Zaps watches Filly Funtasia so you don't have to

[Zapper]

Ahh, Filly. I knew thee well. There was a time when Filly displays in my neck of the woods would be bigger than the FiM ones. Filly originated in Hong Kong and was developped by Dracco. It first appeared on shelves in 2006

So what is Filly? Filly is an MLP rip-off but it's cool. We accept it.
Filly came in collector sets or blind bags and each and every wave had a different theme. The tiny figs were often flocked, glow in the dark or glitter. There was an overarching story with many recurring characters and each one had a little backcard style description and family tree. Filly was big for many years so logically a cartoon was made.

Most pony people across the pond were blissfully unaware of Filly until a trailer dropped for the cartoon and some vowed to watch it rather than FiM because FiM at that point (2014) was already considered samey and pandering. But the show didn't drop until early 2019 and people had moved on to screaming about the FiM finale.

I, however, found the first season in the depths of the internet (in Italian) and I will watch each and every episode for you as long as you find it funny. I am not a snooty cartoon critic who thinks pastel pony toons are made for adults so while there will be exaggeration and overthinking, none of it will be done in seriousness.

Plot: The fillies are all studying at Royal Magic Academy led by principal Miss Sparkle (sound familiar?)

Main cast:

Spoiler

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LtR: Will, Bella, Rose, Cedric, Lynn

Rose - our protagonist. Rose is an idealistic, caring princess who always tries her best. She is an artist and a Unicorn type, obvi.

Bella (short for Isabella) - she is clumsy, has magenta hair and likes cupcakes (sound familiar?). She is an Elf type.

Lynn - the cool kid who is into horror, adventure and such. Best Filly. Witch type.

Will (short for Willow but issa dude) - has a design you will all adore and wish it was in MLP. Sporty and goofy, Lynn's best friend. Fairy type.

Cedric - an intelligent prince, popular with the girls and also an inventor. Royal type (boring). You'll want his design as well.

Episode recap list:
Episode 1 - The Cupcake Mystery
Episode 2 - The Blue Rainbow

[tailrustedtealeaf]

My friend actually loves this cartoon and has a small community for it! I've heard there's some mess going on with whatever episodes are supposed to come next.
I've not seen it yet, but maybe your reviews will convince me!

[Nemesis]

My eyes have been opened. I kept seeing Filly toys up for sale from Europe on Ebay, and thought they were just a budget toy line. How did something this marketable never make it to the States in any form? Come on Netflix, bring it over as an exclusive or something!

The minifigs are really cute, though! I love the flocking. X3

[Zapper]

For anyone wondering why I am doing this in the first place, I am still stuck in home office and this is what I do to pass time (and because I think MLP fans would like to know about Filly, obviously).

I've heard there's some mess going on with whatever episodes are supposed to come next.

A second season was ordered and was supposed to come out this year but to my knowledge it has been postponed due to the worldwide pandemic.

My eyes have been opened. I kept seeing Filly toys up for sale from Europe on Ebay, and thought they were just a budget toy line.

I wish Filly was budget. These things went toe to toe with FiM when it came to prices. I am surprised US MLP fans did not demand Filly in swaps or trades because they are basically what Hasbro did with Ponyville. They have elaborate playsets and collection displays and offer exactly what most collectors here have wanted from Hasbro for years: a wide range of characters, designs, poses, backstories, places perfect for a child to let Imagination run wild. They also didn't give the male fillies drab colors or short manes.

Maybe the style was not to everyone's liking. I knew I found them ugly because of their lack of nostrils and fat G3.5 legs.

If y'all want to look at Filly products (because the official site is down) I recommend this German one right here: filly-pferdchen.de
Simply run the URL through a translator

[SpacePinto]

That skateboard guy is so adorable!

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Filly came to Canada - it was sold through Toys R Us.  Not sure about now, because I haven't gone shopping since March..

[Delphian]

I love Filly! They were sold a little bit in the US at TRU. I collected some of the butterfly line from there and they briefly had another line but I don't remember which one. They where also really briefly on sale at Target in the collectibles section. I remember them only having like one box of blind bags and then they never restocked them.

[PinkieLopBun]

My eyes have been opened. I kept seeing Filly toys up for sale from Europe on Ebay, and thought they were just a budget toy line. How did something this marketable never make it to the States in any form?

I actually saw a set at a store last year. The store in question is only in Maine, so I don't know if there's anywhere where you live that sells them. Someone else mentioned Toys R Us, but I think we all know what happened with that.

[Zapper]

S1 Ep.1 – The Cupcake Mystery

Spoiler

We start off with Will breaking his piggybank to buy cupcakes with. He's trying to bribe his teacher, Headmistress Sparkle, with exactly 8 cupcakes because he didn't do well on a test and hopes when presenting her with this thoughtful gift (her lucky number) she might think better of him. Okay, dude, as long as you don't expect her to change your grades...

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He trips over Bella in the hallway who immediatly starts lusting after the cupcakes because she's got that sweet tooth we already know from some other pink pony. Bella's character was changed a little from her original canon self. She is – in my opinion – the most boring girly character you can get in these kinds of shows; likes sweets, is clumsy, slow in the brain and quite vain. Unlike her original self; a birdwatcher who made a point of not caring all that much about her looks. But we gotta have a girl character who is obsessed with grooming because Fillies come with rooted hair – oh wait, they don't. So why was she dumbed down like that for the show? No real reason. Filly nerd mode over.

Anyways, Bella messed up the plate so Will is running back to his room to get a bow to give the plate a final touch. Of course evil Bella did this just to be left alone with the cupcakes. Why that little turd can't just get a cupcake for herself is anyone's guess.
Before Will leaves, he reminds her that these cupcakes need to stay untouched, as if he already knew Bella might try to steal at least one. What a fool. Just don't leave cupcakes with the one friend you have who even in the show's very intro is seen stealing cupcakes from a poor, honest baker!

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So of course Bella can't wait ten seconds before Will's butt is out of the door to bite into one of the cupcakes, lying to herself that a few nibbles here and there won't be obvious. Girl, gross. You really wanted your Headmistress to eat drooled on cupcakes? What in the Ariana Grande donut licker world is this.
And greedy as she is she manages to devour four of the pastries within seconds. She must have FiM Pinkie Pie's stomach as well...

Thankfully she immediatly feels remorse, having an honest to goodness super hilarious dream sequence where she is punished and ostraziced for having betrayed her friend. I'll let the screenshots speak for themselves:

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The drama!

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Rose comes along and snaps her out of her horror fantasy.
When Bella babbles at her, Rose quickly comes up with a solution: just get four new cupcakes, fool. But oh no, the café is closed. This explains why Bella stole the cupcakes in the first place, she was too lazy to go to the café when it was still open for the morning. She also whines she only did it because she didn't have breakfast. Weak excuse, thief! Work on your impulses. As a final idiot-move, she drops the rest of the cupcakes and they get smashed on the ground.

This is my face exactly reacting to Bella's sheer stupidity:

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Of course Will comes back and Bella has to come clean and tell him the cupcakes are gone. When Rose sees how angry Will gets at Bella, she feels bad for her, intervenes and comes up with a protective lie on the spot: she says a stranger came and stole the cupcakes from Bella.
When Will wonders why Bella didn't stop him, she lies even more and says the stranger was big and strong and she wouldn't have managed to defeat him. Her lies get more grandiose as she notices more Fillies coming up to listen to the story. All of a sudden we are left with some straight up monster attacking Bella. Rose is not amused, imploring Bella to just tell the truth now as she finds their jig is up. But now the Fillies are all engaging in the fanfiction:

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Tell me more, tell me more, did you put up a fight? Aha, aha. Ohhh, those Filly Nights!

We now cut to the show's antagonists, some Haunter looking guy trapped in a literal mirror dimension and his bat goon tasked with freeing him from said mirror prison via finding some McGuffin gems and using them for a freedom spell/ritual.
Whenever Haunter McGhastly is talking to his goon, creatively named Battiwigs, he does so via the handheld mirror and it looks hilarious:

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This information is oddly specific. Why only 19?

Battiwigs is a clumsy idiot as expected from a cute animal goon. He honestly gives me Barbie direct-to-video vibes. I feel bad for the bad guy. He should have hired an evil Filly at the very least, not one of their pets.

Meanwhile, Headmistress is informing everyone that they are now on „Fuchsia Alert“, classes are suspended and replaced with „monster hunting lessons“ - yaaas! This is how you run a school. Just train your students to become assassins.

Rose is imploring Bella to tell the truth so everything can go back to normal. Bella, because she is horrible, tries to pin it on Rose, saying she is the one who came up with the lie. But Rose won't have it, explains that she only made up that story to protect Bella but that it was still the wrong thing to do. She then leaves to report herself, which causes Bella to feel guilt and promise to step up.
Right in time, Headmistress orders Bella to come to her office anyways and Bella leaves with a hanging head, expecting to get expelled.
Poor Bella! Or not. Because as we all know, she's still the main culprit here.

The teachers are already discussing how to deal with the problem as Bella arrives and is then immediatly treated like a crime victim. Everyone feels for her, admires her bravery. In a quite funny visual gag, she is asked if she needs anything and when she expresses desire for just a glass of water every single teacher is floating one towards her. As she walks up and down and tries to work up some courage to say the truth, all glasses of water are trailing behind her:

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Btw, the „monster“ is now 13 feet tall and none of the teachers are letting her finish her sentences. Fail. When Bella heads back to her room she is greeted by fangirls who are praising her for her bravery in defeating the horrible fiend. Stupid Bella buys into it right away:

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„Don't buck with me!“

Rose has to chase away the groupies to once again talk some sense into the pink numbskull. Bella on the other hoof is fully enjoying her new position as a false heroine. Being Rose must be exhausting.
Bella manages to get her to pity her once again and Rose vows not to tell anybody, hoping it'll all be over soon and Bella won't get in trouble.

The entire school is now preparing for another monster attack and Will comes up with the idea to trap it. This leads to a display of Filly aggression that made me laugh:

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They are bada$$.

Meanwhile, Bella the great hero, is giving self defense classes and Rose comes to call her out. Bella finally comes to her senses:

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I am skipping the entire part with the bad guy's goon carrying him in an old lady handbag. More importantly, on the walk back dumb Bella once again displays she was only born with one braincell:
there is a giant cupcake in the forest. Obviously this is Will's monster trap. But trap or not, a random house-sized cupcake is abnormal and Bella is a dunce for believing it is real. She runs towards it to eat it and of course lands right in the trap.

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Rose, being too good for this world, is once again tasked trying to get Bella out of her self-inflicted misery. But Will jumps out of the bushes, expecting to catch his monster and now they are forced to finally tell him everything. As Rose admits: „We tried to hide a mistake“. Bella apologizes and Will frees her because he is not the angry meaniepants we thought he'd be.
Instead the bad guys fall into the trap without anyone noticing. That's what they get for being bad! And since nobody checks the trap anymore they'll probably die in there. Jokes, we all know that bat can fly.
What happened when everybody else found out it was all a web of lies? We'll never know. We just have to assume Bella doesn't get expelle because she belongs in the main cast, sadly. Would have been nice to see her getting her just desserts (get it?). But seriously, they should have shown her getting consequences.

What did we learn? Bella is the worst. Rose's got helper syndrome. Will got rightfully angry that his friend stole the cupcakes he bought from his last money and he didn't even get new ones after she apologized. Don't steal, don't lie, greed is bad. Offense is the best defense.

Coming next week: Episode 2 – The Blue Rainbow

[SpacePinto]

That sounds like a weird mix of G3 and G4.

[Zapper]

That sounds like a weird mix of G3 and G4.

I'd say it's more G4ish with the school setting and core cast of characters. Just without the pop culture references, thank goodness. It's also quite funny at times. Such as a Filly getting startled when her magic mirror starts to go off and she's like "whew, I gotta set a new ringtone" or the bad guy saying his magic only reaches 19 feet. That almost killed me for some reason. The show isn't taking itself too seriously.

[Koudoawaia]

Loved your synopsis of the episode under the spoiler and all the screenshots. Kinda wish I could watch this myself.

[Zapper]

Kinda wish I could watch this myself.

I watched S1 on Dailymotion. You just need to check if the video has subs because it's the Italian dub.

[LadyMoondancer]

Just read the episode one recap . . . absolutely hilarious and amazing.  Bella is the WORST.

How amazing would it be if in the next episode she was just gone from the main cast and someone mentioned in passing that she had been expelled, lol.

[Zapper]

Just read the episode one recap . . . absolutely hilarious and amazing.  Bella is the WORST.

How amazing would it be if in the next episode she was just gone from the main cast and someone mentioned in passing that she had been expelled, lol.

I'm glad you found it hilarious and not mean. Rereading it I thought I came across quite rude towards Bella, but I just hated her character in this episode. Couldn't mince my words

It would be funny if she actually got expelled but she is the Pinkie Pie of this show, she is here to stay.