My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Toy Review: Sunset Shimmer and Upcoming Releases (including Equestria Girls)

 A few weeks ago, I found some of the newest "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic" merchandise at our local Target.  Most of you know that I enjoy collecting ponies and watching (most of) the show, especially since I was a huge My Little Pony nut as a little girl in the 80s and 90s. ;)  I always love finding new merchandise from this line, and I thought it would be fun to choose something small and do a review.

WARNING:  If you haven't seen the Season Finale of Season 3 of MLPFIM and you don't like spoilers, you might want to skip this post.  There will be some spoilers later on.

Since I already had all of the "mane 6" ponies, I decided to go for a secondary character this time around.  I chose a pony that stood out to me because her colors were so striking:

I know, the mask is a little weird-looking, but I was looking more at the pony herself. :)  Her name is Sunset Shimmer. 

 I loved the bright reds and yellows of her mane and tail.  Her profile sounded kind of fun, too.  Little did I know her true nature...but more on that later on. ;)

Details of her packaging:

Here she is out of her packaging.  She came with a plastic comb, a cardstock mask, and a brochure full of pictures of upcoming merchandise.

The mask fits over her face...

...and is held in place by elastic cord.

Needless to say, I liked her look much better once the mask was off. ;)

Her cutie mark.  It looks like it's probably supposed to be some sort of yen-yang, which isn't my favorite (the yen-yang and its correlating philosophy is not consistent with my worldview), but the coloring is still pretty cool.

Like all of the recent ponies released under the "Crystal Princess Celebration" label, she has jewel-shaped highlights in her eyes.

To be honest, I was almost more excited about the brochure than the pony herself.  I love seeing all of the new upcoming products. :)

The first side of the brochure advertises a new, ginormous Princess Twilight Sparkle as an alicorn and features a coloring page for kiddos.

A closer look at Twilight's word bubble.

The other side of the brochure has all sorts of cool stuff...and a lot of it is stuff I'm really looking forward to. ;)

So first, we have another look at the over 12 inch tall talking Princess Twilight Sparkle advertised on the other side.  We also have "Fashion Style Ponies" Twilight and Cadance with all sorts of fashion accessories.

The brochure also shows a "Design-A-Pony" Princess Luna (great for all of the Princess Luna fans out there) and the other ponies in the series that my pony came in.  The "Princess Celebration Bakery" looks fun.  They've added Mrs. Cake to the ponies we can collect.  I hope they eventually add Mr. Cake and the baby Cakes, too. :) 

The "Princess Celebration Cars" set is one that I love simply because it includes Spike.  He is a pretty major part of the My Little Pony stories, and he's only been made once before.  I appreciate the fact that this time around they made him standing up instead of on all fours, since he's usually standing in the cartoons.  Of course, I don't know that I'll want to pay the price for the entire set just to get Spike, especially since I already have Rarity (and a non-alicorn version of Twilight Sparkle) and I don't really need the cars. ;)

Here we have the Crystal Princess palace (sorry I cut off the title).  Since the Crystal Princess palace features Twilight Sparkle, it makes me wonder if she'll be in the Crystal Empire with Shining Armor and Cadance now.  I guess we'll have to wait until Season 4 to find out. ;)

Now that I have this brochure, some of the earlier releases make a lot more sense.  The last time new product was released, there was a set with Princess Celestia and Pinkie Pie and a set with Princess Luna and Rarity.  If you already have those sets and then buy these two pictured above, you get all the princesses and all six of the main characters in four sets.

There are three "Crystal Motion Ponies" advertised, as well as a baby pony, Lullaby Moon.  Another baby pony, Princess Skyla, was advertised in the last set of new releases.  Many speculated that she would be Shining Armor and Princess Cadance's baby, but nothing has come of that so far.  I'm curious to see if Lullaby Moon will have a significant part in the series.

And now we come to the new Blind Bag releases. :)  I really enjoy the blind bag ponies because they're just the right size for my 18 inch dolls. :)  I'm sure Hayden and Jenna will be putting some of these on their wish lists. ;)

In this picture, we have the blind bag-sized sets.  Queen Chrysalis (who completely terrified Little Gal) comes with Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle (we'll most likely be skipping this one).  Then we have a set that includes Lyra Heartstrings, Octavia Melody, and Lyrica Lilac.  And finally, we have Cheerilee, Silver Spoon, and Twist-a-loo to go along with the previously released Apple Bloom. :)

The newest individual blind bag ponies should be lots of fun, too.  They're called "Neon Bright" and feature several previously unreleased ponies.

Here's a closer look.  The girls and I are really excited that they're making Flim and Flam from the "Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" episode (one of our favorites).

And hooray for Granny Smith!!  I'd really like to add her to my collection without buying her in a set with Big McIntosh and Applejack (since I already have both of them).  It also looks like they're reusing Shining Armor's mold for the yellow unicorn on the third row.

So the reason I did this post today (even though I already had a post scheduled for the day) was because I was on Facebook and saw that on the My Little Pony Facebook page, they shared a link to the new trailer for "Equestria Girls".  At least one of you has asked me about this series before, but I didn't know much about it until now.  There was even a little picture from EG on the brochure, but at the time I took the pictures for this post, I hadn't heard of it before and thought it looked a little strange.  Since I've recently posted on "Ever After High", though, I thought I should at least mention Equestria Girls in passing.

When I first heard about Equestria Girls, I heard that it was a spin-off of MLP where each of the characters was a human instead of a pony.  I thought it sounded like a really weird concept.  I've never been into animals as people, unless it's something like Calico Critters where it's a case of animals dressing up and living in houses.  Having humanoid characters with animalistic features, fur, or colors has never been my thing.  So the fact that the ponies are "girls" but still have purple or blue skin...I just wasn't sure what I thought about it.  I also thought it was going to be a series that was completely unrelated, but just featured the same characters in a human world.

I will say that now that I've seen the new trailer (you can see it HERE), it makes a little more sense and even sounds more appealing.  Unfortunately, by watching the trailer, I also discovered that the pretty pony I chose for myself, Sunset Shimmer, happens to be a villain.  It's just kind of weird for me...I normally don't collect "bad guys". ;)  (My daughters have already given me countless suggestions about how to make my Sunset Shimmer nice.) ;) 

It sounds like an Equestria Girls film will be released in theaters on June 15th, and then at some point there will be a spin-off series.  According to the Equestria Girls Wiki, it should not have an effect on My Little Pony (meaning that MLP will still continue).

I'll probably watch Equestria Girls at least once, but I may wait until it is released on DVD or on TV rather than seeing it in the theater (especially since I'd have a hard time convincing anyone to go with me). ;)  I highly doubt that it will be a show my daughters will watch.  I mean, once again, we have a cartoon series featuring the trials and triumphs of high school life and skinny girls in mini skirts.  Like I mentioned in my Ever After High post, I don't mind watching stuff like that in moderation because I remember what it was like to be that age and feel like the world would end if that guy didn't ask me to the banquet.  But that's not necessarily something I want to fill my girls' heads with at this stage in their life, making high school the focus.

  One of the things I like about My Little Pony is that it's just cute little ponies.  It's really hard to find dolls or toys that promote modesty and don't have unhealthy-looking bodies.  We do Disney Princesses and some Barbie stuff, but we often talk about the fact that their bodies are unrealistic and that it wouldn't be healthy for us to have bodies like that.  It's so nice when they're playing with ponies or Calico Critters or Hello Kitty and that doesn't even have to be a part of the discussion.  But since they're into My Little Pony, they're naturally going to be interested in Equestria Girls, so it's going to be tougher to say "no" to than Ever After High, which is completely unrelated.

So, what are your thoughts?  Are you excited about the new releases?  Do you like the concept of Equestria Girls, or do you wish they'd just stuck to My Little Pony?  I'd love to hear from you. :)