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Prepare for a long reply! I have had a rubbish day at work and need a pony distraction (though if anyone else gets too irked by this debate, let us know and we can always take it to PM).
First and foremost, the G2 school is an annoyance xD. Both the building and the pony are just reusing old pony stuff, so I kind of like to pretend it's not a thing, like, not at all, not just in context of this discussion. Although it is a different shade of pink, so I guess there's that. xD. But then I also feel like because it exists in G2's release line, with a G2 pony, it's not really the same schoolhouse. This one I guess is subjective, though.
Going back to the real G1 school, however, although it's mostly associated with Tales online I think because of the animation, it was actually not produced for them. It was produced for the 1991 release with the Schooltime and Playschool ponies, and the accessories are basically designed for those characters (Playtime's skipping rope, a xylophone for Musictime, books with sums and such for the babies, etc). I am certain it was meant to come with Lady Lessons, but for some reason she got scrapped before she hit production. (Again, another diversion we don't need to go on now). And it was heavily featured in the comics during 1991 for this reason. The Tropical Isle setting is an interesting one. In both the US card (I googled) and my childhood card for Sail Away, there's mention of a tropical island, but it's not called the Tropical Isle. In fact, Sail Away's story is a bit existential...lolSpoilervisitors can't see pics , please register or login. I don't have the other backcards so haven't looked up their stories. In the comic, their island was called the Tropical Isle specifically:Spoilervisitors can't see pics , please register or login. There were often stories about Mainsail, Tug etc sailing there to trade or visit. I think Sweet Suds may have gone once in a bathtub but I may have misremembered that...Spoilervisitors can't see pics , please register or loginNope, I didn't. Not to sidetrack but there's long been an unsubstantiated theory that the MLP Tales series was made and aired in the US but designed as advertisement and promotion in Europe where the ponies were to be sold. Things like football (soccer) instead of a more american game, use of the UK term Glowing Magic (or near enough) rather than Glow & Show, and the inclusion of the UK school playset (which had already been out here for 2 years by this point) among other things. The mention of the Tropical Isle may have also been in that line but again, can't be proven. I think Tales also uses Ponyland as a setting but I may be wrong about this because I might be confusing animation with the comic version of the Tales world. In any case, the animation (G1 pre-tales) tends to talk more about Dream Valley although Ponyland is still the overall 'country' the ponies live in. Dream Valley is never mentioned in the UK comics afaik, there are a ton of other places mentioned though - places that don't exist in the animation, like Memory Lane, or the Weird Wood, etc etc etc.
Does that make the comics and the animation different generations? No, of course not. They are all in Ponyland - just different parts of Ponyland.Just like G5, despite having its own individual locations, are still in Equestria.So G5 just don't meet the completely new setting criteria enough (for me) to consider them a full new generation. But Hasbro have spoken and so we do. (I hoped you enjoyed the random comic sidetrack btw. As an adult, I find the comic hilariously random)
Right. Now, despite you quoting my comment on it so many times I'm sure it's going to haunt me in my sleep tonight I'm going to just talk a moment about animation and characters.
Most all of the characters in MLP&Friends and other G1 animation pre-tales bear no resemblance to the backcard stories nor the way they are depicted in the comics. The comics and backcards are more consistent. The UK comics use the characterisation for many of the So Soft ponies to characterise the Movie Star characters - because the Movie Star ponies don't have their own backcard stories. So you have this nuts situation where Magic Star in the comic is based far more on the US So Soft Pony backcard than is the animated version in the US produced My Little Pony Movie et al. ((The only animated character I prefer to the comic/backcard version is Wind Whistler. But WW has two UK depictions and so I'd rather leave her alone because it's a lot more paragraphs and not on topic .)On the subject of characters and repeats, that's always going to be a thing, honestly. Especially in kids shows. I mean, you can argue that some of Rarity's traits go back through Rainbow Dash G3 to Heart Throb - but it's still a bit spurious (and again, entirely animation, which, as you know, I don't consider that important to this overall =D) Those characteristics also don't exist in Heart Throb's comic iteration.
I just mean that with G5 they've been a bit more obvious about it. Maybe if I'm fair, it begins with the Tales ponies, who were undoubtedly the original 'mane cast' ponies, but never had a long enough release period to really become repetitive. We do see that mane cast option in G2 but it's not animated and so much less in your face. G3 did it subtly until 3.5 jumped in, and made it very unsubtle. Then G4 and subsequently G5 have focused the entire line around this core cast of characters. So here is where you really notice the similarities...
I don't think Izzy is Pinkie Pie (I actually like Izzy better, LOL) and I don't think Zipp is Dash. Actually, I think both of them came over better in the G5 movie than the G4 characters do, they're less annoying. So some of those traits have been toned down in G5 and they're not clones. But it's more noticeable given the other similar themes, like Equestria and cutie marks and all that garbage.(side note, I am at war with the entire concept of cutie marks since people started using the term for G1 ponies. But I digress).
In any case, the terminology for generations was defined based on toy line and setting and cast, not on the animation depictions. I think another reason for this was how complex canon is in G1 especially, with a lot of contradictions (as mentioned above). And at the time we came up with them (or LM did, to be specific), we really just needed a way to divide generations after G3 became a thing.
G4 changed how MLP works, and G5 has gone with it. Another reason, perhaps, to tie them together. But it is harder to work out how to subdivide G4 let alone how to classify G5. Like I said, Hasbro have spoken, so G5 is and will always be officially G5. It just shows how the line has changed, I suppose. By magic structure, by the way, the stupids of unicorn magic being this way and earth not having magic and pegasus ponies being this way and yes, I know MLP & Friends and the earlier specials basically stripped the magic from pegasus and earth ponies in a disgusting way, so there is a precedent for that, but not to the same extent.
I'm a comic kid, though. I have seen all of the animated G1 episodes more than once, but as a kid I mostly disregarded them where they disagreed with the comics or used names I wasn't familiar with. And unlike the animated G1 series, the comics covered almost every pony sold in the UK between 1985 and 1994, and even a few that weren't sold here. There's a continuity to the canon and the way the world is built that isn't really present in the G1 animation. The Tropical Isle, for example, can't ever appear in the pre-tales animation because there is none after 1987. We can only use the comic here, because it's basically all there is. (Disclaimer that of course there are ponies sold outside the UK which were NOT included in the comic, but I can't do much about them There are still more ponies featured in the comic than in the G1 animation, even taking that on board.)Thank you for coming to my worn out, incoherent and nonsensical pony ted talk. Have another cookie