Nirvana Do the the g1 Takara ponies have the ideal utopia?

[Nightmare Muffin]

I’ve been interested in the g1 Japanese branch of the Osharena Takara ponies for several years now, and sadly, since I could never afford to get my own, (outside of a fakie), I have since instead turned to theory and speculation of their very limited world building, provided in and outside of their canon. Now because the Takaras have had such a limited and regionlocked run (THANKS, Japan!), they haven’t really gotten much official backstory or canon, sans some boxart pics, blurbs, and a very rare comic.

It was only after watching Equestria Exploration’s latest theory video, detailing what n might have happened to cause the tribes leading up to g5 to - yet again, divide themselves after the events of g4- that I began to ponder and recall these Takara ponies specifically. The reason being: is that amongst all of the previous gens, the G1 Takara ponies seem to lack a very distinguishing feature- magic. And because of that, I wondered if this was the issue that so caused not only multiple instances of g4 tribal division between races, but notably also within g3 as well.

And while g1 at some no point, goes out of its way to explain that pony magic is entirely rooted (no pun intended) in their hair - I believe it was in “The Glass Princess” episode, when the ponies have in their hair cut off by a pig named Porcina- I find it interesting that the Takara ponies- aside from the main characters of Pinky and Milky- although lacking magic- are not only all named after hair types (SaraSara (silky hair), FuwaFuwa (fluffy hair), KuruKuru (curly hair), and AmiAmi (braided hair).

Furthermore, I noticed that a recovering flower seemed to be drawn on their box and promotional art- that being the Lily of the Valley- a flower that signifies a “return to happiness”, humility, and purity. But why? Again- I think that this ties in to the fact that a society without magic is more stable, as the Takara ponies seem to promote, albeit, very subtlety. How many times have we seen chaos and incidents occur to to misfired or intentional magic throughout the history of MLP and all its generations?

Have the Takaras truly found the key to success and harmony in their world without magic? This is truly something to consider….

 

[dannahbanana]

It is true that Takara ponies do not have much of a backstory since not a lot of media was produced featuring them. They had a short production run, I believe. So there wasn't much of a market for a large backstory to be built. The descriptions on the boxes mention they are from a "mysterious land that no one knows, Ponyland." The rest of the descriptions about the ponies on the packaging mostly have to do with describing their appearance and their hair, and how much they like fashion. The hair salon and the amount of clothes that were produced for the line also shows how much there was a focus on Takaras being like fashion dolls. Although there isn't much going on magic wise in their stories, if you hold one you can feel its magic. I know...it sounds cheesy. Their rarity along with their unique faces give me a sense of magic when holding mine. There is also the fact that traditionally in Japan, dolls that children outgrew were often taken to temples or shrines to burn once the child no longer played with them. This is because it is believed objects like dolls have souls and they will become angry if they are misused or forgotten. So the soul is released through ritual burning. Most homes and apartments are also on the smaller side, so many items people do not use anymore are simply thrown out as well to avoid clutter. I find the fact that the Takara survived to this day escaped fates like these, and the fact that the ones in the collector's community are (hopefully) being treated with love and affection and are indeed not forgotten, is a very special thing that keeps their magic alive. Of course, I am talking more about the physical toys, while you are talking more about their fictional worlds. I really wish there was more of a fictional world built for the Takara. Wouldn't something like a Takara TV show been wonderful?

Thanks for starting a discussion on Takara! I'm always wanting to find people who love them and want to discuss them!

 

[Glistening Rainlight]

I kinda think this is missing some pretty key elements. In G1, magic didn't divide the ponies amongst themselves, though it was occasionally one of the reasons they were targeted. Otherwise, the ponies were targeted for their strength, or they weren't targeted at all and simply feel victim to a world that was cruel with or without them. Their magic is one of the things that helped them survive.

When it comes to G3, I could see an argument for magic being the reason the unicorns are divided from the rest - they rely on their collective magic to bring rainbows to the world, and if they all split up from each other or that specific location the world would end up without color. But the pegasus ponies? You might say Star Catcher had magic because she claimed she was able to grant wishes as long as Skywishes kept her a secret from everyone, but uh... I mean that whole situation is questionable since they asked a bunch of butterflies for help and then went off and introduced her to everyone anyway. But there was no evidence of magic causing any conflict there.

Then jumping back to a couple you didn't mention, Tales, a part of G1, had no magic at all (well, mostly, I mean "UFO" glow n' show ponies that Patch met and royal glowing sparkling hair with cool sound effects lol) but like in reality there was still conflict. Social conflict, mostly, like what we'd have here.

And gee let's not forget about G2. G2, while it never got a show, it did have some little stories in the back cards, a small game, and a couple of little comics. They very definitely had magic - not that many unicorns but lots of magicians, and that gen's like ridiculously wholesome.

Mostly I think it's a matter of "the less story something has, the more wholesome it can be". I love G3 and G2 both for how intensely wholesome they are, but they really do that by just not developing their stories or characters very much. I think often the cause of conflict is the character of a character, and how well they mesh with one another. So the more diverse your cast, and the more you put work into making them each their own person, the more likely it is you'll find some kind of conflict.

All of this has made me more curious to check out these Osharena Takara ponies though haha. But I pretty much think that the kind of peace we see in these things is caused by positive values mixing with absolute simplicity.