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23 November, 2016

The Next Filly Toyline

We've focused awfully much on the woes of the Filly Funtasia show lately. Let's take some time to talk about the Filly toyline which at this point still seems to be on track. As we've written about in our FYI series, a new major Filly toyline has been released once each year for a long time, and it's typically released quite early in the year. That means that we can expect to see a new Filly toyline in a few months time. Now, while we can't really know what exactly that toyline might be, we have a feeling that they're going to remake Filly Fairy. Let's take a look at why they might do that.

If they were indeed to remake Filly Fairy, it would be the second toyline in a row that is a remake. Filly Royale was a remake of Filly Princess, but it wasn't just a lazy reissue! No, instead the characters were updated (notably, in Cedric's case, his bio was updated to more closely reflect his Filly Funtasia personality), the general look of the toyline was updated, and the lore was altered in a way that more closely matched the more modern Filly toylines. So why another such remake?

The first two Filly toylines were Filly Forest and Filly Beach Party!! - these two toylines appear to be considered entirely non-canon at this point and no characters from them appear in Filly Funtasia. The two next toylines are Filly Princess and Filly Fairy. After that comes Filly Unicorn, which in many ways provided a template for all future Filly toylines. While Filly Princess takes place in "The Filly Kingdom" which was possibly intended to be the name of the entire Filly setting and Filly Fairy takes place in "The Magical Land" which was located in a secret place within The Filly Kingdom, Filly Unicorn takes place in Crystalia, which is clearly defined as a separate location within a larger Filly world, an idea that future toylines would follow.

Filly Unicorn also introduces many other features which would become standard in Filly - the large family tree is replaced by a Filly rainbow where the Fillys are grouped into families of five (or six) colors: Pink, Dark Pink, Yellow, Green, Blue, as well as a Special family. This would continue through all future toylines with some changes in what the colors represent. It's also the first toyline to firmly the fantasy setting of Filly. There's no rampant real world references like in Princess, and unlike in Fairy where the characters are referred to as both "horses" and "ponies", Unicorn establishes that the characters are Fillys and nothing else. Finally, it also introduced crystals to the design of Filly which would later become part of the Filly Funtasia concept of "crystal powers".

When Filly Princess was remade into Filly Royale, all of things things mentioned above were updated to fit the canon established in Filly Unicorn. The Fillys of Royale were grouped into six families like the other modern toylines. Also, the story was changed to take place in Royalia, a clearly defined kingdom in the Filly world. Considering how Royale-Cedric's bio is closer to his Filly Funtasia personality than Princess-Cedric, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to guess that Filly Royale has replaced Filly Princess as the canon toy representation of Cedric and any other characters that originated in Filly Princess for the purpose of Filly Funtasia.

If that is the case, that leaves us with only one pre-Unicorn toyline that is still canon for the purpose of Filly Funtasia - Filly Fairy. Remaking it to bring it in line with the other toylines that are featured in Filly Funtasia would solve any possible continuity problems posed by Filly Fairy.

Now, this is all a bunch of speculation, so let's take a look at the small pieces of evidence that we have. If one takes a look at the trademark registrations made by Dracco Brands, which is Dracco's intellectual property holding company (which used to be called HFDL), they've made a bunch of trademark registrations for known Filly toylines like Filly Butterfly, and known Filly locations like Iridia and Crystalia. However, there are also a few trademarks that do not correspond to any known Filly toy lines.

The first of the two that incorporate the word "Filly" is "Filly Pixie". This does sound like a possible name for a Filly Fairy remake as a pixie and a fairy are two similar creatures in mythology and the two terms are often used interchangeably in modern pop culture.

There's also a second one - "Filly Flora". Filly Flora also sounds like a possible name for a Filly Fairy remake since one of the memorable features of Filly Fairy is the fact that many of the characters (including Will) live in flowers.

Of course, they're not going to have a toyline with two separate names. There could be two registrations because they weren't sure which name to go with, or one of the two names might possibly refer to an unrelated toyline, a concept in the toyline, a possible expansion to the toyline, or something else.

There's also a third registration of interest.

Yep - "Florelia". (Wait, why "Florelia" and not "Floralia"?) That does sound like a possible name for the kingdom that'll be the setting of the (possible) Filly Fairy remake, and it's rather similar to "Filly Flora". While it's not guaranteed that this particular trademark is even Filly related since Dracco also has a lot of trademarks relating to their other toys, this one sounds just like a possible kingdom name for a Filly Fairy remake, and they have trademarks for several kingdom names of other Filly toylines.

So, there we have it. A Filly Fairy remake, called "Filly Flora" or possibly "Filly Pixie". Now, we're not saying that this will definitely happen - it's just some informed speculation. It's possible that Dracco has now changed their minds about a Filly Fairy remake, or that a Filly Fairy remake is coming but further in the future than the next expected toyline release of early 2017, or that we've possibly entirely misinterpreted their intentions.

What do you think - are we going to see a Filly Fairy remake? What are your expectations for the next Filly toyline?