I've personally felt that MLP (strictly the toys themselves, not any attached media) has been on a downward spiral ever since Core 7.
One of the KEY aspects of MLP is the 'collect them all' nature which completely falls apart once you introduce a core group of characters - I think only G2 pulled this off somewhat successfully as it maintained a good blend of old characters with new looks and brand-new ones.
The second aspect is the tactility, which I feel has been lost with the ponies getting increasingly small and less... quality?
The hair doesn't feel nice any more (if it's not outright sculpted) and they're hard plastic. Poses are static and uninspired, gimmicks are obtrusive and get in the way of standard play...
I firmly believe if G4 hadn't had such a successful cartoon attached to it, it would have been dead in the water in a couple of years 

Little late to quoting this here, but I absolutely agree. I did get into MLP via G4's cartoon, and so G4 of course will always hold a place in my heart, but the toys themselves were never as good as the generations prior to it, even if they were the first toys I started collecting.

As I got further into MLP, the collectability with the large amount of different ponies to collect in gens 1 to 3 were a huge part of what drew me to those past generations and ultimately led to me preferring them over G4 (and now G5). And yes the quality has gone down significantly, too. Though the concept of the Core 7 drags late G3/G3.5 down, at least even then the quality of the ponies were still pretty good. Early G4 quality was... alright? But about halfway through that it dipped significantly.

Completely agree that the success of FiM was the only reason G4 lasted as long as it did. I also think the G4 toyline could have done a little better if they'd took advantage of the cartoon's success more? Hasbro going in on releasing so many versions of the Mane 6 constantly when the FiM staff introduced so many characters was always a really strange decision to me. While it wouldn't have helped the issue of decreasing quality, I do think the G4 toyline could have been much more enjoyable to collect if Hasbro would have just made more various FiM characters into standard, widely released pony toys. We did get some toys of other characters, but a lot of them were either part of spin-off lines (like blindbags, Guardians of Harmony, etc), or had limited releases in specific store chains. Really a lot of missed opportunities.

I personally thought Hasbro should have killed MLP at the end of G4, and then brought it back in a few years with a lot of fanfare. Ponies had technically been on shelves somewhere since 1997(in some places G2 and G3 had overlapped). Everyone was exhausted.   

The G4 line had some serious baggage, and giving it a few years would probably clear out the most toxic elements of the whole brony thing as they found something else to befoul.  The end of a line is almost always preceded by wave after wave of crap releases, and by the time Hasbro finally pulls the plug, there is no excitement from any segment of their customer base.  Everyone is bored, and rebooting into that just makes the next generation feel like a crappy extension of the previous dying line. It would also give Hasbro time to work on the next line so it’s actually…good, and it would give time to build some hype and excitement for the new line.

But stupid and greedy won the day, and I’m betting that the thought process was along the lines of “the bronies aren’t buying as much, let’s push out something new ASAP so we can pump more money out of them”. 

The G5 line came out too close to G4, and it inherited the apathy that came with years of disappointing releases, and the toxic fanbase issues of the G4s.  It was probably rushed, so it wasn’t really well thought out.  It kept the bad quality toys, boring repetitive characters, and overall issues from the G4s.  It started out poorly, and with the other issues the company as whole are dealing with, it really never had a chance. The pandemic and the closure of TRU didn’t do it any favors either. But a well run company would be able to turn it around. 

Hasbro was doing crazy well for a while. They were the number one toy maker in the world. It wasn’t even close.  They had their own cable network (The HUB). They had a huge movie franchise(Transformers). They had several high value toy lines. MTG was a money printing machine.  They had it all, and flushed it down the toilet.

It always boggles my mind that the people who make these decisions get millions and millions of dollars to do this. They even go to school for it!  These people have degrees in business!  They still seem to lack even the most basic understanding of their customers or the product.  Or they just ignore them in favor of squeaking a few extra dollars for the quarter’s bottom line. No thought for tomorrow or next year, just squeeze a few extra bucks for the shareholders and to get that sweet, sweet executive bonus for the year.

Yeah, I definitely think they needed to take a break between G4 and G5. MLP really hasn't had a real break ever since G2 began. There was a hiatus between G1 ending and G2 beginning, but ever since G2 started, there has more or less been a constant production of MLP toys. Sure, here in the US there was a gap between G2 ad G3 since G2 performed so poorly here that they stopped selling them, but of course they still continued to be produced regardless, and just were limited to Europe for the remaining time. But G2s were releasing all the way up through 2003 when then G3 replaced that. G3 led straight into G4 with G3.5 being between those. G4 led into the gap generation of G4.5 with the cat-ponies, and then G5 right after... we really needed a break haha. Non-stop ponies ever since 1997.

With how massive and successful G4 was, and with the whole erm, brony thing, a break to give the franchise a complete reset would have been nice. Similar to the break between G1 and G2...

Oh! They’ve made a new line.


https://www.youloveit.com/dolls/2633-mermaze-mermaidz-slumber-party-dolls.html

I love the first one with bow for a tail.  Very clever.

Hmm, the article says they were planned to release in July 2023 but got postponed. Did these end up ever releasing?

These were both fairly early in 2023, but my work haul of ponies back in January that included Mimic, and winning a MOC Spring Song (one of favorite ponies) on eBay. Haven't had any super notable additions since, just a few ponies here and there.

I don't have time to read all the prior comments in this thread right now but I'll quickly throw my two cents in.

These arguments from people about collecting these things (MLP, Bluey merch, anything really) doesn't make any sense to me. In the case of buying older items and collecting them, we are keeping them out of landfills. Children can get tired of a toy pretty fast, I have seen many instances of a fairly recently released toy showing up in a thrift store, likely because a child got bored of it very fast. An adult collector buying these toys and displaying them on a shelf is preventing them from ending up in a landfill eventually. Somewhere down the line there is a chance that if another kid got the toy at a thrift store, they too would get bored and stop playing with the toy, and maybe their parents would just throw it in the trash instead of donating it back again.

Not to mention older toys, such as vintage MLPs, were made with different standards for children's toys, and thus many older children's toys aren't quite as safe as they were thought to be back in the day. It probably would not be great for a young kid to be playing with a pony that's going through plasticizer leakage, for example. Especially if they are young enough to still be trying to put toys into their mouths.

And in the case of brand new toys off the shelf, I also don't see how this is taking away the potential for a kid to have it. Buying new products creates higher demand for the product, and makes it more likely for more to be made and more to be ordered by the stores. So that argument for new products doesn't make any sense to me, either.

I've seen these a few times.  Are the tails removable or am I thinking of some other line of mermaid dolls? I saw one that I think was Winter themed that I liked, but not enough to buy her.


Ponyfan

IIRC the tails are not removable. I remember seeing that as a common criticism about them (that and the prices) around doll communities I browse.

Furetara Kiete Shimau (ふれたら消えてしまう) by Marie Ueda

Very interesting! Mine has white stripes, but I definitely wouldn't mind owning both variants. Definitely would be worried about just getting another white one if I bought her online, and no place locally sells them. Maybe secondhand will be the answer?