My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Digital Series

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Digital Series is an animated web series of short episodes based on Hasbro's Equestria Girls toyline and media franchise, itself a spin-off of the 2010 relaunch of the My Little Pony toyline. It refocuses the main characters of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, re-envisioned as human teenagers attending high school, and premiered on YouTube on November 17, 2017.¹ The first season was marketed under the theme "Better Together," and the series ended its run following its second season on June 23, 2020, after DHX Media Vancouver had left its production in 2019.¹

Background and launch

Before the digital series, Equestria Girls existed as an alternate-universe branch of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic told through films and standalone shorts, beginning with the 2013 premise of a pony pursuing a stolen crown through a magic mirror into a world where she becomes a teenage girl navigating high school.³ The digital series turned that setting into a regularly updated web series of 2 to 3 minute episodes, launched on November 17, 2017, shortly after the October 2017 release of My Little Pony: The Movie.⁶

Hasbro announced the series in October 2017 with 45 episodes planned and a new episode rolling out each Friday after launch.³ Although the YouTube premiere date was November 17, the first four shorts of season 1 were uploaded to the Discovery Family GO! app on November 2, 2017.⁴ The opening episodes included "School of Rock," "A Fine Line," "Pinkie Sitting," and "Queen of Clubs," written by Gillian M. Berrow.⁴

The launch was paired with a revamped line of Equestria Girls fashion dolls, developed in partnership with Laura Shuffman, the official Equestria Girls stylist. The dolls gave new outfits to Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity, and these new looks were reflected in the digital series. The dolls went on sale in the United States in December 2017 and globally in January 2018.³

Distribution strategy

Hasbro Studios positioned Equestria Girls as a digital-first property. A studio executive described the approach as creating a digital series with a new episode on YouTube every Friday, while reversioning the material so broadcasters could still carry it on linear television.⁷ This was not Hasbro's first digital-first experiment that year; Hanazuki: Full of Treasures had also premiered on YouTube in early 2017.⁶

Format and content

Each short is a self-contained comic or musical vignette set around Canterlot High: after-school clubs, beach days, music festivals, theme parks, and a spring break on a yacht appear in Hasbro's official description, with the seven lead characters, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity, learning what it means to be superheroes while facing their "biggest challenge yet: high school."² Sunset Shimmer, a former antagonist in Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks, joined the core group in the series even though she had not appeared in the Friendship Is Magic television show.⁶

The shorts use the characters' "geode powers," magical abilities introduced in the films; for example, the opening short "School of Rock" has Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle use their geode powers to liven up a museum lecture by Maud Pie.⁸ Reviewers noted that the very short runtime suited younger viewers and that newcomers might want the main television show for context on the characters.⁶

Music

Hasbro partnered with the YouTube singer Angelic for the series' launch. She performed the opening theme song and lent her voice to "Equestria Girls Forever," an original dance-pop track about friendship, released on digital service providers in English and Spanish on the premiere day, with its music video launching on Hasbro's YouTube channel on November 24, 2017.¹⁰

Later seasons and end of the series

The second season of the digital series began in January 2019, with new shorts such as "Reboxing with Spike," "DIY with Applejack," and "The Art of Cookies" appearing weekly on YouTube.⁸ DHX Media Vancouver left the production in 2019, and the series ended its run following its second season on June 23, 2020.¹ Related one-off specials continued alongside the shorts during this period, including Forgotten Friendship (February 17, 2018), Rollercoaster of Friendship (July 7, 2018), Spring Breakdown (March 30, 2019), Sunset's Backstage Pass (July 27, 2019), and Holidays Unwrapped (November 2, 2019).¹¹

Reception

Reviews at launch were mixed but generally favorable toward the target audience. The Mary Sue's reviewer found the series less charming than Friendship Is Magic but a useful bridge for children aging out of that TV-Y7 show into their tween years, singling out "Pinkie Sitting" and "The Finals Countdown" as standouts.² Player.One called it "cute, fun and definitely MLP," praising how much humor and plot the tiny web clips packed in, while advising that viewers new to the franchise start with the television show for context.⁶

References

1. My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Digital Series – TV on Google Play
2. Review: My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Digital Series Perfect for Die-Hard Fans, The Mary Sue (November 17, 2017)
3. My Little Pony: Equestria Girls gets new series, dolls, Kidscreen (October 20, 2017)
4. Equestria Girls animated media, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Wiki
5. My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Choose Your Own Ending, TheTVDB.com
6. My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Humanoid Hijinks For The Attention-Challenged, Player.One (November 20, 2017)
7. Mega Brands & Innovation in Focus at Hasbro Studios, TVKIDS / Worldscreen
8. My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Better Together – All Seasons, TheTVDB.com
9. My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Choose Your Own Ending (season 1), My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Wiki
10. Hasbro Premieres the First Episode of its Brand New My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Series on YouTube, Action Figure Insider (November 20, 2017)
11. My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Episode List, TVmaze

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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