In season eight of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, debuting March 24 on Discovery Family, Twilight Sparkle and friends leave the pony empire of Equestria to found a school teaching friendship to the friendless hordes beyond. Is there a toy of this school? Of course there’s a toy of this school.
The show that launched a million animated GIFs and spread conflicting messages of acceptance and ostracization is still doing its thing, eight years after its 2010 premiere. The new season brings new locations, new magical creatures and, according to the official announcement, seven original songs that are sure to have fans and fathers of fans singing along.
The new season launches with a two-parter called “School Daze.” Following the events of last year’s My Little Pony: The Movie, Princess Twilight discovers that the Friendship Map has expanded to include lands outside of Equestria. Lands ripe for indoctrination. Eager to spread her friendship-based ideology, she founds Twilight Sparkle’s School of Friendship.
It’s a magical place, of course, where ponies and non-ponies alike can gather together and learn that being nice to one another is better than getting mad at me for posting about My Little Pony. While the Mane 6 (Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Apple Jack and Insane Pink Horse) remain a focus, the new school gives rise to a new group of six mismatched friends. Ocellus the Changeling, Silverstream the Hippogriff/Seapony, Smolder the Dragon, Gallus the Griffin, Yona the Yak and Sandbar the Pony will go on their own adventures, and they’ll most likely have corresponding toys to play inside of this thing here:
It’s a $60 Magical School of Friendship, sure to be adored by collectors and surprised-looking girls and boys (boys not shown) everywhere. It looks a lot smaller in person.
The playset comes with Twilight Sparkle, because her name is on the school. It features a library, a fashion studio—sorry, fashion classroom—and plenty of flashing lights to distract children from the fact that their character toys are just statues. Apparently the articulated figures from 2016 didn’t catch on. Pity.
The school is nice, but the biggest news of the new season is that everyone’s favorite purple and green baby dragon, Spike, is getting his wings. He’s growing up so fast! Before long he’ll be terrorizing the countryside and setting villages on fire. With friendship. Fire is friendship.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’s season eight kicks off on Saturday, March 24 at 11:30 AM Eastern. Check out the slideshow below for some choice stills.