Good evening Ponquestria,
This fine evening I will be reviewing the “Mare Fair 2024 Opening Ceremony Animation” YouTube video by Mare Fair (Mare Fair).
Overall, it was a nice video. As the video opened, I’m reminded of the opening sequence in “THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: A LINK TO THE PAST,” due to the water animation.
It looks like we’ve got some seaponies (My Little Pony G1) on either side of the Mare Fair horse, so let’s see what happens.. The Mair Fair horse is looking at some old photographs, like in the Nickelback song, “Photograph,” which is kind-of cheesy, as it were, but let’s see where it’s going. Fair-horse is happy to see a friendhorse, who seems to not like that Fairhorse is thinking, or maybe it’s because later in the video we learn that a con just ended and all the horses are waiting on Fair to leave… The exaggerated eyes/whatever trope that is kinda seemed a bit, bit much, although I’m probably missing a joke. I’m not sure what Mare Fair ponies normally do when they’re not putting on a convention, but the one (tragedy mask) Marehorse seemed to really want to rest. If Marehorses normally just do regular conventions then I suppose it wouldn’t be too big of a thing if they put on another one right after the first one ended. Still, maybe they could have waited at least a week – or had it been a week? It’s not entirely clear in the video.
One of the drama mask horses then bucks the glass to make the con bigger. I’m not sure what this scene is implying. Is it saying that only in case of an emergency should the con be made bigger? If so, the theme of the video, bigger, may make a little more sense. Or, is it saying something else? What do you ponies think?
After the glass is broken, the con gets started. And it certainly is bigger. The fair horses define themselves by contrasting themselves with the twitter folks from last year’s video and then segue into the pros of the new con. The swap of the anon question mark with an exclamation mark depicts the herd mentality. The next image of anon on the roller coaster with the big curvy eye shapes is reminiscent of the exclamation mark buttons that you can press in Super Mario World (Super Mario World …by Waifu Simulator27) to fill in all the dotted blocks of a certain color.
When the vendor hall opens up, there is an anon with a bigger mouth full of mares, an embedded question mark in his skull, and a backwards R in the word “MARE” on his shirt. They also have a lot of money to spend at the hall. In addition, there are tombstone-ish shapes in the background and a pony in the foreground with a horriconcerned look on their face. This image probably represents serious business internet horses, as may be found within the /mlp/ board as well as at the convention in general.
Raising cash for the horsiesy’know is just wholesome.
In the scene where the plots get bigger, at first they look like normal feral pony plots, more-or-less… green-haired horse’s plot is kind-of big already…. But then when the plots get bigger, it’s somewhat difficult to tell if they’re anthro plots or just really big feral pony plots. The curve on fairhorse looks fairly feral; I guess Ranma1/2hair horse’s plot was already kind-of big, so….. I think they do still look feral (it’s hard to tell from the perspective), but it’s close. There may be a next-layer joke there were the plot (or con) is now so big that it’s become anthro (or the equivalent of anthro), but I can’t say for sure. (Another question is if there is a point where feral and anthro plots get so big that they look the same – or what would differentiate them at such a point?) All of these horses are very well-designed and animated, though. The hooves and suit cuffs with the slits look great. The video quality in terms of animation is MS-68, or perhaps even MS-69.
I’m guessing the little fillies reference is new horses to the fandom, although I could be wrong. The next scene shows cute little fillies without the top-hats, so maybe these little fillies that need to go to pony daycare are different from the previous little fillies.
>brony hat reference
The horsefamous scene… It depicts an anon who apparently has horsefame, yet being an anon, of course the horsefamous pony wouldn’t get free tickets, as they would be anon. The video then says, “So anons give us money…” implicitly: so horsefamous anons give them money… a non-sequitur, followed by an upsell. …kinda doesn’t make any sense, but maybe that’s the point of the scene.
Then we get another Trotcon joke. Trotcon used to be a good con. It stopped being a good con because its creators wanted to close the con down and do something else (BuckeyePop – a general western animation convention), but the attendees wanted them to keep it going. So, I think they ended up running a con that they didn’t enjoy. Of course the result was eventually going to be a bad con. I had thought it might end up becoming a western animation con anyways, but at any rate, it now has too few mares, no more DDR, no more karaoke, and stopped being a 24-hour con – all the things that helped make Trotcon unique.
The irl cutscene helps to temper the “bigger” theme and defines the video as not an advertisement for just another FurCon.
And uh, yeah… that looks like Lina Inverse – no, that’s definitely Lina Inverse attending the con. – Makes sense.
Overall, the video was pretty good; I think it fits well for a 2nd-year convention. The creators didn’t go too autistic with the “bigger” theme. It would have been a neat video for attendees to see during opening ceremonies.
Attributions:
[Featured Image: Mare Fair. Screenshot.]
Foxes and Peppers. “Spread Thy Wings.” “Bigger.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_ONNGUtjZ8
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past. Nintendo. Playthrough by: World of Longplays. SNES Longplay [022] The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Screenshot time: 10:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6hjG6MCcZ8.
My Little Pony G1. “Escape from Midnight Castle” (Part 2). Written by: George Arthur Bloom. DVD Version. Uploaded by: rpb3000. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iakTl9SZTTY.
Mare Fair. “Mare Fair 2024 Opening Ceremony Animation.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8fqNXSazBQ
Nickelback. “Photograph – [OFFICIAL VIDEO]”. Roadrunner Records. Screenshot time: 00:01. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3rXdeOvhNE
Scraner Saphora. Trotcon 2014. “Trotcon 2014 Pony Suiter Parade.” Screenshot time: About 4:07. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSxnqMmfJDM
Super Mario World. Nintendo. Yellow Switch Palace. Upload with Commentary by: Waifu Simulator 27. “Yellow Switch Palace – Super Mario World Levels.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KFYCf4HelU.