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INTEREST: My Little Pony Café Blends New & Old Character Designs


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Citizen Klaus



Joined: 08 Nov 2010
Posts: 32
Location: Duluth, MN
PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 4:31 pm Reply with quote
I cannot unsee that last picture. Shocked Crying or Very sad Anime cry
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XerneasYveltal



Joined: 09 Jun 2015
Posts: 670
Location: Philippines
PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 5:45 pm Reply with quote
Not sure if Japan got its own brony fandom by the time Friendship is Magic went on the air there.
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 5:54 pm Reply with quote
XerneasYveltal wrote:
Not sure if Japan got its own brony fandom by the time Friendship is Magic went on the air there.

Probably not considering all female main cast in slice of life situations already over saturates anime as it is.
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Mr. Oshawott



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
Posts: 6773
PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 6:24 pm Reply with quote
I'm ecstatic that My Little Pony is carving out its niche in the Japanese market. Here's hoping it has a fair chance of performing well there.
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FireballDragon



Joined: 17 Nov 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 6:37 pm Reply with quote
Kinda weird how the FiM designs don't work in 3D, since the whole concept of the show was just to sell toys.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 8:30 pm Reply with quote
Huh. I thought it'd be a one-time thing. One popped up a couple of years ago, but this is a lot bigger in scale. It's also undoubtedly unofficial, with that fanart mural and all.

This article is also the first time I see Lickety-Split get equal billing with Mane Six characters.

FenixFiesta wrote:
XerneasYveltal wrote:
Not sure if Japan got its own brony fandom by the time Friendship is Magic went on the air there.

Probably not considering all female main cast in slice of life situations already over saturates anime as it is.


It did. It's not that big and is mostly underground, but it's there and consists mainly of Japanese fans of western animation. They watch both anime and western animation, however: They could go from watching Seraph of the End and jump straight to Strawbery Shortcake: Bitty Berry Adventures.

The fact that the FiM café re-opened, even if just temporary, shows that an audience still exists for the show. It's just no longer on the air.

I wonder if this will get Hasbro's attention and sell their merchandise in Japan. As it stands, they're mostly imported in.

Mr. Oshawott wrote:
I'm ecstatic that My Little Pony is carving out its niche in the Japanese market. Here's hoping it has a fair chance of performing well there.


Unfortunately, the show bombed there, lasting only one season. It didn't get the demographic it wanted, and the periphery demographic preferred to stream and torrent speed-subs. They don't want to watch it two seasons behind and dubbed into Japanese.

Consider these people the Japanese counterpart to anime fans in the 80's and 90's, before anime became easily available in the west and thus mostly pirated.

FireballDragon wrote:
Kinda weird how the FiM designs don't work in 3D, since the whole concept of the show was just to sell toys.


The official merchandise uses its own designs, so they're off-model. Fan attempts range dramatically in how well they can pull it off, from what you see in this article to really good. Below is a plush of Rarity done by Aurora, a rather low-key but amazing manufacturer (not just of Friendship Is Magic but a number of other franchises too):



The first photograph, with the coffee and bread, has Funko figurines at the top. They're also on the high end of show accuracy and are available pretty much everywhere collectible items are sold, if you ever want to take a look.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 8:46 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:

This article is also the first time I see Lickety-Split get equal billing with Mane Six characters


I watched the original show and a few eps of FiM. Since the cafe caters to fans of both I wanted to mention characters that were around in both series. I remember Lickety-Split from the original cartoon where she had a prominent role in one of the specials, I think.
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ninjamitsuki



Joined: 15 Sep 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 9:07 pm Reply with quote
This seems to be aimed at the fans of the original 80's toys and cartoons. I saw more pictures of the cafe and it mostly had the old art style. It's in Harajuku too, so the target demographic of the cafe is probably nostalgic adult women who grew up with gen 1 MLP.

Last edited by ninjamitsuki on Sun Oct 25, 2015 3:00 am; edited 1 time in total
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Revolutionary



Joined: 27 May 2009
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Location: Too Far South
PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 9:18 pm Reply with quote
ninjamitsuki wrote:
This seems to be aimed at the fans of the original 80's toys and cartoons. I saw more pictures of the cafe and it mostly had the old art style. It's in Harajuku too, so the target demographic of the cafe is probably nostalgic adult women who grew up with MLP.


Good. The original fanbase of MLP that too many people like to pretend doesn't exist. The world does not revolve around Bronies. And I'd much rather it not. As a MLP fan, I find the adult toy collectors MLP fandom to be much more pleasant.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 9:27 pm Reply with quote
octopodpie wrote:
I watched the original show and a few eps of FiM. Since the cafe caters to fans of both I wanted to mention characters that were around in both series. I remember Lickety-Split from the original cartoon where she had a prominent role in one of the specials, I think.


Yeah, true. Usually, you have Friendship is Magic only or Generation 3 or prior only (no love for Generation 3.5 though), hence why it looked weird to me.

Did you mention Applejack because she's been a mainstay since Generation 1?

Revolutionary wrote:
Good. The original fanbase of MLP that too many people like to pretend doesn't exist. The world does not revolve around Bronies. And I'd much rather it not. As a MLP fan, I find the adult toy collectors MLP fandom to be much more pleasant.


That's true of any fanbase though: The adult fans will almost always be more pleasant than the teenage and child fans. They've grown up and matured.
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Foxaika



Joined: 28 Apr 2015
Posts: 365
Location: Columbus, Ohio
PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 12:29 am Reply with quote
If I'm honest, I didn't think it was popular enough to get something like this. I knew fans existed, but I knew it was fairly niche as well. Interesting to see really.
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grooven



Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 1424
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 1:00 pm Reply with quote
Revolutionary wrote:
ninjamitsuki wrote:
This seems to be aimed at the fans of the original 80's toys and cartoons. I saw more pictures of the cafe and it mostly had the old art style. It's in Harajuku too, so the target demographic of the cafe is probably nostalgic adult women who grew up with MLP.


Good. The original fanbase of MLP that too many people like to pretend doesn't exist. The world does not revolve around Bronies. And I'd much rather it not. As a MLP fan, I find the adult toy collectors MLP fandom to be much more pleasant.


I agree. I'm one of those old school collectors since I was 12. I enjoy the new show, but I prefer the old one. I have to say I'm not fond of the Brony fanbase. Not to say they are all bad apples.

I;m not surprised to see this. They've had a Popples and Care Bears exhibit in the past and a Care Bear cafe. It's all the rage with fashion like Fairy Kei. When I was in harajuku his year I went out of my way to find Fairy Kei fashion shops to buy old merch, but man do they over price it. I only got one thing. I could make a fortune on my extras there o_o

Too bad I'm missing this, I always miss something the time I decide not to go to Japan. -_-
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Darkabomination



Joined: 17 Mar 2015
Posts: 89
PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 11:33 pm Reply with quote
Funnily enough, it looks like Equestria Girls is going to help bring the dub back. It has the Japanese cast.
It isn't as crazy as it sounds, it's a lot more magical girl than the baseline show. Then you get Rainbow Rocks which throws in the magic singing.
It's incarnation of Twilight Sparkle has a lot of Japanese fanart, she's got the moe glasses thing going for her. Ryuko's va is playing Sunset Shimmer, sounds perfect.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14790
PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2015 12:30 am Reply with quote
Darkabomination wrote:

Funnily enough, it looks like Equestria Girls is going to help bring the dub back. It has the Japanese cast.


Leave it to Japanese to prefer anthropomorphized girls of anything
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NearEasternerJ1





PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2015 5:00 am Reply with quote
There have been US TV cartoons with success in Japan. Ducktales, Beast Wars and many old cartoons were shown on TV Tokyo back in the day when TV Tokyo had a much higher proportional viewership than it does now. If VGChartz is any accurate, the GB and FC versions of have sold 350,000 and 420,000 respectively, which adds up to more than 3/4ths of a million. That's certainly more than most, if not all TV to game *anime* franchises in Japan.

MLP is not one of those TV cartoons. It doesn't have a fandom, leafy. Those are expatriates from English speaking countries, so not the "Japanese" fandom. It doesn't have a native fandom. The show tanked and not because the JP dub sucked and edited out 1/5 of the show. It sold no merch, either.
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