What's up, Dudes?
This is your, like, totally awesome Phantom of Stories here with another chapter for this book.
And today, I'll be making an analysis on "My Little Pony: Equestrian Girls-Spring Breakdown".
Here's the summary:
In this special, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie are spending their Spring Break out at sea on a yacht.
Everyone onboard wants to relax and have fun on their trip, especially Twilight, who wants to be sure everyone else has a good time. Rainbow Dash, though, is wanting to do the opposite of sit back and relax, keeps insisting that she and her friends are superheroes, and wants to look for Equestrian magic to take down. In the process, her relentless search and determination is ruining everyone's day and is causing more harm than good.
Her tireless search in the long run may very well pay off, however, thanks to an unexpected and mysterious storm.
Can the girls stop what's causing the storm? Or will everyone on the yacht be doomed?
Before I get into this review, I'd like to start by saying that similar to "Rollercoaster of Friendship", I didn't think this was the best special in the EG series nor the strongest of Nick Confalone's works as a writer for MLP (G4).
I shall first start with the story and humor.
Most of the humor that the special had fell rather flat, like jumping off a plank and doing a really hard belly flop on the ocean. Many of the dialogue-driven jokes were especially flat, such as when Rainbow was having a hard time understanding what Twilight was explaining to her while thinking that Rainbow was only imagining the Storm King's symbol in the water.
Also, the story's focus on Rainbow was rather...cringy. Throughout much of the episode, particularly before she, Sunset, and Twilight discover the new portal to Equestria, she was being too much of a dumb and self-centered ham. I get that she's not the smartest member of the group, that she can be rather arrogant, and has a habit of rushing into things without thinking, but still...her lack of intelligence, arrogance, and blunders throughout the story just seemed to wither things to nothing.
I didn't think all of the jokes were unfunny, though. The jokes revolving around Pinkie were still as spritely as ever, and some of the best ones outside of Pinkie definitely came from while Sunset, Twilight, and Rainbow were in Equestria, such as when Twilight and Rainbow were trying to get the hang of their pony forms and abilities.
The character developments of the lead characters, as with any installment of the My Little Pony fourth generation franchise, were still as powerful as ever. The additions of the chef and Ragamuffin were likewise pretty fun, and Rarity's crush on the latter was a really cute part of the story, much better than how chummy she and Applejack were in "Rollercoaster of Friendship" anyway.
The voice-acting, as always, was pretty excellent too, aside from Ashleigh Ball sounding as if she was getting a little too carried away with Rainbow in the times where the character was being a ham.
While it was saddening that there was additionally no villain in the episode, I actually found the use of the out of control magic from the Storm King to be an improvement compared to the excessive number of reformed antagonists in previous EG installments. It was able to change things up some, and the threats caused by the storm even solidified the Storm King as a threatening antagonist despite the king himself not being present.
The real scene-stealers, however, were William Anderson and the music he composed for the special, especially "All Good", which I hope a full version of it can be released on a music video or something; and the animation that the special had, particularly with the lightning flashes and the showing of the Storm King's symbol.
In the end, while I do think this wasn't one of the best of the EG specials, and that the writing seemed to translate that Confalone was becoming tired and burned out, it was nevertheless an improvement over "Rollercoaster of Friendship" in a great many ways.
So, I rate "Spring Breakdown" 3½ out of 5 stars. I certainly hope the upcoming special done by Whitney Ralls will prove itself as something terrific.
(This review was originally posted on my personal website on July 10, 2019)