Welcome to the second installment of the "Fill(y)ing You In" series, a series dedicated to exploring various aspects of Filly! In this article, we will begin exploring the toy lines that form the core of Filly. Filly has gone through a lot of incarnations over the past ten years, losing and gaining elements along the way, so looking at all of them may take some time. This article covers the lines that jump-started the series in the very beginning. Let us dive right in!
Filly Forest (2007)
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| Filly Forest website image (reconstruction) |
The first Filly toy line was released in the distant (by now) year of 2007, and was simply called "
Filly". It was a fairly simplistic idea: have 20 collectible figurines, each representing a horse breed, and use them to tell the collector about the phenomenon of horses. Combined with the cartoony look and the portrayal of the characters themselves as sapient beings, the first Filly toy line resembled a children encyclopedia, rather than a magical fantasy story.
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| My Little Connemara Horse |
The original information about this toy line is very difficult to unearth, though it's a bit easier to find traces of its slightly more modern incarnation, called "
Filly Forest". A lot of information about this toy line is taken from the Filly Forest sources instead of the Filly sources, with an assumption that there are virtually no differences between the two. This assumption is based on the minuscule remains of the original information that, indeed, show no differences, except for the name of the line.
Filly Forest, sadly, is one of the two discontinued Filly toy lines, no longer available, and pretty much forgotten in the modern Filly continuity. Filly Funtasia never mentions anything from Filly Forest, and it's easy to accept: Filly Forest is quite different from the toy lines that came after. Here, Fillys are representatives of the real horses that exist (or existed, but went extinct) in our world, there is virtually no magic, and none of the Fillys have crowns on their heads. Still, some elements of Filly Forest survived for longer than the line itself: the total number of characters hovers around 20, and the characters are comparable on the Beauty/Speed/Intelligence basis.
Filly Beach Party!! (2008)
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| Filly Beach Party!! website image (reconstruction) |
Shortly after Filly Forest, there came the second Filly toy line, "
Filly Beach Party!!" (Yes, with two exclamation marks.) Beach Party deviated a bit from the Forest formula, but not much: there are still 20 Fillys, they still have the trinity of Beauty, Speed and Intelligence, and they are still a bunch of friends who spend their time having fun. Only this time, it's on a sandy beach instead of a dense forest. The characters are no longer based on real horse breeds, slowly making their way to becoming the Fillys we know today.
The characters of Filly Beach Party are not the same characters in Filly Forest - the two lines consist of their own sets of characters, and this is how almost every new toy line has been functioning: all new toy line, all new characters.
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| The star herself. |
Filly Beach Party introduces what will later become the staple of the Filly toy lines: the definitive ultra-rare special character. The special character's statistics are always at maximum, she always has something that differentiates her from the rest, and her rate of appearing in blind bags is supposedly lower than that of other Fillys. Here, the special Filly is… Filly, or Princess Filly as she is known in the German version of Beach Party.
In addition to that, Filly Beach Party introduced the first fantasy elements into the series, in the form of the two pegasi and one winged unicorn.
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| It's cute that Pegasus and Unicorn are still given as horse breeds, though. |
The fantasy trinity of Alex, Zofus and Mani form what may be considered a special subset of the Filly Beach Party characters, and their presence makes it clear that Filly had shifted its focus from education to entertainment.
Filly Beach Party, together with Filly Forest, is a discontinued toy line that is no longer relevant in the ongoing franchise of Filly. Fortunately, the next line would avoid this fate.
Filly Princess (2009)
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| Filly Princess website image |
The toy line which most people consider the original Filly line:
Filly Princess has shaped the Filly brand into what it is today. A casual mention of Filly, without specifying the toy line, usually refers to this one. The gimmick of this toy line is on a whole different scale compared to the two previous lines: this time, all Fillys are a part of a royal family.
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| The royal family tree |
Contrary to the name of the toy line, there is quite a number of titles sported by the Fillys: in addition to "Princess" and "Prince", you have "King" and "Queen", "Lady" and "Sir", "Duke" and "Duchess", "Countess" (but no "Count"), as well as a rather exotic "Sulta", or "Sultan". At the top of the tree, there are the cool-sounding "Emperor" and "Empress" of the Filly Kingdom. Unlike in Forest and Beach Party, the characters of Filly Princess form a multi-generational family, in which almost everyone is related in some way. The family ties is an element that will continue to be present in the subsequent Filly toy lines.
The mythical horse breeds from Beach Party are gone, replaced by the canonical notion that Fillys now represent their own kind of creature, known as Filly. This mostly semantic change was made to make sense of these characters living in pretty much human-like conditions: although houses existed in Filly Forest, this time there is a whole civilization with its own architecture and culture, which wouldn't make sense if the Fillys were still horses.
Filly Princess retains some elements from the first two lines: there are still roughly 20 Fillys in the toy line, and they still can be compared in Beauty, Speed and Intelligence. The toy line also continues the realistic element, which manifests in the fact that the Filly Kingdom is an actual location on planet Earth, though the Earth is implied to be inhabited by Fillys instead of humans. The stories of Filly Princess mention known places and figures, both real (Britain, Holland, Shakespeare) and fictional (the Loch Ness monster, Robin Hood). Judging by their nature, the Filly Kingdom would be an island somewhere off the shores of Europe, likely in the North Sea. It would be, if the North Sea had any islands, which it doesn't.
Or maybe…
Each Filly, now being a royalty, wears a crown on their head, which would become the iconic element of the brand as a whole. Even though the Fillys are the rulers of the land, there are no actual Fillys who are being ruled over - there are brief mentions of other Fillys in the stories, but their social status is never specified.
Filly Princess also introduces magic into Filly. Here, it is quite subtle when compared to the future lines, and for the most part is exclusive to this line's special Filly - Princess Crystal. Her magic never goes beyond a spectacular light show in the sky, or magic crystals that supposedly bless the surroundings with an aura of tranquility, though many Fillys speculate that Crystal's maximum potential lies far beyond what they experience.
One of the main five of Filly Funtasia, Prince Cedric, hails from the Filly Princess toy line. This makes this line a very significant entry in the Filly series, even though Cedric's portrayals may differ.
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| Prince Cedric of Filly Princess and Prince Cedric of Filly Funtasia |
Filly Princess has established the apparent basics of the Filly brand as they are today, and still remains in the list of active toy lines, unlike Forest and Beach Party.
Filly Fairy (2010)
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| Filly Fairy website image |
Released the following year,
Filly Fairy acquaints us with the first major form of magic in Filly - the titular Filly Fairies, known for their green sparkling wings. The royal gimmick still plays a role in the line, but it is no longer as prevalent: only a selected few in the Magical Land (the land Filly Fairy takes place in) sport royal titles, and the majority of the Fairies are portrayed as ordinary townsfolk. Ordinary townsfolk with golden crowns and magical abilities, but still.
The civilization in this toy line takes a more peaceful form compared to Filly Princess: Filly Fairies own facilities such as a restaurant, an academy, a salon, as well as castles, palaces and nature-inspired structures like flower houses. Each Filly still has a title, but most of them indicate the Filly's profession: such as magic teacher, singer, messenger, woodcutter, druid, and others. Magic is now widely spread among the Fillys, giving us abilities such as soothsaying, healing and shapeshifting.
While Filly Fairy doesn't reference characters from Filly Princess, it is said to happen in the Magical Land, which is hidden somewhere in the Filly Kingdom, making Filly Princess and Filly Fairy canonically tied.
The family structure of Filly Fairy is slightly different from that of
Filly Princess: instead of one big family tree with a few outliers, it's
now a clearly visible pair of two families, albeit with a few quirks of
its own.
In addition to Cedric, another member of the Filly Five makes his appearance: Willow. At this point it should be noted that neither Cedric nor Willow were originally designed to be a part of the Filly Funtasia main cast, and neither were the remaining three Fillys. The reason why these Fillys in particular were chosen for Filly Funtasia remains a mystery, though it's interesting that the choice didn't fall on the special Filly from each toy line.
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| Willow of Filly Fairy and Willow of Filly Funtasia |
And that's almost everything Filly had in its arsenal before 2011! A collection of toy lines that all are implied to happen in the slightly altered version of the real world, with a bit of magic here and there. The Filly brand was pretty solid at this point, but it would soon be kicked into high gear with the next primary Filly toy lines, at which we will take a look next time.
