Officially Announced: Season 9 will be the last Season of Friendship Is Magic

This isn't a surprise, not really. Even for those of us who, like myself, avoided looking at any leaks ourselves, it was near-impossible to avoid the rumours from those leaks. But, it's still a lot different to see it officially stated up there in black-and-white from an official, indisputable source.

As you might remember, I started watching with the Movie, binging the show in two months thereafter and keeping up regularly thereafter. By the time Season 8 premiered last March, the word that Season 9 was the last were already pretty rampant. So, I never went through that feeling that many other fans have had, of wondering whether the current season would be the last, and whether there would be more to come. It's weird. It's also weird to come into a fandom and show in its last two years. I'm not saying the fandom will just vanish when the show stops later this year, of course. I'm just referring to when they exist simultaneously, of course.

If I could sum up the show in three words, I'd describe it as "clichéd yet exceptional". There are better animated shows, I'm not denying that. But, there are none like this. You can describe it as being a bit of A and B, with some C and a dash of D, but you still have a perfectly unique combination. And are there things it could have done better throughout its run? Of course. But it got so many things right, and then some. That will last forever. Maybe its achievements will be diminished with time, and I'm sure the world at large will always look at it through the lens of the Brony fandom as perceived by outsiders. But its special magic will never fully fade.

Did the show change my life? Not as significantly as for a lot of you, but yes. It got me through a rough, stressful patch of my final year of college. Not the same as transforming my outlook on life or curing a bout of depression, as it has for so many. But, it's enough. And the show basically has a permanent spot on my Most Personally Important Animations at this point. Once a show's on that list, it don't leave it. Lower some positions, perhaps, but never leaves.

Is it time for the show to finish? I'll be frank, yes. I don't think it's gone to heck the last few seasons (though Season 8 it probably the worst, if I'm being frank), but I'd be lying if I denied that it's greying around the edges a bit. But here, the writers know it's the last season. They've had time to do what they can to close it out as best as they can, as long as Hasbro let them do so (I saw this fully aware there's no changing any episodes now, as scripts for this show are finished typically almost exactly a year prior to airing - even the last few episodes of the series have likely recorded all dialogue already).
What I'd love is for the show to do its best to go out with a bang. And most importantly, hold true to why we all love it so much. There are many reasons for that, of course. But the big one's right there in the title. Friendship IS Magic. And so are these six cartoon equines and one drake (not omitting Starlight purposefully, just sticking to the main characters the show began with). Let's continue to treasure that, and hope the show does in this last season too.

I'm aware this post probably rambled a little. Unconditional love for a property will do that to you. I removed the extra bits on the show's legacy and length, but kept them below as an extra, if case you're interested.

P.S. Still, just look at the show's legacy. By the end, it'll be 9 seasons and 221 episodes! Officially, it won't be the longest-running American animated show of the 2010s - Adventure Time has 10 seasons due to Cartoon Network splitting chunks of its last three seasons up, which eventually resulted in them being classified as 4 seasons, otherwise it would have been 9 as well. Also, it, Regular Show and Teen Titans Go! all have episode counts above 221, with TTG still running. However, those shows all counts episodes as just 11-minute stories, which they almost always are (back in the day, episodes were counted in pairs as one when this happened). To compare them properly to FiM, you need to divide their episode counts in half. And once that's done, Adventure Time only has 142, Regular Show 132, and TTG 115 (as of tomorrow). In fact, the list of American animated shows with more episodes, properly, then FiM, is a very short one. Simpsons, Family Guy, Spongebob, South Park, King of the Hill, Arthur... that's about it (correct me in the comments if I missed any). And if you start trying to count various FiM shorts, the Best Gift Ever Special (as well as the two upcoming ones), the Movie, and even EqG if you're feeling plucky, it gets even bigger. And more complicated. So let's leave it at that.
But, it's basically the longest-running animated show of the 2010s, starting not even ten months into 2010 and finishing (presumably) with three months till the decade's end. All for a show created, from Hasbro's perspective, to sell toys. Quite an achievement.
And there's no denying the show probably wouldn't have made it past Season 3 were it not for the fandom making it as big a success past kids and their parents as they have. Certainly, it would have never run this long. It used to be the case that few animated shows lasted beyond 65 episodes, the required number for syndication, because kids grew out of it and it became hard to attract new viewers (looking above, three of the five shows with more episodes then FiM are adult cartoons. Or all-ages in the case of The Simpsons, the point still stands). Even nowadays, the principle still holds true.

EDIT: I forgot The Amazing World of Gumball, which is at 226 episodes (113 if counting in half-hours, of course). Probably because it's mostly produced by Cartoon Network Europe, but there's sufficient grounds to count it as an Americans animated show, so I'm mentioning it here. It's still running, but not for much longer, I reckon, given it's having the same airing wind-down Adventure Time suffered during its last hurrah, and rumours are pretty strong from insiders that its currently-running 6th season is its last.

Comments

[Loganberry]

If I could sum up the show in three words, I'd describe it as "clichéd yet exceptional".

Ooh, I like that. I think in my case at least, I might not still be watching it avidly if it hadn't been for the fandom -- this site, for a start! I like other cartoons: I'm currently finally working my way through Gravity Falls and have fallen in love with Miraculous Ladybug despite -- or maybe because of -- its silliness. But MLP:FiM will always be bound up in my mind with what its fandom has done for me, and no other show ever can match it on that score. The only thing close is Watership Down, since without that book I wouldn't have started the journey that led me eventually to FiM, but even that hasn't changed my life so much (and for the better) as FiM has.

[Ghost Mike]

5020127
Yeah, that sounds about right. Heck, even as comparatively less as I’ve done in the fandom - frequenting EqD and here, mostly, but not frequently posting on either - it had brought me much closer then it would have otherwise. Were it just the show alone, it’d porbably be just another animated show I keep up with. For instance, Star Vs the Forces of Evil is one I avidly follow, and yet even there, I tend to drift in and out, binging whatever new episodes are available when I drift back (which reminds me, must finish ion season 3 before Season 4 starts in March there). Point being, that could have been the case for FiM too, letting new episodes pass me by until I felt inclined to catch up every now and then, and rarely rewatching it.
The fandom’s changed all that. Whatever it’s faults, the love we all have for Pony (and the wealth of content we all produce too) is hugely infectious. It’s a beautiful thing, is what it is. Whatever the future for G5, that will continue.

I will say the only thing I try my best to do is separate the show from the fandom, in terms of being able to both watch, enjoy and appreciate the show completely divorced from the content of the huge following that’s sprung up around it. When I want to, like. Because there’s merit to both enjoying the show as a show, and as a Pony lover with the fandom, and they’re both viewpoints I try to employ where appropriate.