around episode 15. It just wasn't interesting anymore to me and every episode felt the same despite the excellent rendering of the cars and race scenes. Part of the problem, according to a little Googling, is there were clear storyline beginnings and endings in the manga while the anime globs everything together. For example, one of the problems in the first few episodes is that main character Akio is skipping school to race. By episode 15 I was still wondering why that hadn't been resolved as more characters (and cars) entered the show :-D

The animation is just okay. It's not the most expressive animation and Akio and Reina basically have the same face, but Reina has longer hair. The rendering of the cars is fantastic but it's just lacking narrative cohesion that would make it more enjoyable for me. The characters, whether they are drivers, tuners or mechanics, are just so obsessed with racing that that's all their is to their characters. Obsession as a theme can be interesting, but there's never that tension or conflict to keep a viewer hooked.

Watch on YouTube