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Today we will be discussing Princess Love Pon created by Shauna J Grant! A cute webcomic that offers a surprising amount of charm, effort, and most of all, keeping the spirit of being a magical girl. How well does it do that task, let's dive into this thread!
(Spoilers)
(Spoilers)
Background: I stumbled upon this comic completely by accident years ago when I was still on Tumblr. I saw the promotion for this comic and figured it would be a fun read. Please keep in mind that Tumblr is a...weird website to say least. Things tend to be hit or miss.
I have been burned by many other webcomics in the past and I didn't want to invest my time into something that wouldn't be good or just never be finished. However, I can safely say I'm glad I read this comic regardless. Why? Well let's see:
Story: The plot of Princess Love Pon (I'll shorten this to PLP) is about a young girl named Lia Sigamore. She's an average HS student who's given the chance to be a magical girl. The plot starts off relatively simple, but that's all the genre really needs to get going.
You really don't need a complex magical girl story for it to be good. That's not even a measurement of good writing in itself. It's HOW you present that story to your audience. If basic details are getting lost in the fray of things, you're just setting yourself up for failure.
PLP thankfully avoids this by giving us only what we need AND THEN expanding upon it further. The simpler story allows for the steady development of characters while setting up the atmosphere of the comic as a whole. I consider it a clever direction from a writing standpoint.
You may notice that I'm not talking much about the story in depth here. While I did mention spoilers, there is a reason to be explained later in this thread. Right now, what we DO have is still very promising. You can tell a real effort was made to bring this to fruition.
When reflecting on pages like these, I'm instantly reminded of the layout older Shoujo comics from the 90s/00s. The transparent backgrounds, the heavy use of overlays/patterns/tones, cute fonts...It really tries to sell you on the idea that you're in a new world.
This would not be possible if PLP simply added a few manga filters and called it a day. That would not only be inexcusably lazy, but almost suck the life out of the comic's ideas entirely. This comic more or less wants to tackle the idea of love.
This becomes more prevalent in the latter parts of the comic, but starting out, the premise is heavily foreshadowed from the very first pages as being a core theme. Many Shoujo manga will also involve the idea of love, though it's usually from a romantic/forgiveness standpoint.
ART: I do wonder how PLP could tackle that in future chapters, but sadly we may never know. Though with that being said, let me go on to gush about the art again because it does so many things right with this type of style in how it incorporates one thing: COLORS.
Color is probably the most important aspect of any comic. Even B/W ones. It makes or breaks your scenes for what the audience sees. I'd argue working without color/limited palettes is even HARDER. You have to have a good grasp of values in order to create an atmospheric comic.
PLP succeeds in that it used a limited color palette of pinks, magentas and whites. It's very soft and not grating on the eyes. Considering that the comic has little to no shading, it could've been awful, but I think it works here as your eyes read the colors first.
Lia having darker skin contrasts with the background colors while showing her features. The creator is smart enough to limit these colors for specific details so Lia doesn't blend into the background. Her color palette is relatively simple being represented with pinks and whites.
Giving Lia a dark magenta or bright pink for her clothes wouldn't work AS WELL. This is because when considering darker skin tones, within a limited palette, values NEED to be taken into account. Adding anymore bright/darks to her overall design would just muddy it completely.
When making darker-skinned characters, this is usually a problem I see with designs. The skin undertone and the VALUES are either too similar or not contrasting enough. It is harder to find that balance, but when you do, you get PLP (some of the cast of SD/STPC) and it's great.
In the comic, this works to the advantage of creating tension too! While pinks, whites, and magentas are primarily used in a normal setting, purples are used wonderfully to represent the shift in tone with the introduction of the bad guys.
It never feels like it's completely out of place. That seems easier than it sounds, but I find some monster designs can almost look too out of place from time to time. It only really works when that bizarre element is the point.
Thankfully PLP finds a way to charmingly introduce these little bug/fairy creatures while considering them still be a threat.
Characters: I haven't talked much about the characters yet because sadly other than Lia's close companions. We don't get much on them (yet).
Characters: I haven't talked much about the characters yet because sadly other than Lia's close companions. We don't get much on them (yet).
As I alluded to earlier this comic was sadly never finished with the last update being almost 4 years ago. But despite this sad news, I'm happy to say what we did get was still enjoyable, I just wish it continued because it did have potential to be something great.
Lia as a character starts out ordinarily enough, but I do like how she's somewhat aloof and not as confident compared to other protags. She's rather normal and it works rather well for a comic like this. Since she gets the most focus, the story can build upon her flaws earlier.
My favorite panel of her character has to be this one in which she kisses a monster thinking of her crush and you expect it to be a harrowing moment, but she just reels in disgust afterwards. lololol It got a good chuckle out of me:
If there's one consistent thing that this webcomic has that I've already alluded to multiple times, it's charm. So many magical girl webcomics seem to either entirely forget that aspect in itself or even just ignore it almost as if it's ashamed of the genre (*cough*MGFS*cough*)
But PLP is so unapologetic in how it treats the setting and characters. It's surprisingly wholesome. Even the big bad radiates this really nostalgic cheesiness of a Sailor Moon/Precure villain. It's hard not to feel that way from scenes like this:
That's one of the reasons why I'm both happy and sad that I read this comic. 1, because I know it won't be completed and 2, it finds a way to be such a guilty pleasure to me. If you're a fan of the genre, I do encourage you to give this a read as what you get is worth your time.
So many magical girl parodies or American comics fail not because they're inherently bad ideas, but because they're poorly written stories that don't seem to love the genre as much as they love mocking it. PLP really feels like a labor of love for someone who loves magical girls.
For PLP's main theme being about love, you can really see that flow through despite the comics flaws. Yes, certain pages are a little inconsistent. And yes, the other characters could use some better development (if we ever get it), but if you're willing to go in knowing that-
-You might honestly enjoy your read. PLP is not a long comic by any means, you could probably read everything within a few hours MAX, but it's not a read I regretted. While short and passing, I still think it was worth looking at in it's entirety.
Link to the comic! https://www.princesslovepon.com/comic/2016/12/5/chapter-1-first-kiss
I'll tag @RainbowSquidInk I'm curious to see what you think about this series. For all it's flaws, I'd read this 100 times over than MGFS. lol
